Celtic Man Of The Match

[Kmcalpin]

He is always so far inside it's criminal he hasn't realised it yet. Or if he has criminal he hasn't fixed the problem.

 

His awareness and positioning is murder at the goal. Tierney didn't exactly sprint from the other end of the pitch. He was up and about the box and Law should have been keeping a closer eye rather than ball watching.

My thoughts exactly. Yes, he was reasonable going forward yesterday but was caught out again by being too far infield on several occasions. This happens time after time. It places unwanted additional pressure on the central defence and goalie.

[weeyin]

He is always so far inside it's criminal he hasn't realised it yet. Or if he has criminal he hasn't fixed the problem.

 

His awareness and positioning is murder at the goal. Tierney didn't exactly sprint from the other end of the pitch. He was up and about the box and Law should have been keeping a closer eye rather than ball watching.

 

Shouldn't right mid be taking care of runs from the opposition left back?

[ropy]

It looks to me that the back four defend the width of the 18 yard box first, then engage any player further out. It looks tactical, Hammell is similar on the other side.

[superward]

It was more like the width of the 6 yard box for the goal. Pure pish.

[Kmcalpin]

It looks to me that the back four defend the width of the 18 yard box first, then engage any player further out. It looks tactical, Hammell is similar on the other side.

Maybe an element of truth in that I don't know but neither Hammell nor Law possess much positional sense defensively. This causes us problems and goals game after game. As Superward says though it was more like the width of the 6 yard box on Saturday.

[capt_oats]

It looks to me that the back four defend the width of the 18 yard box first, then engage any player further out. It looks tactical, Hammell is similar on the other side.

We were the same against United at FP too.

 

I've not seen Laing play at RB as yet, granted it's a small sample of games, but out of curiosity was it the same with him in there?

[Kmcalpin]

We were the same against United at FP too.

 

I've not seen Laing play at RB as yet, granted it's a small sample of games, but out of curiosity was it the same with him in there?

A bit like that. From memory not so bad at Hamilton but it caused us some problems at Perth especially when Spoony scored St Johnstone's first.

[Busta Nut]

Not a chance Law is getting grief for not picking up Tierney, however good/bad you think Law is.

 

Are we suggesting a zonal style of marking? if Law picks up an attacking mid who drifts inside a bit to make space wide shouldn't there be someone in our team following the runner?

 

It has happened a few times when opposite fullbacks have set up a goal like that now.

[sbcmfc]

Not a chance Law is getting grief for not picking up Tierney, however good/bad you think Law is.

 

Are we suggesting a zonal style of marking? if Law picks up an attacking mid who drifts inside a bit to make space wide shouldn't there be someone in our team following the runner?

 

It has happened a few times when opposite fullbacks have set up a goal like that now.

We never have a balanced midfield as we appear to play with 1 winger who switches wings and 3 central midfielders.

 

This is the problem with Ainsworth and Johnson not having a defensive bone in their body, Lasley and Gomis aren't mobile enough, Pearson is made of chocolate....

[Bigeeze]

 

Shouldn't right mid be taking care of runs from the opposition left back?

^^^^ This is exactly the point. The mid should be covering this sort of run.

[superward]

I think the answer is probably somewhere in the middle actually.

 

Johnson should be keeping an eye on late runs in but was ball watching. Law was also ball watching but I think should have reacted much quicker as he was the one facing the right way to see the advancing Tierney. Instead they both get drawn in and don't mark anyone.

 

Tierney didn't exactly make the run from his own 18 yard box...he was well up the park.

 

Personally I think Law should have done better as he didn't have anyone to mark and had no reason to stay in so tight to the centre half.

[Kmcalpin]

Personally I think Law should have done better as he didn't have anyone to mark and had no reason to stay in so tight to the centre half.

Twice in the second half I saw McManus shooing Hammell out wide to cover emerging danger down that flank.

[superward]

I like the vision of a football player shooing another one. Haha.

[dennyc]

Both full backs, whether it by Law and Hammell or whoever else has played there under Mark McGhee, mostly position themselves within the penalty area , tight to the Centre Backs.

 

At the Meet The Manager event, MM was challenged about having everyone back for corners. He actually got quite animated and explained that less goals were conceded if the defending team swamped the box. He quoted statistics to back up his argument and advised the audience to watch the upcoming Madrid v Barcelona match and note how they defended corner kicks.

 

I just wonder if our full backs are sent out with instructions to play within the penalty area for the same reason....to limit space in the box. Maybe it's also to compensate for their lack of pace and inability to deal with a one on one situation. Midfielders are then tasked with filling in the wide areas when we are under pressure. Having listened to MM, I'm pretty sure he would not accept players ignoring his instructions and he does not seem to get too upset when the full backs position themselves as they do.

 

Although we continue to lose goals from the wide areas, in the main results have improved and less goals have been conceded. Recently teams such as Inverness have been unable to punish us although most teams do appear to target the full back positions. But it was a different matter against Celtic. The quality and movement of their players was too good and if it hadn't been for Ripley we could have been five down at half time. What I also found worrying was that at one point we had our top goal scorer filling in at right back, our most creative player doing the same at left back and two midfielders trying to cover the back four within the penalty area. No wonder we couldn't muster a worthwhile attempt at goal in the first half......Cadden's duffed shot excepted.

 

I get as upset as anyone when I see opposition players in acres of space being able to play balls into the box under no real pressure. But, until we manage to replace both full backs, I don't see the situation changing and we will continue to tie ourselves in knots attempting to compensate for their lack of pace.

[ropy]

Lots of analysis about stopping the cross coming in but what if we had someone marking their top scorer in the box? Would that have made a difference?

[Kmcalpin]

Lots of analysis about stopping the cross coming in but what if we had someone marking their top scorer in the box? Would that have made a difference?

Yes, it would. Time after time Celtic attackers managed to find space deep in our box despite us packing it with defenders. The great disadvantage of allowing opponents to get the ball into our penalty area and then marking them is that if you make a mistake or there is some freak occurrence there is no last line of defence. If they can't get into our box their chance of scoring is very much reduced.

[fizoxy]

Really worrying that he's scored almost 40 goals and no one from any team has chosen to mark him yet. Hopefully no one marks our strikers, or we will be fucked.

[steelboy]

It makes much more sense to keep things tight in the middle than creating big gaps in your defence by having fullbacks pushing out to the touchline.

[Kmcalpin]

It makes much more sense to keep things tight in the middle than creating big gaps in your defence by having fullbacks pushing out to the touchline.

The problem is that despite packing our penalty box and playing narrowly we still don't keep things tight in the middle.

[superward]

I think in theory the tactic of keeping it fairly tight with the back 4 and defending within the 18 yard box is probably correct with the wingers tracking back wide. But there needs to be some better decision making inside the heads of the defenders at times if we are saying the reason Law and Hammell dont move out wide is because its tactical.

 

For the first Celtic goal, Tierney was well inside the box when he crossed the ball. For me, a couple of things should/could have happened.

 

1. Johnson should have been more aware and possibly tracked Tierney from the edge of the 18 yard box in. Instead he was ball watching in the middle.

2. Law should have been more aware of the situation and taken a step wider earlier rather than being drawn into the middle ball watching also. He and Kennedy both move for the ball nearer the penalty spot when Johanssen has it before making the pass but are too far away to really do anything.

 

Anyway, it's done now and I hope we learn from the mistake.....but given its been happening all season I wont hold my breath!

[steelboy]

That's not tactics it's just Law being a terrible defender.