Celtic v Rangers October 17th 12:30pm

[Bairnardo]

Celtic fans claiming sacking Lennon is a knee jerk must not actually watch football

[SANTAN]

48 minutes ago, AJF said:

He’s been impressive and I’ll be surprised if teams aren’t sniffing about him come January/Summer.

I also think his decision making has improved a lot this season. Before, he would fire balls into the box constant but he has learned to hold off if it means retaining possession or waiting for support to arrive. He has also got better at making tactical fouls to disrupt the opposition too.

For me the difference between world class players and good players is how they never seem to make the wrong decision. I've never thought Barasic was poor at deliveries but over the past year he has become pin point all whislts being very good defensively. As I said can't think of one wrong move he made at the weekend. I think we will be lucky to keep him, I reckon he'll deffo stay despite potential interest in January but he'll be off in the summer. I got to experience the end of Numan and the consistency of Papac but as a 27 year old Barasic is quickly becoming the best LB I've seen imo. As I said before he really seems to step it up in the big games too. I think the Hibs game where he got assaulted then banged in the free kick and taunted the Hibs fans was the making of him, no looking back since. 

[SANTAN]

53 minutes ago, Bohemian said:

I watched Kamara playing for Finland against Ireland and he was brilliant, ran the midfield.. stood out in a very poor game in fairness 

He was a bit hit and miss since we signed him and he was terrible against Hamilton at home when we lost last season but when he's good he's very good another player that seems to thrive in the bigger games. As is often said the mere fact he was only 50k means either way he has more than repaid us. He is very good at calming the game down and just taking a few touches when needed. 

[bennett]

Chlassy. 

 

 

[8MileBU]

33 minutes ago, bennett said:

Chlassy.

Another beaut found on Twitter:

[Jinky67]

3 hours ago, wastecoatwilly said:

His win ratio is only bettered by Martin O'Neil
He gave us the best 90 minutes in terms of results v Barcelona.
His team was the first Celtic team to win in Italy.
His recruitment and development of players is very good.
 

The football we are currently playing is abhorrent. 

A Rangers team that has only been in this league for 5 seasons just came to Celtic Park, ripped us a new arsehole and then put their feet up for the 2nd OF game in a row.

These players do not want to play for him and he has the tactical inability to impact the direction of a football game he is loosing. Sitting on his arse with his arms folded when we were are loosing 2 nil tells its own story and his post match interview littered with excuses and how we created good chances was unacceptable. 

We had this “discussion” recently where you had a go at me for not wanting Lennon back as I told you we were going backwards. Cluj, Copenhagen and Ferencvaros are evidence of that if the 2nd skelping in row of Rangers wasn’t enough.

As for recruitment? Some of his recruitment is questionable to say they least as well as letting players such as Sinclair and Hayes go. Both of them could have done a good job for us yesterday 

Nostalgia won’t win us the league and God forbid we drop points at Pittodrie at the weekend. 

 

Edited October 18, 2020 by Jinky67

[G51]

I think folk saying "Lennon isn't good but I don't rate Gerrard either" are missing one of the key differences between the two.

At Rangers, the football department is a pretty slick and well-defined operation. Gerrard is the figurehead and the decision maker, Gary Mac is the player conduit/liaison (i.e. the person who "bonds" with the players), Michael Beale runs most of the training and, through that, is responsible for implementing the tactical tweaks identified by the analysis team (or match prep training if you prefer), and Tom Culshaw is responsible for set piece training and the defensive coaching. Off the pitch, you have Andy Scoulding as the head of recruitment who scouts and recommends potential transfer signings, Gerrard gives them the thumbs up or down and then Ross Wilson does the same, before leading the negotiations. Wilson is also responsible for setting the profile of each transfer target that Scoulding has to find, and he does that with Gerrard. Everything is pretty logical and it all kinda makes sense.

Who's doing all these things for Celtic? They've two coaches assisting Lennon - John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan. So you've three people trying to do the same amount of work that five are doing for Rangers. Unless your coaches are significantly better (which, as far as we can tell, Celtic's aren't) then there's going to things that get lost/don't get done. We've no idea how well these responsibilities are defined for Celtic, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that they probably aren't. I can't think of many other major professional clubs with a budget like Celtic's who only run with three first team coaches - they simply don't have enough.

Nicky Hammond is Celtic's director of football, but everyone seems to think it's still Lawwell who does the negotiations. Does he sign off on the targets? Who finds these players? The fact that Celtic are still signing Dudu Dahan clients tells me that Lawwell still plays a very significant role in the transfer ID process. How do Celtic sign a player? We've no idea.

The fundamental difference right now between Gerrard and Lennon doesn't have that much to do with managerial ability. The difference is that Rangers have robust processes in place that will set the team up for long-term success. Those processes clearly define the roles for the staff. This means that all members of your staff are efficient, but they're also replaceable because it's very easy to identify who's responsible when something goes wrong. Gerrard is being set up for success by the support system behind him. Lennon isn't. And the proof of this can be seen by two things: a) the successes and failures of each clubs signings since Lennon came back to Celtic, and b) the pretty stark and obvious difference between the organisation of the teams on the pitch.

If I was a Celtic fan, that's what I'd be worried about. Not Lennon.

[Jinky67]

1 minute ago, G51 said:

I think folk saying "Lennon isn't good but I don't rate Gerrard either" are missing one of the key differences between the two.

At Rangers, the football department is a pretty slick and well-defined operation. Gerrard is the figurehead and the decision maker, Gary Mac is the player conduit/liaison (i.e. the person who "bonds" with the players), Michael Beale runs most of the training and, through that, is responsible for implementing the tactical tweaks identified by the analysis team (or match prep training if you prefer), and Tom Culshaw is responsible for set piece training and the defensive coaching. Off the pitch, you have Andy Scoulding as the head of recruitment who scouts and recommends potential transfer signings, Gerrard gives them the thumbs up or down and then Ross Wilson does the same, before leading the negotiations. Wilson is also responsible for setting the profile of each transfer target that Scoulding has to find, and he does that with Gerrard. Everything is pretty logical and it all kinda makes sense.

Who's doing all these things for Celtic? They've two coaches assisting Lennon - John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan. So you've three people trying to do the same amount of work that five are doing for Rangers. Unless your coaches are significantly better (which, as far as we can tell, Celtic's aren't) then there's going to things that get lost/don't get done. We've no idea how well these responsibilities are defined for Celtic, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that they probably aren't. I can't think of many other major professional clubs with a budget like Celtic's who only run with three first team coaches - they simply don't have enough.

Nicky Hammond is Celtic's director of football, but everyone seems to think it's still Lawwell who does the negotiations. Does he sign off on the targets? Who finds these players? The fact that Celtic are still signing Dudu Dahan clients tells me that Lawwell still plays a very significant role in the transfer ID process. How do Celtic sign a player? We've no idea.

The fundamental difference right now between Gerrard and Lennon doesn't have that much to do with managerial ability. The difference is that Rangers have robust processes in place that will set the team up for long-term success. Those processes clearly define the roles for the staff. This means that all members of your staff are efficient, but they're also replaceable because it's very easy to identify who's responsible when something goes wrong. Gerrard is being set up for success by the support system behind him. Lennon isn't. And the proof of this can be seen by two things: a) the successes and failures of each clubs signings since Lennon came back to Celtic, and b) the pretty stark and obvious difference between the organisation of the teams on the pitch.

If I was a Celtic fan, that's what I'd be worried about. Not Lennon.

I think Goldson summed it up pretty well by discussing the patterns of play they have worked on for the past 2 seasons. They are comfortable in their roles and know what is expected of them.

Celtic players aren’t comfortable in the current system and seemingly don’t know what their role is. Duffy trying to play the ball out of defence? Ntcham constantly dropping deeper than Brown and McGregor when he is supposed to be the forward minded of the 3? Mo running around trying to convince someone, anyone he is a centre forward 

 

 

 

[G51]

10 minutes ago, Jinky67 said:

I think Goldson summed it up pretty well by discussing the patterns of play they have worked on for the past 2 seasons. They are comfortable in their roles and know what is expected of them.

Celtic players aren’t comfortable in the current system and seemingly don’t know what their role is. Duffy trying to play the ball out of defence? Ntcham constantly dropping deeper than Brown and McGregor when he is supposed to be the forward minded of the 3? Mo running around trying to convince someone, anyone he is a centre forward 

 

 

 

Exactly, but this is sort of my point. See if you asked Gerrard to do the tactical side of things, and you didn't have Beale or Culshaw there? Rangers would probably look a lot like Celtic do. Gerrard can't do that, he's not well versed enough in the coaching side of things. What he is is an inspirational motivator and a good decision maker. So Rangers brought in other people to do the stuff he can't do, and let him just do what he's good at. Rangers are now seeing the benefit of Year 3 in a system that hasn't changed with coaches that haven't changed in a process designed to get the best out of everyone.

Lennon doesn't have that. The 3-5-2 is obviously Lennon's idea because we've seen him use it before, but he isn't actually any good at coaching it. That is one of the reasons why he got sacked by Hibs and Bolton. Lennon can be a good manager if he's allowed to focus on the things he's good at. But because Celtic haven't brought in a coach capable of teaching a tactic to a team, Lennon's having to do that. It's not all his fault that the team is struggling - it's because he doesn't have the guys beside him in the dugout that Rangers do. And if I'm a Celtic fan, I'm worried that no one at the club seems to recognise this.

(PS I remember saying when Duffy came in for £4m for a year long loan that it was a really strange signing and a glaring example that Celtic don't really know what they're doing in the transfer market. I think you were the only Celtic fan who agreed with me. I think it's really starting to become evident now what a colossal mistake it was to bench Jullien for Duffy)

Edited October 18, 2020 by G51

[Henrik's tongue]

1 hour ago, G51 said:

I think folk saying "Lennon isn't good but I don't rate Gerrard either" are missing one of the key differences between the two.

At Rangers, the football department is a pretty slick and well-defined operation. Gerrard is the figurehead and the decision maker, Gary Mac is the player conduit/liaison (i.e. the person who "bonds" with the players), Michael Beale runs most of the training and, through that, is responsible for implementing the tactical tweaks identified by the analysis team (or match prep training if you prefer), and Tom Culshaw is responsible for set piece training and the defensive coaching. Off the pitch, you have Andy Scoulding as the head of recruitment who scouts and recommends potential transfer signings, Gerrard gives them the thumbs up or down and then Ross Wilson does the same, before leading the negotiations. Wilson is also responsible for setting the profile of each transfer target that Scoulding has to find, and he does that with Gerrard. Everything is pretty logical and it all kinda makes sense.

Who's doing all these things for Celtic? They've two coaches assisting Lennon - John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan. So you've three people trying to do the same amount of work that five are doing for Rangers. Unless your coaches are significantly better (which, as far as we can tell, Celtic's aren't) then there's going to things that get lost/don't get done. We've no idea how well these responsibilities are defined for Celtic, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that they probably aren't. I can't think of many other major professional clubs with a budget like Celtic's who only run with three first team coaches - they simply don't have enough.

Nicky Hammond is Celtic's director of football, but everyone seems to think it's still Lawwell who does the negotiations. Does he sign off on the targets? Who finds these players? The fact that Celtic are still signing Dudu Dahan clients tells me that Lawwell still plays a very significant role in the transfer ID process. How do Celtic sign a player? We've no idea.

The fundamental difference right now between Gerrard and Lennon doesn't have that much to do with managerial ability. The difference is that Rangers have robust processes in place that will set the team up for long-term success. Those processes clearly define the roles for the staff. This means that all members of your staff are efficient, but they're also replaceable because it's very easy to identify who's responsible when something goes wrong. Gerrard is being set up for success by the support system behind him. Lennon isn't. And the proof of this can be seen by two things: a) the successes and failures of each clubs signings since Lennon came back to Celtic, and b) the pretty stark and obvious difference between the organisation of the teams on the pitch.

If I was a Celtic fan, that's what I'd be worried about. Not Lennon.

Mate, I hate to sound like a broken record but the lack of trophies is not a good look for Rangers. Gerrard’s  in his 3rd season as manager now and has won hee haw. How long does this being set up for success thing actually take? 
 Celtic have won a few trophies under Lennon and imo he is not up to the job. But they still win them in spite of Lennon. Why haven’t Rangers done the same under Gerrard?
 His first pick centre forward has now went 13 or 14 games against Celtic without scoring a single goal. 2 seasons in a row the wheels have come off the Rangers team in the second half of the season. Who’s to say it won’t happen again this season?

 Gerrard is not a good manager and beating a Neil Lennon team does not make him one. It just makes Lennon a slightly worse manager than Gerrard.

[AJF]

59 minutes ago, Henrik's tongue said:

Mate, I hate to sound like a broken record but the lack of trophies is not a good look for Rangers. Gerrard’s  in his 3rd season as manager now and has won hee haw. How long does this being set up for success thing actually take? 
 Celtic have won a few trophies under Lennon and imo he is not up to the job. But they still win them in spite of Lennon. Why haven’t Rangers done the same under Gerrard?
 His first pick centre forward has now went 13 or 14 games against Celtic without scoring a single goal. 2 seasons in a row the wheels have come off the Rangers team in the second half of the season. Who’s to say it won’t happen again this season?

 Gerrard is not a good manager and beating a Neil Lennon team does not make him one. It just makes Lennon a slightly worse manager than Gerrard.

The gulf in finances has been the reason Celtic have still remained successful during this period. No to mention that Rodgers was still there for a large part of it.

Generally speaking, Celtic have had a deeper squad filled with better quality players that has seen them better equipped to deal with situations where 3 or 4 key players are not in form (which is what really happened to Rangers at the turn of the year).

Now, despite still being far behind in terms of resources, Rangers have built a deeper squad that I think will be more capable of sustaining a challenge. I’d be very surprised to see us go through a dramatic loss of form like we have done previously.

Looking at our bench yesterday it was the first time in a while I’ve felt content with the options available and we’re still missing a couple of good players to come back into the squad.

Back under Caixinha, Sutton asked him the question of how many Rangers players would get in the Celtic side - now it’ll be quicker to answer how many Rangers players wouldn’t get in the Celtic side.

Edited October 19, 2020 by AJF

[wastecoatwilly]

7 hours ago, AJF said:

Celtic have had a deeper squad filled with better quality players

 

7 hours ago, AJF said:

now it’ll be quicker to answer how many Rangers players wouldn’t get in the Celtic side

Your contradictions are great all in the same post.

[G51]

7 hours ago, AJF said:

The gulf in finances has been the reason Celtic have still remained successful during this period. No to mention that Rodgers was still there for a large part of it.

Generally speaking, Celtic have had a deeper squad filled with better quality players that has seen them better equipped to deal with situations where 3 or 4 key players are not in form (which is what really happened to Rangers at the turn of the year).

Now, despite still being far behind in terms of resources, Rangers have built a deeper squad that I think will be more capable of sustaining a challenge. I’d be very surprised to see us go through a dramatic loss of form like we have done previously.

Looking at our bench yesterday it was the first time in a while I’ve felt content with the options available and we’re still missing a couple of good players to come back into the squad.

Back under Caixinha, Sutton asked him the question of how many Rangers players would get in the Celtic side - now it’ll be quicker to answer how many Rangers players wouldn’t get in the Celtic side.

Precisely. Ultimately, Celtic will still win matches because Rangers can only spend 70% of what Celtic can, and the gulf between Celtic and non-Rangers teams is enormous. Individual brilliance will still win you plenty of games - but it's not as efficient as having those players playing within a well-designed system.

Improvement and regression are processes, they take time to come together. The signs so far are that Rangers have learned lessons from the last two seasons - they're no longer so reliant on Morelos for goals because they've changed the way that the striker plays in their system. This spreads the goals around and makes them less susceptible to a loss of form of one key player. They've also brought in some much-needed cover in areas where the squad was short - Roofe, Itten, Hagi, Bassey, McLaughlin, Balogun and (presumably) Zungu are all either starting XI players or really good squad players that will see 30 games a season. This means you're not relying on players doing a 60 game season anymore.

You can see the difference in some stats so far:

- Rangers are projected to only concede ten goals this entire season - I'm pretty sure that would beat the record for a 36/38 game season by a long way (Celtic conceded 17 in 14/15).

- Rangers xG difference/90 is 2.09 this season, Celtic's is 1.39. That's even before the OF game is taken into account, which will significantly widen that gap. Last year, Celtic had 1.79 and Rangers 1.68. That's a pretty stark illustration of the direction of travel for both teams.

The answer to "Well why did Lennon win trophies last season when Gerrard didn't" is simple - it takes time to put a good team together, it takes time for a good team to fall apart, and knockout cups are high variance competitions that rely on luck almost as much as anything else.

Obviously, there's no guarantee of what's going to happen in the future. But so far, Celtic have played closer games than Rangers, so I think it's likely that they'll drop more points than Rangers over the course of the season. But you never know - Celtic could win the next ten games and Rangers could lose the next ten. Football's funny like that.

[AJF]

26 minutes ago, wastecoatwilly said:

 

Your contradictions are great all in the same post.

You do realise that "have had" is past tense? As in, I no longer believe it to be the case?

Also, by starting the sentence with "now", this clearly implies that I believe things have changed.

If I simplify it for you by saying: The reason that Celtic have remained successful is because they have had a deeper squad than us with better players due to the financial gap. Now, I do not believe that the quality and depth is significantly greater than ours.

Does that make it easier for you?

[wastecoatwilly]

10 hours ago, Jinky67 said:

The football we are currently playing is abhorrent. 

A Rangers team that has only been in this league for 5 seasons just came to Celtic Park, ripped us a new arsehole and then put their feet up for the 2nd OF game in a row.

These players do not want to play for him and he has the tactical inability to impact the direction of a football game he is loosing. Sitting on his arse with his arms folded when we were are loosing 2 nil tells its own story and his post match interview littered with excuses and how we created good chances was unacceptable. 

We had this “discussion” recently where you had a go at me for not wanting Lennon back as I told you we were going backwards. Cluj, Copenhagen and Ferencvaros are evidence of that if the 2nd skelping in row of Rangers wasn’t enough.

As for recruitment? Some of his recruitment is questionable to say they least as well as letting players such as Sinclair and Hayes go. Both of them could have done a good job for us yesterday 

Nostalgia won’t win us the league and God forbid we drop points at Pittodrie at the weekend. 

 

It's a results driven business 1 defeat in 10  isn't time for the scatter gun, bringing up Cluj is a strange debate after Celtic won the group.
Watching sevco in Europe scoring the first goal is important, then they go into their comfort zone and allow teams to make a mistake, Celtic were toothless in the game and offered nothing but sevco had a part to play in that.
The only positives I take from the game is young Welsh, he kept Kent quiet and didn't do much wrong plus Laxalt looks like a step up from Taylor he will be a very good addition to the squad.
Frimpong also has the beating of Barisic this is why Kamara had a good game doubling up to stop him.
Sevco were the better team on the day plus they needed to win the game to stay in touch at the top. 

 

[AJF]

1 minute ago, wastecoatwilly said:

It's a results driven business 1 defeat in 10  isn't time for the scatter gun, bringing up Cluj is a strange debate after Celtic won the group.
Watching sevco in Europe scoring the first goal is important, then they go into their comfort zone and allow teams to make a mistake, Celtic were toothless in the game and offered nothing but sevco had a part to play in that.
The only positives I take from the game is young Welsh, he kept Kent quiet and didn't do much wrong plus Laxalt looks like a step up from Taylor he will be a very good addition to the squad.
Frimpong also has the beating of Barisic this is why Kamara had a good game doubling up to stop him.
Sevco were the better team on the day plus they needed to win the game to stay in touch at the top. 

 

That's a bit of a wild take considering Frimpong done absolutely nothing.

When you say Frimpong has the beating of Barisic, maybe in terms of a foot race, but Barisic managed him expertly all day and Frimpong (or Lennon) didn't know how to counter it. As you mentioned, Barisic concentrated on stopping Frimpong going past him on the byline as he had complete confidence in Kamara covering if he moved inwards.

[Derry Alli]

I've ridiculed Taylor before as I don't think he's anywhere near the standard that Celtic should have playing for them but in what way did Laxalt look an upgrade? Bullied off the ball all game, slow in possession which resulted in aimless long balls to nobody and tactically looked unsure of where he was supposed to be. 

[TheScarf]

Lennon's win ratio as Celtic manager is all well and good until you remember this is the first season he's had a team challenging.

[wastecoatwilly]

18 minutes ago, AJF said:

That's a bit of a wild take considering Frimpong done absolutely nothing.

When you say Frimpong has the beating of Barisic, maybe in terms of a foot race, but Barisic managed him expertly all day and Frimpong (or Lennon) didn't know how to counter it. As you mentioned, Barisic concentrated on stopping Frimpong going past him on the byline as he had complete confidence in Kamara covering if he moved inwards.

This is more of a question mark over Ntcham than Frimpong, if Ntcham does a better job in duff tailing Frimpong we mite have got more joy down that side.
Christie or Forrest were not available to help Frimpong on that side so Lennon's options were limited.

[AJF]

1 minute ago, wastecoatwilly said:

This is more of a question mark over Ntcham than Frimpong, if Ntcham does a better job in duff tailing Frimpong we mite have got more joy down that side.
Christie or Forrest were not available to help Frimpong on that side so Lennon's options were limited.

I'd appreciate that more if this was a one-off, but Frimpong has been ineffectual in all 3 matches I've seen him play against us.