Absolutely unacceptable. Both the players and manager should be having a long hard look at themselves this evening…
Well where do you start? For some this was seen as a certain victory, but as we know football doesn’t always work like that. Yes it was a dead rubber and the last time we had one of those in a Glasgow Derby.
Michael Beale’s theRangers got the better of Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic side by the same 3-0 scoreline. As far as the outcome of the title goes that, as today, had no bearing on the destination of the title.
Today the Celtic players were bullied from start to finish, our players weren’t up for it, and motivated theRangers were much better on the day and thoroughly deserved their victory, as we crashed to our first loss of the domestic campaign.
It was a totally unacceptable performance and the players looked should be embarrassed by their effort, or perhaps lack of it.
I’m sure Brendan Rodgers will be holding an inquest into the capitulation of his players who were well off it from the first to the last whistle. And of course Brendan himself is not blameless either, and he should be taking a look at himself considering it wasn’t exactly a secret the way the Ibrox club would approach the game after the recent Premier Sports cup final win.
The problem for theRangers is that they have discovered a way to play against Celtic but that doesn’t work against any other side in the Scottish Premiership and remember that they had dropped five points from six – and it should have been six from six – playing away at St Mirren and Motherwell.
Today’s result isn’t a dent in Celtic’s title aspirations, but it’s still a sore one to lose to our bitter rivals in that fashion. Brendan Rodgers needs to look carefully at Clement’s tactics which worried Celtic enough in the cup final to earn the Ibrox outfit a shot at the trophy in the penalty shoot-out. Today it got theRangers three points and gave their Belgian boss a stay of execution. But dead rubber success is never enough as Michael Beale could tell you.
On to the next game as they say, and hopefully a major improvement on what we witnessed today. Over to you Brendan.
And of course Celtic at Ibrox seldom these days passes without incident with yet another occurrence of violent assault towards our club with this time Arne Engels behind struck by coins while getting set to take a corner kick. This is latest in a long line of incidents that have so far all gone unpunished by the Scottish FA.
🎙️ “This is the ugly side we do not like to see.”
🎙️ “Absolutely ridiculous. That is disgusting. There is no place for that in football.”The Old Firm match is temporarily halted as Celtic’s Arne Engels is struck by an object from the crowd. pic.twitter.com/f8KvI7EdUP
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) January 2, 2025
Enough is enough and hopefully Michael Nicholson is preparing his own statement on this.
UPDATE: Celtic Spokesperson has stated this evening: “We understand that Police Scotland are currently investigating two separate incidents. The repeated targeting of our players and staff with missiles is quite appalling and completely unacceptable”.
The 2nd issue is apparently around missiles thrown at Brendan Rodgers and the Celtic dugout in a match that theRangers were on top and won 3-0.
Here’s Brendan Rodgers’ post match thoughts while speaking to Celtic TV.
“We made too many mistakes with the ball,” the Celtic manager admitted. “We’re normally precise and crisp with our passing and get through the pitch well, but we were so loose, even under no pressure, kicking the ball out, misplacing passes, giving it away to easy, and that obviously culminates in the first goal.
“I thought we started the first few minutes how we wanted to, pressuring them in their half, but then we gave away a really disappointing goal, which gives the stadium a lift and gives their players a lift because they haven’t beaten us in such a long time. So they’ve then got something to hang on to.
“We weren’t very good with the ball. We lacked aggression, we lacked the quality with it and it’s something we need to analyse and look at, and be better.
“It’s a disappointing game but thankfully we have a quick game to come afterwards,” he said, “but we need to analyse today because that wasn’t what we would want in a performance level.
“I didn’t feel after the first half that we could be any worse in the second half. I’m not sure it improved so much, if I’m honest. I’ve been behind here before so I know what it’s like to come back, but we didn’t show anywhere near enough in order to do that, so we just have to accept it and then look to be better come the weekend.”
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
The main issue I have on today’s disgusting performance, is any potential knock on effect, within our 2 remaining CL games?
To allow for all to see, in how we can be easily stopped from playing, against an average team playing at there very best, is a concern?
For Rodgers to set our team up in the same manner, against the scum, who didn’t do anything different from the league cup final, which didn’t work particularly well that day. And completely hopeless today, without any form of change on show, is a massive failure on Rodgers behalf today?
To see our players totally uninterested and not an ounce of fight or passion within them, was a total embarrassment to our jersey, especially at that shithole of all places?
Maybe this could be part of some cunning plan, Rodgers is looking to introduce into our final 2 CL matches, with putting pressure upon ourselves to thrive upon?
Any failure within our 2 CL matches now, will point back to today, and the tactical approach taken as been totally woeful?