Good to see him back in action, even if it was at leftback Gone for alot of stick since he joined, inbetween the illness & subsequent death of his sister & the last injury hampered year he has shown flashes of what a great player he can become. Last nights game showed up a major flaw in Celtics play. On paper getting the ball out wide, having the winger beat a man & cross the ball for the striker to poke home sounds simple. Trouble is we play on grass.....against 11 other guys determined not to allow us to do that. It didn't take long for teams to identify our strategy and try to nulify the threat of McGeady by doubling up on him & pressurising our defence & central midfielders to stop the source of his supply. Its only natural for a defender with the ball at his feet and no short pass on to lump it up the park. It's fair to say Keane will be a starter as long as he remains fit, as good as he is he's no targetman who will tower above SPL defences to provide flick ons or hold the ball up too many times. There were a few times this ball was played and Fortune managed to hold it up or flick it on for Keane to chase, but generally the Kilmarnock defence were lapping it up & winning header after header. But how many times did Celtic pick up on the second ball? Keane was quick to notice this & at times would hang back to pick up the loose pieces, but when he got the ball he had few options around. When McGeady got the ball to feet and managed to get crosses in we looked good. You can't expect the guy to deliver the perfect cross everytime so invariably you'd expect the Kilmarnock defence to get a fair few blocks in..........but again the loose ball was picked up a Kilmarnock player with 10 yards of space at least. I appreciate that playing 4-4-2 with 2 attacking wingers & overlapping fullbacks requires the central midfielders to cover the counter attack but the gap between Keane & Fortune & Ki & Nguemo was huge!!! I like both players as do I like Crosas, but I feel they can't play together in an SPL game. They all like to sit deep, Nguemo likes to get stuck in & break down the opposition, Crosas & Ki like to pick the ball up deep & keep the ball moving. W have nobody who is busting a gut to get forward & support the attack. We lacked urgency in the midfield. We lacked somebody making runs from the midfield to pick up the loose balls. We lacked somebody to get past the strikers. The only guy we have to do that is Scott Brown He's not the most technical like Crosas or Ki, but thats why I'd play him alongside one of these. When he's played alongised Nguemo I feel he's had too much pressure to take control because Nguemo is limited in his passing ability. Playing alongised Crosas or Ki would allow him to concentrate on making those forward runs & causing a nuisance, which is what he does best. He's struggled to really find his role in central midfield since joining Celtic. He's been played as the defensive mided midfielder, the playmaker, the attacking midfielder in a 4-5-1 & even right midfield. We bought him on the back of his performances for Hibs, where he played alongside Thomson - a player similar to Crosas & Ki who is prepared to sit deep & spray the ball around. If played like this I would expect Brown to become known as goalscoring midfielder & finally fulfill his potential.
Ki and Ngenmo are to similer both want to sit and push the ball around nobody runs and moves defenders around to create spacewe need brown back in the team in the middle of the park doing what people call his headless chicken bit.
I can't believe Mowbray or any of his staff could not see that killie were first to every loose ball. We don't need a back 4 & 2 sitting midfielders against teams like this - thats why we fail to break them down!!
The goal at the weekend came the one time someone did run at people from the middle you would think OK that worked lets see if we can get more of that but no.
