One of the most important requirements for any Celtic player, is understanding the philosophy of playing in a predominately front-footed team.
I believe that it should be a given that any player deemed worthy of the first team will have the basic skillset of being able to control, pass and header a football. They should have an intelligence and the ability to beat a man, cross a ball and play in the areas that hurt teams. Defenders should be alert to danger and make the appropriate decision to challenge for the ball or stand off of their man.
That maybe simplifies it somewhat, but if any of our players CAN'T do these things, then they shouldn't be anywhere near the first team.
I guess we've been spoiled by the players that went before in the full-back positions, but the key thing that stood out about Big Tam and Danny McGrain was that they mostly got the balance right between bombing forward and taking care of their defensive duties. KT was an ok defender, but he got caught the wrong side a good few times. Taylor is a decent defender but lacks the quality going forward.
I believe that the Rosenberg boy wasn't a priority when we had KT and I also believe that PL has told Lenny, that if we've spent £6million on two left-backs, then it's down to him to make it work.
But you're bang on, Dil. A better class of opposition pick us apart too easily, that has been all too apparent in the Cluj, Copenhagen and Ferencvaros games (even the huns opened us up at will twice last season). A lot was made of the Lazio games, but we set up defensively for those two games and were able to counter-attack. In those other games we were opened up by long balls and a bit of pace and power. Not good enough for where we should be.