Europe a welcome distraction for Celtic?
Celtic find out their Champions league fate, but questions are asked of players after Kilmarnock draw
After the 1-1 draw with Kilmarnock on Sunday, it was a welcome distraction for Celtic fans to see who the club would potentially be facing in the Champions League qualifiers.
If Celtic beat KR Reykjavik in the first round of the Champions League qualifiers, they will face either Ferencvaros of Hungary or Djurgarden of Sweden in the Champions League second qualifying round, with both qualifiers played at Celtic Park - albeit if the Swedish champions qualify then the game MAY have to be played at a neutral venue.
But that distraction was temporary as disgruntled Celtic fans took to social media to voice their displeasure and amazement at how poor the players were on Sunday. Many pointed out the state of Kilmarnock’s artificial pitch and how it should not be used for top flight games. The usual suspects targeted Peter Lawwell and questioned the board’s failure to strengthen during the initial weeks of the transfer window - despite Celtic having a team that should really have won that game with ease. While others criticised individual players such as Scott Brown and Christopher Jullien for conceding the penalty, which was converted by Chris Burke to secure a share of the points.
And while Neil Lennon will, quite rightly, not criticise individual players in front of the press unlike those across the city - he will almost certainly be questioning the performances and the mentality of his players none more so than Jullien as he was once again ragdolled by a physical striker on an artificial pitch. He has until the 19th September to resolve those issues when he will face Lyndon Dykes and Livingston - another player he failed to get to grips with last season.
I won’t go into each and every individual performance as others can analyse the game much better than I can, but Sunday’s performance has shown that maybe the time has come for Scott Brown to take more of a step back from the first team - he was less than impressive and was party to the penalty incident that led to Killie’s equaliser. In fact, when Olivier Ntcham came on late in the second half he did more in those short minutes than Brown did throughout the game. And it begs the question, should Neil Lennon cut Brown’s playing time down and promote Ntcham to a regular position in the heart of Celtic’s midfield?
There was also a distinct lack of creativity in the final third with Odsonne Edouard starved of service, and while Ryan Christie scored a superb free kick is he really a number 10? He was pretty much ineffective for the rest of the game as was Elyounoussi - who despite early promise during pre-season looks to have turned from danger man to danger mouse. Maybe it is time for Lennon to ditch playing 4-2-3-1 against the so-called lesser teams domestically and revert back to the 3-5-2 formation which worked so well last term.
But…. and there is a BUT. Who would partner Edouard in attack? Elyounoussi is not a striker no matter what anyone says. So that leaves Patryck Klimala or Leigh Griffiths out of the current crop at the club - and while Griffiths is a tried and tested striker who has produced the goods for Celtic over the years, can he really be trusted to knuckle down and focus on the team when his off-field issues continually surface? While Klimala, despite beefing up and working on his game, is still untested and is certainly not capable enough at this time to be a main striker. So that leaves a move in the direction of the transfer market.
I fully understand why Lennon had tried to sign the likes of Steven Fletcher. He is an experienced striker who has been there and done it on both sides of the border. He is a target man and can give Lennon and Celtic a different outlay if the need arises, so would work well alongside Edouard who would latch onto the knock down balls that Fletcher provided. But Fletcher is not the answer in my opinion. He isn’t prolific. He hasn’t been since his days at Hibernian - when we tried and failed to sign him in the first place. He is at the wrong end in his career and will only be around for a year at most - and that will then see Celtic lose both strikers with Edouard almost certainly going to leave next summer following the 10. Yes, even after Sunday’s performance I am still confident of Celtic winning the 10. Rangers have shown me little to worry about in their three games so far this season. So Celtic need to bring in a striker that is a long-term signing and while Ajeti would initially make the move north on a season long loan deal - if he hits the heights of his days at Basle then he would be not only the perfect partner to Edouard, but also as a permanent addition to the Celtic team following his loan spell. But he is not and must not be seen as a replacement for Edouard I have to add!
While Jullien is getting pelters for his performance on Sunday, none more so than that snake Kris Commons doing his best to fit into the hun crowd within the Scottish mainstream media, I have to agree with Lennon. He is a ‘slow burner’ as it happened last year also BUT that is still no excuse. That is what the pre-season friendlies are for, to get rid of that rust or as much of it as possible. But hopefully, as the season progresses he will get back to his usual dominant self as we saw against Lazio and the likes last season.
However, with the departure of Jozo Simunovic at the end of last season - a correct decision given his injury problems and own issues with plastic pitches - Celtic are in need of another central defender and while El Hamed can play centrally or at right back we need someone in the squad to challenge the places of Jullien, Ajer, and El Hamed. Especially if Celtic revert back to a 3-5-2 formation. It would be great to find someone along the likes of big Bobo Balde. Someone who would scare the living daylights out of opposition strikers and make sure to leave a mark on them that they’d remember, but the game has developed on from the Martin O’Neill days and it would be costly to find someone who would walk straight into the Celtic team who would improve the centre of defence - after all Jullien cost £7 million. So I would turn to a familiar face - even if it is another loan deal. Filip Benkovic. His spell in season 2018-19 under the rat was a successful one for both player and club, and many fans expected Celtic to try to lure him back last season - only for him to remain at Leicester City wasted in the reserves before a January loan spell to Bristol City saw him perform well once again. So it makes sense to offer the player another loan spell at the club with a view to making it permanent come the end of the season - as he’s certainly doesn’t look as if he is in the plans at Leicester.
And then we have the problem that is Scott Brown. A dominant figurehead at the club for so many years. Replacing him will be next to impossible, but Celtic need to start doing so this transfer window, otherwise it could come back to bite us on the arse. His less than impressive performance on Sunday proved that not only can he indispensable and the key man for Celtic, but he can also be a hindrance. Whether it was the state of the pitch he was playing on, the fact he wanted to get stuck into everything, that his legs are giving way, or he was just having an off day - Lennon’s failure to replace him early on was counter-productive especially when Ntcham looked more promising when brought on. Ntcham has his own faults when it comes to playing domestically, none more so than being caught on the ball far too many times and is he really a Scott Brown-type character who likes to get stuck in, in the faces of opponents, and dominate midfield? I can’t see him doing that nor anyone else at Celtic bar maybe Nir Bitton although his game is different to that of Brown’s and that’s the crux of the matter - Leaving Brown out of the side changes the whole dynamic of Celtic’s midfield and therefore we need a player that fits that new dynamic rather than a carbon copy of Brown - who may not be very good when compared to the Celtic skipper.
While Nir Bitton could do a job when called upon to do so, likewise Ntcham, we need to dip our toes into the transfer market and sign a combative defensive midfielder. We had been linked with a move to James McCarthy last week, although that looks to have been nothing more than an agent releasing some fake news to make sure that Crystal Palace offer his client a new contract - but the former Accies man would have been an ideal candidate for Celtic’s new look midfield.
So as the usual doom-mongers from the School of Brian Damage cry foul over two dropped points two games into the season, how the board are throwing away 10-in-a-row and how Rangers are signing lots of players and we aren’t. Just remember not only would we rather sign quality than quantity [as the club across the city have failed to show us year in year out] it is also not a sprint, but a marathon. When we stopped the old Rangers from winning 10-in-a-row, we had lost our first team games against Dunfermline and Hibernian, and would also go on to lose two derby games against Rangers also into the bargain.
The league is not won in December as Rangers fans have seen now in two consecutive seasons, and neither is it lost in August two games into the season. Celtic do need to strengthen in key areas, but we don’t need to go overboard, we don’t need to have wholesale changes across the team, we need to inject quality and steel into it and serve as a gentle reminder to others in the squad who may just be a little too comfortable in their positions at the time, that they could lose their place in the team.
There will be many more twists and turns this season, but nothing I have seen from ourselves nor the club across the city fills me with dread of losing the 10.
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