Celtic were held to a 0-0 draw by Jim Goodwin’s Dundee United this afternoon. The Scottish Champions were forced to make five changes due to a combination of injuries and illness for the tricky task of playing at Tannadice.
It was a fairly uneventful game with Goodwin setting up his side to frustrate Celtic. Conditions certainly didn’t make for a good game of football but both sides had to contend with them. Celtic will be disappointed at leaving with just a point given the 77.6% possession they enjoyed but the reality was that Brendan’s side struggled to break the hosts down.
There was one moment in the second half that Celtic will certainly rue – a sitter from Kyogo. Adam Idah’s deft touch split the United defence and offered the Japanese hit man the chance to go 1v1 with the goalkeeper. Unfortunately, Kyogo appeared to mistime or slip as he set himself to shoot.
😮 A BIG chance for Celtic!
Kyogo is through but can’t get his shot away. It remains goalless at Tannadice, will either side find the winner? ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/XQ3sGwuhke
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) December 22, 2024
It will be a timely reminder to Brendan that he needs reinforcements in the wide area that are capable of creating chances on days like this. Palma, Yang and even the ever reliable Daizen Maeda struggled to make things happen despite being offered an abundance of space out wide to attack. The rumours regarding Jota being set to depart Rennes could and should be one that the club considers.
Points shared and onto Boxing Day against Motherwell, which will be a tough test in itself.
Apart from that kyogo chance in the second half, and Hatate had one in the first half also, were the only times we really opened up united?
In a game where we had so much possession, that is still a fairly miserable return from the game?
Got ourselves into a few decent shooting opportunities, but our strikes on goal were fairly woeful?
We never really got anything going all day in the wider areas, which is usually a strong feature within our attacking play, but deserted ourselves today?
Rodgers is prepared to have ourselves playing a patient game, and depending upon moments of quality to unlock the anti football teams, in there set up?
But in turn, it is starting to take away to much of our tempo away from our own game also.
We currently seem to be going through a phase where not enough is being created from our midfield and wider areas at present, and on days like today where Taylor, looked like the most likely player, to unlock a very compacted defensive line, then something isn’t right and hopefully gets addressed very quickly also imo?