Callum McGregor looked back on Wednesday night’s frustrating draw at St Mirren and admitted that the Celtic players have had a discussion about the goalscoring situation, particularly against the teams that opt to park the bus against Celtic. You can’t really blame them as first Livingston and now St Mirren have shown it’s a tactic that earns them points.
“It was really frustrating,” the Celtic captain admitted. “We had enough opportunities, balls flashed across the face of goal, enough chances in general to win the game. It’s a little bit like where we’ve been at recently. We’ve managed to just get over the line in certain games of late. We just need to be more ruthless. When these chances come we need to take them.
Speaking on the official Celtic website the Celtic captain added: “You look at all the ball we have, we have been dominating games for a long time now and creating so many chances. We need to take them as well. We’ve spoken about it internally. We shouldn’t need 10 chances to win a game. One or two should be enough.
“The way teams are setting up against us now, it’s more than likely that we’re going to need to get one or two to score and get your points. It’s something to work on in training,” McGregor stated.
The injury crisis hadn’t affected Celtic in terms of points dropped until midweek when with three wingers leading the line, one from the Celtic B team, Celtic just couldn’t find a way past the two banks of five that St Mirren had protecting their goalkeeper. On a needs must basis surely it would have been worth throwing someone like Cameron Carter Vickers up front to contest the scores of cross balls coming in from the wings?
“There’s no bones about it, we are struggling for bodies,” Calmac said. “But we are not a team that wants to go down the road of making excuses. When someone gets injured, it’s an opportunity for other players. That’s the way we have to look at it. Losing quality players does affect you and what you are trying to do. But we don’t want to go down the road of making excuses.”
The Celtic captain is a long way from throwing in the towel, despite dropping six points behind theRangers. There is plenty of football still to be played and if Celtic keep winning then we’ll be champions.
“We can’t get too carried away and focus on the one result. We’ve been winning games for a long time now and we’ve been consistent over a period of time. We’ve been looking like the team we want to be.
“We want to add a bit of quality to that in the moments we need. But it’s been a good body of work over the period so far, in terms of where we started to where we are. We need to stay calm and stay focused.
“In football, if you ever need a reminder of what the game can do, that was it the other night. You go from Sunday to that. But we know exactly where we are as a group and where we want to get to. There’s still a lot of work to do to get there.
“Do we want to go in to the break on a high? Absolutely. We’ll dust ourselves down. St Mirren was obviously a disappointing result, but, psychologically, it doesn’t change anything too much. We still want to go out on a high and then we know how important the games are when we start back. We want to rectify the other night come the end of the month.”
Why not try a few 30 yarders instead of continually trying to walk the balk into the net. Or, consider NOT putting in high or overhit crosses to smallest players on the filed when keepers just continually pluck them out of the air with ease. If you are going to insist on overhit crosses, why is there never anyone a couple of yards away from the far post.
Absolutely correct John. Too often trying fancy one two’s when a shooting chance is on offer. Nobody attempting long range shots and since Jota got injured a dire lack of decent crosses into the box. How many games have watched when Kyogo makes a run only for mediocre players to react too slow or play terrible passes.?
Cross the ball into 5ft 6ins attackers? Cross the ball in too midget attackers?
the solution is obvious,ive said for months ,we need a plan B,ange and the coaches should be working on a change of tactics/formation for certain opposition at home and in europe,every top manager/coach changes team/tactics/formation,some even do it during games.if we dont we can forget the league and progress in europe.
These tactics are what exactly given those who are able to play?
Comments above are correct.Even Hibs sat back in the first half at Hampden.Celtic spend too much time and effort playing the ball to each other just outside the opposition box.We need to mix it up and have some balls cut back for players to run onto for a 20 yard shot,some balls whizzed across inside the box with poachers prepared and short and long corners thrown into the mix.C’mon Ange and coaches,we have to begin to find alternatives to what is playing out at the moment….Hail Hail.
It all boils down to the undeniable fact that you need your flair players to break down packed defences. Trying to walk the ball into the net just simply won’t do. You need the guys who can hit the ball first time from edge of the box, the guys who can hit the dead ball line and cross unerringly to a colleague’s head, and the guys who can do exactly what is NOT expected. I would go as far to say that in the games against Livingston and St Mirren had bad luck, but bad luck is of little use. Catch them unexpectedly, like Kyogu did (twice) in the League Cup final, which was incidentally our best experience for nearly two years! No more running at a defence, unless you are sure you can beat them!