These Celtic Players

Lots will be written about Ronny and his failings so I will leave that to others as I have already vented my frustrations and seen history repeat itself yet again. This article is to take aim at the players and their abdication of their responsibilities as professional footballers.

I can accept that Celtic won't win all their games, I can accept that sometimes we will not play well.

What I don't accept is when our players lie down and accept that defeat is inevitable after a set back. We saw this on Sunday and tonight was worse. We dominated the opening 30 minutes without creating anything of real note but after 2 body blows in quick succession we just seemed to accept that victory wasn't possible.

Before I start singling out the culprits, I want to make an exception for Kieran Tierney, the young man never stopped all night up and down that left wing, making tackles, offering himself for the overlap and sometimes doing the job of two players coping with the winger and the fullback at the same time. Very impressed with the young man, standing up to be counted when so many other players hid.

So to the worst culprits

Mikael Lustig- what on earth has happened to him, his distribution was terrible, he kept getting caught when Aberdeen put him under pressure. Sloppy crossing, taking too long on the ball and his passing in general was woeful.

GMS- He did very little of note tonight and noticeably didn't track his runners, between him and his mate Armstrong in the first half they contributed to an utterly toothless attack. Weak on the ball and didn't cause anywhere near as much of a problem against a fullback who had pace to cope with him.

Stuart Armstrong- Shepherds crook at HT, his corners were woeful and he didn't do his defensive duties, whilst offering very little going forward.

Nir Bitton- seems strange to include one of our best technical players in worst performances but he went into hiding after they scored their goals. Sloppy once more with his passing and his first touch and physical presence seemed to desert him as Aberdeen players put him under pressure. When the chips are down you need your play maker to run the game. He did nothing.

Dedryk Boyata- So many poor passes out from the back, he couldn't foul the Aberdeen striker properly the first time so he took a second go and tripped him in the box. In my eyes he could have been sent off for denying a goal scoring opportunity. It was defending right out of the Efe textbook.


The referee had a shocker. Kazim-Richards should have been off for a blatant stamp and Boyata potentially for his moronic challenge on their Striker, the bare minimum result of which should have been a penalty.


Ronny will get it and rightly so for the teams lack of defending at set pieces, our inability to break down or fashion good chances against Aberdeen and on various other important occasions but I want to state that I am not prepared to be so forgiving towards the players that are supposed to be representing our club.

The bare minimum I expect, even from some of the worst Celtic teams I have seen is a never say die attitude, a refusal to accept defeat, to keep plugging away even if it is for a hopeless cause or results in a defeat.

Do I think we got that today from our first XI?

No

James Forrest came on for 25 minutes or so and touched the ball about 5 or 6 times. It was damning that there was not one moment in that second half that I felt the team played like they believed they could win the game. It was a curious mesh of playing styles, a few passes at walking pace from side to side, into the midfield, back to the defender then a long punt to Kazim-Richards. If Route One was the plan why bother with moving the ball side to side in the first place? As it was McInnes brought on Considine and the tactic was rendered ineffective.


Some of our players need to ask questions of themselves. They need to realise that if Ronny does get the sack the next manager is going to look at the videos of performances like this and suss them out.

The attitude stinks and no amount of managerial incompetence can hide the stench of bad attitude coming from our dressing room (I realise this comment is setting up a comment from a Rangers fan about our fans but its the best metaphor to describe the situation).

Honestly, we don't need players who only turn up when the going is good. If they don't fancy it they can fluck off in the summer.