Former Celtic defender Johan Mjallby reckons that Celtic’s second Glasgo Derby defeat of the season is a real wake up call for Brendan Rodgers an his Celtic players…
Despite the talk from Brendan Rodgers, that both he and the team were going to rectify what happened that day at Ibrox in the New Year, once again we were left with a bloody nose and an undesirable performance all over the park.
The Ibrox outfit deployed the exact same tactics
The Ibrox outfit deployed the exact same tactics as last time around, where they hustled and harried us in the press which led to several mistakes right from the start. These individual and collective mistakes subsequently led to the first corner of the game early doors, which resulted in the opposition getting their noses in front with the first goal, thanks to a Nico Raskin header which should have been dealt with, especially as Raskin was the smallest player on the park.
Things went from bad to worse in that first half, with the team refusing to go long at points, even when it was obvious our midfield was being marked out of the game. The away side grabbed a second before half-time and gave us a mountain to climb in the second period of the game. Even though the Bhoys battled back, defensively we were all over the place and at 2-2, you always felt they might get another chance to steal the game as Celtic pushed for a winner.
Dreadful yet comical defending from Alistair Johnston and CCV
Hamza Igamane’s 88th minute wonder strike sealed the deal, after some dreadful yet comical defending from Alistair Johnston and Cameron Carter-Vickers, highlighting just how poor the spine of our team was and how easy we made it for Ferguson’s team on the day.
‘For Brendan Rodgers, I think it must hurt’
Now Johan Mjallby says the result is a real wake up call for Rodgers and his team and reckons they’ll have to put it right in the final derby match of the season at Ibrox. “For Brendan Rodgers, I think it must hurt though,” he told the Scottish Football Social Club podcast.
“He’s a perfectionist and he’s looking for the perfect team, with the perfect game to play. For him now, he built his team to be really good on the ball, to always build out from the back. Now they failed twice against their biggest challengers. It’s going to be interesting to see in the next Glasgow Derby. I’m quite sure that Brendan is going to have something in his back pocket. You know he’s going to change something. It’s not just going to be the personnel.
‘I’m looking forward to the next one’
“So, at the end of the day, it’s probably good to end this season with Celtic having a good chance to win the Treble, but they’re definitely going to win the league. So it’s probably good in that sense that these two defeats are coming. It is a wake up call, to not get as a fat cat and think just happy days all of the time. So I’m looking forward to the next one.”
🍀 @darrellcurrietv, Johan Mjallby and @mstewart_23 discuss how Sunday’s loss to Rangers acts as a reminder for Celtic not to be complacent, and shows up some weak spots in the spine of the team
“It is a wake up call.” 🗣️@McBookie pic.twitter.com/wKbiBoU76R
— Premier Sports (@PremSportsTV) March 18, 2025
Paul Gillespie
Currently see 3 versions of this Celtic team on show, but the 1 dimensional team set up and style/system of play on offer, so
A) Still a very good team, when we get our tempo with passing and movement all working together
B) We are still a decent enough team, even with the reduced tempo, as long as we are controlling proceedings, that requires reduced moments of quality, to gain the winning result
C) We can be very suspect as a team, if the opposition are allowed to play the get in our faces approach. Even worse again if the thuggery approach is allowed like Sunday going unpublished?
So think more teams are going to apply the C approach against ourselves in future imo?
A total lack of stomach from ourselves was on show on Sunday, especially within the first half, which remains a concern, as it’s not the first time it has been on show this season either?
So plenty to think about what our response might be, especially with a total lack of squad numbers to deal with such an approach expected going forward.
Going to potentially be made harder in attracting the players we require, bearing in mind that a world cup season awaits next season?
So how many of our current players, including our manager, relish the prospect of what might be in store for ourselves going forward?
The scum continue to bring Scottish football levels down, we have to find the solutions that thuggery football won’t overcome the quality of football we are capable of producing.
We can’t afford it to happen, especially as we are building towards becoming a very competitive CL team imo?
No way can we allow ourselves to be dragged down to scum and europa league levels by following such a backwards way of trying to play the game, especially with cheating officials allowing the likes within Scottish football?