"Could'ne Keep Weans Oot a Close"

[Joe O'Rourke]

[SIZE=3:3bb0cf71]Aberdeen on Saturday was as bad as it gets, it ranks with the worst defensive displays I’ve seen, I find it hard to understand so I don’t know what Tony Mowbray will make of it. There have been managers through the years who’s teams could attack but not defend; a prime example was Kevin Keegan when at Newcastle; and even more recently Mark Hughes at Manchester City, and lets not forget West Bromwich under Tony, nice going forward; but couldn’t keep weans oot a close, is it bad play? Lack of confidence? Or a mixture of both? I wish I knew the answer, and I’ll bet you Tony wishes he knew the answer too.[/SIZE:3bb0cf71]
[SIZE=3:3bb0cf71]Its not ideal to go to a place like Aberdeen and play with a back four who have never played together, but they are professional players and should be able to handle it, and in Josh Thomson we have a kid who’s just starting out in his career, ideally he should be brought in with a senior defender to take the responsibility off his young shoulders, how many games have Caddis, O’Dea and Braafheid played for Celtic? One of big Jock’s famous quotes was “There is no substitute for experience”[/SIZE:3bb0cf71]
[SIZE=3:3bb0cf71]From the very first free kick swung into the box by Charlie Mulgrew there seemed to be panic in our defence, you would have thought it was hand grenades he was crossing in instead of a ball, but having said that his delivery is exceptional, to think he left Celtic over a fine for being late for a team meeting imposed by Gordon Strachan, Alan Thomson actually paid the fine for him, we never seen much of him after that either, typical Celtic, cut off our nose to spite our face. But getting back to our defence, or rather our lack of it, somebody needs to take responsibility, what would we give now for a Bobo Balde type centre half? Maybe if Jos Hooiveld gets a run in the team it might settle down, but I wonder now if we should have went the extra needed to get Sean St Ledger from Preston, he is certainly a leader on the park, and we really need that now, and that’s nothing against Scott Brown, you cant have enough leaders in a team, we need all the players to stand up and be counted.[/SIZE:3bb0cf71]
So what do we do now? I would suggest that they get on the training ground and start working towards improving in all areas of the team, if that means double sessions every day then that’s what they get paid very handsomely for. We must work towards amassing as many points as possible until the end of the season; I certainly haven’t given up yet. As for the Scottish Cup, although I want to win it, if we lose the League then the Scottish Cup means nothing to me, its only a worthy trophy if its sitting alongside the League Trophy, on its own it’s a consolation cup, the second trophy in Scotland and as another quote of Big Jock goes “Celtic jerseys are not for second best, they don’t shrink to fit inferior players” so lets all pull together, there have been dark days in the past and we have come through the other end, at this stage we have no other option but to keep going and ”Keep the Faith”

[irish eyes]

Joe I agree with you - our defence is totally dire. I have been "keeping the faith" but to be honest I'm really not sure we're going to win anything this season (though I do hope I'm very wrong). With all this talk of a treble I think we'll be lucky to get 3 winning games on the trot at this rate. As you say they have to get this problem sorted on the training ground - and FAST.

[kevza]

Joe I agree with you - our defence is totally dire. I have been "keeping the faith" but to be honest I'm really not sure we're going to win anything this season (though I do hope I'm very wrong). With all this talk of a treble I think we'll be lucky to get 3 winning games on the trot at this rate. As you say they have to get this problem sorted on the training ground - and FAST.

Ditto. I aint looking forward to the 28th.

[max]

The young guns seemed to do a good job on Sat.

[Joe O'Rourke]

Agreed Max, lets hope we get another shut-out at snake mountain, but i think they might have a bit more work to do, but the good guys always win in the end.

[max]

Hopefully Hooiveld is fit, he and young Rogne would be my first choice. The game might be a bit to much for Thompson, but I'm sure he'll step up to the plate if required.

[irish eyes]

Let's just go there and get a WIN - that will do nicely methinks.