Celtic’s defeat in Rotterdam was particularly frustrating for me given the low expectations going in. At half time, the match was utterly 50/50 by the data and hope had started to rise:
If anything, given Celtic were the away side, you could argue based on the performance data, they’d have been the happier side.
But of course, of was 0-1 at that stage.
Goal One
Regular Huddle Breakdown listeners will know of my “three and out” theory. Do three things wrong in the defensive third and you will likely concede a chance of not a goal.
The Feyenoord free kick is over 30 yards from goal, and I can’t say I was concerned.
Then:
- The on-field leadership places Kyogo Furuhashi at the inside of the wall. As Martin O’Neill commented at half time, you need your biggest lump in that position not your smallest. That’s down to Joe Hart and Callum McGregor in terms of organisation.
- Kyogo turns his back and effectively jumps out the way of the ball. Basics.
- Hart is slow to move his feet and despite the ball starting off a good few yards inside the post, and bouncing, and that he got both hands on it, he couldn’t keep it out. He doesn’t even take a negative step the wrong way, in fact he anticipates the ball’s direction and still cannot get across. He should expect the wall to not be breached but equally it is a long way out and not hit particularly hard or into the corner.
The third point is a function of his lack of ability to move like a younger man. Who knew? Funny how systemic weaknesses come back to bite you in the biggest games against the best opposition.
Hart has conceded six goals against post shot xG of 6.04 so effectively on par for the season. However, his obvious physical decline does not scale to Champions League level when it is stressed the most. Yes, he saved a poorly struck penalty, but the damage had been done.
Sending Off One
Brendan Rodger’s was magnanimous post-match and took the Gustaf Lagerbielke sending off on the Mowbray. It probably is an unnecessary intervention by the young Swedish defender yet the theatrics that generated the award of both a penalty and the double whammy of a red card was an extraordinarily harsh sentence for a minor misdemeanour.
But why did that situation arise?
When Calvin Stengs receives the ball wide right, Celtic’s shape is ok. The back line is aligned and McGregor and Matt O’Riley are double pivoting to allow Odin Holm to have pushed on as they had been all match.
McGregor is pushed out wide but still, it is well short of halfway.
The six foot plus 24-year-old powerful and pacy central midfielder blasts past 5’8” 30 year old slightly pace declining Scot and gets to the edge of the box unhindered. McGregor has made up the ground but not in a way that allows him to influence the play.
Stengs feeds in Paixao and Lagerbielke tries to be belts and braces with his defending and the belt wins.
Celtic being out paced and powered in midfield? Who knew?
The Naivety Narrative
Lagerbielke’s efforts and holding off the Feyenoord attacker could be branded naïve. And Holm’s out of control challenge to receive a straight red was utterly brainless given the context of just losing a man but having the lift of a penalty save. Lazy journalism has labelled Celtic’s defeat down to those incidents.
However, both debacles came after the Celtic system, with its known and undealt with risks, couldn’t scale to this level of competition.
It was such a frustrating waste.
Here is the xG and Packing Score timeline:
Until the mid-60s minutes, it was a coin flip. Would their frustration have grown; would Celtic’s confidence have grown?
We’ll never know but Celtic got into that situation mainly due to weaknesses that went unresolved in the Summer.
Systemic weakness trumps naivety every time.
No idea what we were doing with that wall. It was also one of many “stupid” free kicks we gave away, mainly due to being outpaced in midfield. There was a wall infringement by #33 of Feyenoord before and during the ball being struck, I was mildly surprised VAR didn’t pick up on it. But 2 nil overall was a fair result.
Even until the Holm red we probably had a chance. That was a brainless foul and naivety isn’t the world, no professional footballer should be doing that. That it was in a low risk phase makes me even angrier.
However I’m not convinced we had a goal in us that night. We looked, again, utterly bereft of attacking threat. This was a feature last year too in games, though then it was a case of not scoring the chances we created… Now we’re not creating the chances. Very troubling.
Agree on your summation Alan however with regards Mcgregor to clarify you’re not suggesting he should be dropped in place of the athletic powerhouse midfielder we’re crying out for? Or is simply a case of if we had that midfielder instead of Hatate then Mcgregor would not be expected to cover as much ground. Just to clarify! Ps love the huddle breakdown and is my favourite podcast bar none!
McGregor is mission critical in terms of tempo setting but comes with increasing limitations. He needs support in the midfield to balance out the athleticism and power/pace deficits
Great analysis of all these incidents but I could do with you outlining what you think the “Systemic weaknesses” are and the evidence for them. That bit puzzled me.
Tune into THB as I’m sick of talking about them
Whole left side defensively (not Maeda)
Hart age decline
McGregor age decline
What’s THB Allan
Thanks
The Huddle Breakdown on YouTube. Excellent podcast!
THB – The Huddle Breakdown – is a podcast that can be accessed on Youtube which is produced once or twice a week . Alan appears and is the main contributor on it. It is a top class Celtic focused podcast.
What maddened me about the free kick goal (as well as has been pointed out) is that Hart’ starting position is far too far to his right. He had to cover about 6 yards of the goal to his left. His starting position was all wrong. Turnbull not starting or even coming on was ludicrous.
Thanks for the article and website.
Good to see Mowbray (TheChin) still irks others as-well as myself.
He should be banned from Paradise. Amen.
Great analysis as usual, shot ourselves in the foot AGAIN!
Thought ref was poor, Feyenoord, more posession and also more fouls.
When we tried to break simple foul to stop play and regroup.
Shouldve Diazen went down instead of attempting shot
Cheers Allen
Well put as usual Alan, tuppence from me- I think the ref was a Homer . Non stops yellows for us which had a big impact
For them he looked the other way on cynical fouls
Both teams dropped players in transition but we got penalised
I’m sure the culture in euefa is to side with the big teams, I’m sure they don’t want pot 4 teams winning – not good for viewing figures down the line
My lazy take:
What sticks out in the 1st half stats is the ‘chances created’ where a nery, off the boil and never to be repeated Feyenoord had 3 times as many.
(conjecture) As we seem to get worse in these games as the game plays out then this was our time to win/not lose it and we didn’t do that (with the assumption that we’ll always concede).
I’m glad you specified all bad elements of the 1st goal rather than the simplistic Kyogo or Hart for total blame.
There’s no doubt aging is a factor but Hart has always been vulnerable from shots like these. What was 2 great Griffiths free-kicks for Scotland fans were poor goalkeeping for everyone else. I also remember him being the butt of many jokes for same when he was playing in Italy.
I would class both RCs as brainless, as throwing your hands across someone’s face is always going to face the ultimate sanction, as they used to say in match reports.
wrt Holm, his tackle had similarities to the one at Ibrox, which met with universal approval. Yes, he got the ball on that occasion (and damaged Tik-Tok’s nail into the bargain) but what was the risk/reward? It was literally the last sec and, no doubt, the MIB would’ve played on, if they won the ball but it wasn’t in a dangerous position.
Hindsight but I hope it was taken up with him in an after-match debrief, although if it was then that makes Tuesday more damning.
I guess talking about karma on a statistical analysis page is a novelty – but as we waited for the ref to get his red card out on Tuesday, was anyone else thinking about how a sizeable number of Celtic sites were celebrating holm’s Cantwell tackle all week leading up to the feyenoord game?
Hi Alan,
Agreed with all of your analysis but believe that the downfall started a minute or so earlier when we were awarded a free kick near (I think) the halfway line. Instead of taking our time (wasting time) and get back into our shape/ physically recover, as halftime was 90 secs away, we try a quick pass and cheaply lose possession and allow Feyenoord to maintain their pressure. There was no need, see the game through to HT at 0-0 and we are in it and have something to focus on for the next 45mins. Personally we are not streetwise, I am not asking the team to cheat or dive about but we have to “play the game” and see it through to get the result and a draw would have been a fantastic result and great learning experience for the team as to what is required to get a positive result. Only once the team has gained this experience/learning can we build on it as you have to learn to walk/draw before you can run/win.
You’re quite right Sancheto. We need to play differently away from home in Europe and maybe players aren’t used to that yet. Taking a bit of time to set with a free kick if there’s no quick break on is important generally to keep possession. And I do think we need to be less keen to play on despite fouls, especially in the box.
I do think it will come, but maybe not this season. Some slight cynicism at times to our play would help us on the continent..