Celtic dropped two points in a poor display at Kilmarnock yesterday.
Killie were physical, robust, determined and very well organised throughout and battled to a deserved point in a game where Celtic dominated the ball but failed to create much in the way of chances.
For some reason, we have reverted to the one upfront formation which was emphatically binned in the second half of last season.
Yes, it’s difficult to argue about formations when you hammer Hamilton Accies on the opening day of the season 5-1 but truth be told I still didn’t like our shape last week.
Against Killie, Odsonne Edouard was smothered in amongst a cabal of Killie defenders and our attempts to play through the middle were stifled by too many bodies whilst our overlapping fullbacks, so effective last week, failed to deliver much as they were continuously closed down.
The dry artificial surface at Rugby Park is not fit for purpose but we’ve dealt with it many times before even as recently as last January when we won 3-1 so no excuses.
All that being said we got off to the perfect start thanks to an excellent long-range Ryan Chrisite effort from a free kick on 11 mins which should have drawn the hosts out but then 13 mins later Christopher Jullien inexplicably wrestled Kabamba to the ground in the box and Chris Burke duly converted the penalty.
Thereafter it was frustrating as we failed to adapt either on or off the pitch.
Neil Lennon left it until 66 mins for some reason before making any changes and finally went with two upfront by sticking on Klimala to replace Elyounoussi who was woefully ineffective all day.
Truth be told though it made little to no difference.
We continued to try and play through the Ayrshire side and only Callum McGregor was prepared to shoot from distance.
Down the other end, new signing Vasilios Barkas made his debut in goal and had little to do outside of picking the ball out of the net from the penalty.
Kabamba bullied Jullien and Ajer on the occasions when the ball was booted up to him though he never actually had a shot on goal which for me is the most important aspect of a striker’s play, you know the whole scoring goals thing.
In saying that ours were equally ineffective.
A bad day at the office.
But we don’t have too long to feel sorry for ourselves as we now prepare to visit St.Mirren at New St.Mirren Park aka ‘The Simple Digital Arena’Â on Wednesday evening for a 6pm kick-off.
After finishing ninth in last seasons Premiership table manager Jim Goodwin has trimmed the squad drastically by releasing thirteen players and bringing in six replacements with the emphasis very much on defence.
They got off to a good start via a 1-0 opening day victory at home to Livingston but were easily swatted away 3-0 at Ibrox yesterday.
I watched the first half and it was pretty much-shooting fish in a barrel for the home side as St.Mirren were pinned back and struggled to get out not helped by their inability to string two passes together.
It’ll be different on Wednesday as it’ll be a home game on a much tighter pitch but expect them to replicate Killie’s tactics of sitting in and playing ten men behind the ball with the odd punt up to lone striker Jonathan Obika.
The question is will we deploy the same tactics again as seen in the first two games of the season or will we dare to go back to that which worked so successfully from January onwards last term and go with a front two?
I guess we’ll see in a little over 48hrs.
Of course, the draw with Kilmarnock wasn’t the only big news on Sunday.
We also finally discovered our Champions League 1st Qualifying round opponents.
It’ll be KR Reykjavik and we’ll face the Icelandic champions at home on the 18th or 19th of August so either a week tomorrow or Wednesday.
We’ve met them before at the same stage of qualification back in 2014 securing a pretty easy 5-0 aggregate win (1-0 away and 4-0 at ‘home’ which was in fact Murrayfield.)
This game will be a one-legged affair and we have the home advantage.
I mean anything else other than a resounding win will be a disaster but let’s not even go there.
If we do emerge from that one unscathed then a week later we’ll play the winner of Hungarian Champions Ferencvaros vs Swedish title holders Djurgarden which will offer a far stiffer test over one game but at least we have the advantage of being drawn at home again if indeed it is much of an advantage what with there being no crowds allowed in stadiums for the foreseeable future.
So a bit of clarity on the European front at least.
Sadly still no movement in the transfer market with rumours over the potential signings of both Albian Ajeti and Steven Fletcher continuing to circulate so let’s hope something happens in that department through the week as based on yesterday’s evidence we really are going to need more firepower with Leigh Griffiths it appears totally bombed out base don that fact he hasn’t even made the bench for the first two games back.
....Always A Tim! 