Celtic have the bottle, Gladiator Giaky; 3 things we learned as Bhoys extend lead on rivals

Originally published at: Celtic have the bottle, Gladiator Giaky; 3 things we learned as Bhoys extend lead on rivals

Celtic capitalised on a Rangers draw away to Dundee United, dramatically winning 3-2 at home to Dundee in the Scottish Premiership. A Giorgos Giakoumakis double in the first half superbly turned around a Dees opener from a corner. However, the away side equalised in the second half through another set-piece. Celtic pushed for the winner…

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Great a win is a win but need to stop losing silly goals. HH

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Kennedy is the problem with set pieces the sooner he goes the better he’s the board’s spy

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I think 4 of the 5 we’ve conceded since the winter break have come from set pieces

We are an utter disgrace at set-pieces.This has got to be at the top of Ange’s hit list now. Starfelt cannot win a ball in the air against bang average Scottish players. But it can’t all be put on him. The assistant manager at Livingston made a good point on Sportscene, maybe we should get him as our defence coach instead of Kennedy. Our line is too high at free kicks, giving the opposition crosser a huge space to play the ball into for them to attack. Our defenders are running back to our goal while trying to defend it. This is rubbish tactics, especially when you have a goalkeeper who doesn’t fancy coming out for crosses.

A lot of weaknesses were exposed in our game yesterday. There was running off the ball by our forward players in the early stages of the game, but as the game wore on they just gave up, as they were never picked out. Somebody has got to play it long sometimes, doesn’t matter if it doesn’t always come off, because otherwise we are totally predictable.

If we are going to give away free goals every week we had better improve our crossing too. So many crosses were over-hit, Maeda’s and Ralston’s crosses for the goals the exceptions. Ralston may not be the most technical player in the team, but some of our players could learn from the way he crosses. He sweeps it in with his instep, wrapping his foot around it, with just the right pace and height for the striker to attack it.

Big GG truly arrived yesterday, we need to find a place for both him and Kyogo when he is back, they give defences different problems.

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The sooner Ange can bring in his own back room team the better.
The Defending was Pathetic from set pieces on Saturday in what was a potential 3-0 win even with a poor team selection and shape in general.
What are Kennedy and Strachan doing during the week because that was the worst yet forget about Reo fixing his shin pad why was he even standing there?
and yes the line was too high and suited to attackers for the second goal.
i watch teams with clip boards and laptops but who is setting up our defenders ?
as the goals are the same type of goals lost last season.
The lack of Quality left sided defenders could be the difference between another season to remember in our history.
We need fluency and understanding in our movements at this stage of the season if we want to win with style. the whole left side was disjointed on Saturday from J,J to Maeda who did not link up well and when Maeda had the ball wide there was never the overlapping options Jotta had on the right with made it easy for Dundee to defend.
I felt Dundee would adopt a Livingston type approach and worried that Big wee Strachan as double agent and Uncle Mark would know lots about our week spots and where we still fail to defend well.