SCOTT BROWN yesterday admitted that the goals were drying up at Celtic last season, despite the club winning another treble. They did not however finish the campaign as the league’s top scorers and that is something that has already been addressed with the seven scored on Saturday meaning Celtic are sitting top of the Premiership table clear of Ross County, Aberdeen and the Rangers on gaol difference.
“We relied a lot on Odsonne to score our goals, although Scott Sinclair and James Forrest also chipped in,” Broony noted.
“It was all about the wingers and the lone striker but now that Griff is back and Bayo is also on the mend we have three strikers we can use and that helps us play in a more attacking formation,” the Celtic captain told the media yesterday, as reported by Evening Times.
“The gaffer likes us getting the ball into the penalty area nice and early and, to be fair, there’s no-one better in the business to have there than Leigh and Odsonne.
“Everyone used to know that we’d play with two wide men, a lone striker and either one or two No.10s but we’ve tried to chop and change so that we’re not one-dimensional all the time – not that I think we were before.
“A lot of other teams would try the low block against us and try to counter-attack us but we had enough in defence to deal with most of them. That wasn’t the problem, though; the goals had just dried up, although we still managed to win the title and the Scottish Cup,” Brown said.
“Odsonne is still only 21 but he’s been brilliant for us and he’s also good in the dressing room. On the pitch he works at closing people down, his hold-up play is important and he’s a natural finisher as well.
“With Leigh available again and Ryan Christie making those runs in behind and creating space for others, that’s also helped him.”
The Celtic captain is delighted that his team-mate and good friend Leigh Griffiths has returned to the squad and resumed his old goalscoring ways, although he did have a wee laugh about the Celtic Number 9 getting on a bit!
“Leigh has been great since he’s come back in. He’s been working hard and he needs to keep pushing because he’s not getting any younger – he just told me he’s going to be 29 next month!
“Leigh’s one of the good guys in the dressing room; everyone can have a bit of banter with him because he has that in his locker as well but the main thing is to have him back on the pitch and scoring goals, which is what he loves and does best.
“We’ve tickled our formation a little so that we can have both Leigh and Odsonne up front because we know how deadly they can be in the box. For us, it’s about their work-rate – they need to show that they can function as a partnership and they’ve done that so far but they have to keep that ticking over.
“It’s given us the option to play with two up front, domestically and in Europe.”
Also on The Celtic Star it really does help the site if you can take a look at a few of our other recent articles….
Broony’s Fourth Trophy Goal, Celtic plan to shut up Noisy Cluj…see HERE.
Maybe we’re not doing this Celtic blogging stuff properly by just trying to be as accurate and as pro-Celtic as we possibly can?…see HERE.
The remarkable story of Celtic and Slavia Prague Legend Johnny Madden…see HERE.
‘To Lisbon and back on a fiver’ – Friday 19 May 1967…see HERE.
