Originally published at: Bhoys patience, Ange brilliantly calls his shot; 3 things we learned from Celtic semi-final win
Celtic are through to the final of the Scottish League Cup after a hard-earned 1-0 win against St Johnstone at Hampden. On a night of high emotion for supporters, who stunningly paid tribute to Lisbon Lion Bertie Auld on a number of occasions, Celtic finally managed to break down the Perth side thanks to super…
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tbf semi finals are never easy Hail Hail.
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Victory was the key outcome for us today and as hard as St. Johnstone made it for us, we deservedly got there.
Still not sure about Bitton in the midfield. I feel it shuts McGregor down for us as he often has to chase a lot of Bitton’s wasted passes.
Turnbull needs to take a bit more time with his game too. He promises so much for us but gives the ball away at important stages of attacks due to trying to rush.
Minor issues and we are still a work in progress. Let’s hope we can keep our momentum going for a bit 
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A very generous description of the game.
One more thing we learned is that Walsh is most definitely a cheat. How he couldn’t send off Rooney beggars belief. Banker said at the AGM the choice of referee worried the board. After his display today the club should be questioning the SFA but we all know the spineless ones will ignore it.
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I agree that victory was the priority today. Disagree 100% about Bitton. He brought calm to the midfield and defence when we found ourselves under unnecessary pressure. For me, Bitton was the man of the match.
We do need to stop kidding ourselves though. Possession control means absolutely nothing when we went 96 minutes without their goalie having to make a save. Apart from a block with his legs that is!
A huge portion of our possession is in our own defensive third. We can’t score from there
We are not making goal scoring chances.
As an extra thought, the referee was a complete embarrassment to himself, the SFA/SPFL and Scottish Football in general.
It was clear he was intent on punishing Celtic for calling him out at the AGM on Friday.
The real problem with the performances of these incredibly incompetent referees is that they are doing what they are instructed to do by their bosses.
Is it any wonder Scottish football is the laughing stock?
But as for the so-called “Ange-ball”, it is simply not good enough if we don’t make chances and win games!
Even our goal came from a half chance!
We are through to the final celebrate for f sake, we would be raging if honest mistakes robbed us. Hail Hail Bertie Auld YWNWA.
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I thought we controlled much of the game without tearing any trees up in the process.
A couple of decent blocks by a resilient St.Johnstone defence perhaps put a better gloss on it for them.
Too many Hart in the mouth moments at the back though that need attention again ,far too casual and lackadaisical at times especially the afore mentioned.
Whilst Bitton adds a defensive aspect to midfield I think we lose too much in terms of McGregor as an out ball and also going forward.
No sooner had Bitton been forced back into defence we started giving them issues with the speed of ball coming out from defence.
McGregor as always is key to this.
No shocks here Forrest supplied the coup de grâce he will be a very timely intervention come January I feel as will McCarthy as he too gets up to speed.
Couple of additions to the squad we will be looking good.
Aye, defense is still suspect any quality team will tear us apart. HH
January will be key to where we want to go Maeda would be top list. HH
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Brilliant result and fans tribute to Bertie Auld though not convinced we have learned from the Livi Match too many players failing to be direct tonight.
Felt sorry for our front 3 players as we continued to pass back or square and any problems in game were self inflicted.as we failed to keep tempo up, i wonder how many times we passed the ball back to Joe Hart ?
i don’t know what Ange was thinking bout with the 3 late substitutes bringing on
(i never touch the ball) Ajeti and the fouling Soro at 1-0 imagine if St Johnstone had scored in the final few minutes and we face extra time and pens with Jota and Kyogo.
if he want to rest them do it on Thursday in Germany.
i am so glad were have reached the final as i still believe by the end of December we will be the only team in Scotland who can win the Treble this season.
We won it for Bertie, Ange is building a legacy and a team that knows how to win ugly.as well as burying teams. Jota was totally unplayable he is the best player in Scotland right now. Watching Celtic.is a joy right now, we won’t win 5-0 everytime bit we did enough today and have a cup final to show for it. God bless you Ange 
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We have one big problem. We can’t break teams down. Just pass, pass , pass. We have no one in the middle of the team who can run at our opponents central defense, causing them to break formation and leave gaps. Maybe in January we get those players !! Idle passes along the edge of our own penalty area cause us problems. O K we have the ball but we are doing nothing positive with it. Anyhow i am sure Ange will sort it. He knows more than we do . HAIL
I thought Saturday’s semi final against the Saints was a frustrating game to watch because our tactics played into their hands. Every cross was easily dealt with by their lofty defenders and without Rogic’s trickery and eye for a killer pass, we struggled to find a way through and Kyogo was not in the game.
I thought lessons had been learned from our games against Livingston who also “park the bus” and mop up everything lobbed into their box. Evidently not!
Surely, the most effective way to break through teams that defend so deep is to pepper them with pacey “one two’s” in or around their box, using Jota, Forrest, Abada Kyogo and Turnball in fast “pass and move” attacks to turn and wrongfoot defenders. Isn’t that one of Kyogo’s main strengths?
At the other end of the pitch, I thought we regularly came close to gifting them a goal with the suicidal faffing around with the ball in front of our goal. Surely Ange can appreciate the risks with this approach, particularly if we are pressed by stronger opponents!
I hope for improvement in relation to these issues and recognise that we are still a work in progress. On the positive side, it was all about reaching the final which we did with a good goal from Forrest whom I’m so pleased to see back in the team! HH