CALLUM McGREGOR was Celtic’s best player yesterday at Ibrox. Pushed into the left back role because his manager went with the referee’s call at Pittodrie – Brendan, Emilio Izaguirre was done by Wille Collum, it was never a penalty and while it was difficult for you to see this on the day from the touchline, you have 3 full days to watch it back!
You blamed Izaguirre, hauled him off at half-time and didn’t even have him on the bench at Ibrox. Emilio also suffered from the rather reckless tactical set-up that allowed Neil Lennon’s side to beat us at Easter Road – since then the Rangers, Livingston and Hearts have all played there and avoided defeat.
Brendan, you brought Jonny Hayes on at Pittodrie, he did fine at left back, yet you didn’t have the faith in him for Ibrox.
As we predicted yesterday morning on The Celtic Star – see HERE – you went with the Callum McGregor at left back, thus taking another crucial component from our midfield.
With Tom Rogic in international exile in Dubai, the loss of McGregor from the middle of the park was fully exploited by Steven Gerrard.
The restoration of the Brown – Ntcham midfield combo had already failed and it was only when those two were injured that we started to play this season. Brown can play alongside McGregor and Ntcham would have been fine in the Rogic role. Christie would have been an better option that Sinclair for Ibrox.
And the other weakness that Gerrard exploited was this nonsense of getting a goalkeeper clearly uncomfortable with the instruction to pass the ball to defenders who are being marked. It caused mayhem and it was just as well that Craig Gordon had a decent day as a keeper rather than as a sweeper.
The option of playing it long was obviously restricted due to having young Mikey Johnston up front on his own. Celtic had no fully fit strikers yesterday. We had £20million ‘resting’ in the bank – 10% of that goes to pay Lawwell’s big bonus tomorrow, Leigh Griffiths out of the picture due to his ongoing personal issues (it was nice to see him able to attend the Hibs v Hearts game last night) and Odsonne Edouard, the walking wounded forward.
We all know that Dembele left with no time for a replacement, we all accept that Leigh needs the time and the space, we all know that Odsonne can’t be expected to do it all by himself and we all know that Lawwell has £18m left after he pays himself his big £2m bonus tomorrow.
And talking of Lawwell’s bonus, it would be nice if he did something to earn it, like maybe calling out the FOUR assaults on Celtic players yesterday from that wee thug Morelos. Twice he assaulted Christie – once in front of that Unionist MP who didn’t shout RED CARD, RED CARD this time, one on Scott Brown and another on Anthony Ralston. All the footage is there and twitter was full of it last night.
Let’s hear you complain, Mr Lawwell, about Beaton and ask the Compliance Officer to look at this. Allan McGregor escaped punishment for kicking a Celtic player in the last Glasgow Derby when the SFA’s mysterious panel of 3 former referees couldn’t agree on it being a red card offence.
Or is it acceptable that your employees can be kicked, punched and assaulted without any action being taken against the Rangers players by the referee or the SFA? It happened when we won in September and it happened repeatedly yesterday.
Also on The Celtic Star…
‘There was a feeling inside the Celtic dressing room that the lads have not felt before,’ Celtic star…See HERE.
Jim Craig – From Celtic Star to the club’s maintenance electrician…See HERE.
Ibrox, here comes Brendan’s Waterloo…See HERE.
‘Andy Walker was right, Rangers wanted it more than Celtic,’ David Potter…See HERE.
Gerrard exposes Celtic weaknesses in 1-0 win at Ibrox…See HERE.
