Celtic v Ross County - Match Thread

A journalist asked him today if this is a chance to see some fringe/youth players who could look to make an impression to stake a claim for the first team, his response was along the lines of 'no, that's not entered my thoughts, I will be going as strong as possible'.

How must you feel to be a fringe/youth player under Lenny? Must be demoralizing, his squad management is absolutely abysmal.

Who's to say players like Turnbull, Soro, Connell, Karamoko or some other fringe/youth players couldn't hold down a regular starting place if given the opportunity? I wouldn't put it past Turnbull/Soro/Connell to impress more than Brown (in fact I'm certain they would) currently in MF or even Karamoko impressing over Christie at RW, but we'll certainly never know under this manager anyway.

I expect to see a 3-5-2, he'll bring Barkas & Frimpong back in, drop Brown (surely) & Elyounoussi then take it from there.

Barkas
Elhamed Jullien Ajer
Frimpong CalMac Christie Laxalt
Rogic
Eddy Ajeti

We'll win because it would be harder not to & it will only continue to kick the can further down the road.
 
A journalist asked him today if this is a chance to see some fringe/youth players who could look to make an impression to stake a claim for the first team, his response was along the lines of 'no, that's not entered my thoughts, I will be going as strong as possible'.

How must you feel to be a fringe/youth player under Lenny? Must be demoralizing, his squad management is absolutely abysmal.

Who's to say players like Turnbull, Soro, Connell, Karamoko or some other fringe/youth players couldn't hold down a regular starting place if given the opportunity? I wouldn't put it past Turnbull/Soro/Connell to impress more than Brown (in fact I'm certain they would) currently in MF or even Karamoko impressing over Christie at RW, but we'll certainly never know under this manager anyway.

I expect to see a 3-5-2, he'll bring Barkas & Frimpong back in, drop Brown (surely) & Elyounoussi then take it from there.

Barkas
Elhamed Jullien Ajer
Frimpong CalMac Christie Laxalt
Rogic
Eddy Ajeti

We'll win because it would be harder not to & it will only continue to kick the can further down the road.
This failure to give our fantastic youngsters an opportunity to impress in the first team and develop has been driving me mental for a long time - even lsst season as we were winning for fun.

We will lose many of them and it will not inspire other youths to join us in the future.
 
This failure to give our fantastic youngsters an opportunity to impress in the first team and develop has been driving me mental for a long time - even lsst season as we were winning for fun.

We will lose many of them and it will not inspire other youths to join us in the future.
Mind no long ago looking at the youngsters coming through thinking we'll be some team in a few years if we can keep them together,wee Mickeys been unlucky with injuries but whats happened to wee Henderson,another big talent that cany get a sniff.
 
This failure to give our fantastic youngsters an opportunity to impress in the first team and develop has been driving me mental for a long time - even lsst season as we were winning for fun.

We will lose many of them and it will not inspire other youths to join us in the future.
The treatment of Soro, Connell & Karamoko in particular by Lenny has been quite frankly disgusting imo, they must feel so alienated/isolated, they've not had one competitive start between them in a Celtic shirt & no one can convince me that they don't have quality, this is just a simple case of poor, poor squad management.

Karamoko is a player that could have potentially made us multi millions (imperative during these Covid times) from a future sale if he fulfilled some of his potential whilst here, with the fans at the same time getting to witness a future potential star of the game, all of that is being pissed up a wall by Lenny & the board for allowing Lenny to continue as manager.
 
The treatment of Soro, Connell & Karamoko in particular by Lenny has been quite frankly disgusting imo, they must feel so alienated/isolated, they've not had one competitive start between them in a Celtic shirt & no one can convince me that they don't have quality, this is just a simple case of poor, poor squad management.

Karamoko is a player that could have potentially made us multi millions (imperative during these Covid times) from a future sale if he fulfilled some of his potential whilst here, with the fans at the same time getting to witness a future potential star of the game, all of that is being pissed up a wall by Lenny & the board for allowing Lenny to continue as manager.
Throw in Okoflex into that list too. We did well to grab him and he has been totally wasted. Now last week he posted about being hacked off - but rightly so. If our first team favourites were playing like 1970 Brazil then our fringe players would never get a sniff but we have been bloody awful and they still don't get chance even with the 5 subs rule!
 
A journalist asked him today if this is a chance to see some fringe/youth players who could look to make an impression to stake a claim for the first team, his response was along the lines of 'no, that's not entered my thoughts, I will be going as strong as possible'.

How must you feel to be a fringe/youth player under Lenny? Must be demoralizing, his squad management is absolutely abysmal.

Who's to say players like Turnbull, Soro, Connell, Karamoko or some other fringe/youth players couldn't hold down a regular starting place if given the opportunity? I wouldn't put it past Turnbull/Soro/Connell to impress more than Brown (in fact I'm certain they would) currently in MF or even Karamoko impressing over Christie at RW, but we'll certainly never know under this manager anyway.

I expect to see a 3-5-2, he'll bring Barkas & Frimpong back in, drop Brown (surely) & Elyounoussi then take it from there.

Barkas
Elhamed Jullien Ajer
Frimpong CalMac Christie Laxalt
Rogic
Eddy Ajeti

We'll win because it would be harder not to & it will only continue to kick the can further down the road.
I think in normal circumstances yes blood young players, he should have started the season with more youth, but as there pressure builds, there's no chance he will now. While supporters can say play this one and that one, it's his job on the line and he's under the kosh so he'll go with what his strongest team is in his mind, despite that same guff failing him time and again.
With Lenny its shades of Martin O'Neill, very little bringing players through and when available played the same 11 week in week out and ultimately ran them into the ground as much as he could.
 
I think in normal circumstances yes blood young players, he should have started the season with more youth, but as there pressure builds, there's no chance he will now. While supporters can say play this one and that one, it's his job on the line and he's under the kosh so he'll go with what his strongest team is in his mind, despite that same guff failing him time and again.
With Lenny its shades of Martin O'Neill, very little bringing players through and when available played the same 11 week in week out and ultimately ran them into the ground as much as he could.
IMO a really big problem too is that far too often he choose completely the wrong starting line up and tactics. So instead of getting well ahead early on then resting his key players while letting the fringe players come on without too much pressure to close out the last half hour. Instead we were terrible early on in matches then spent the last 20 minutes scrambling around at the end of matches trying the salvage a positive result.

And most frustrating of all is that we never learnt from our mistakes and repeatedly did this game after game after game.
 
I think in normal circumstances yes blood young players, he should have started the season with more youth, but as there pressure builds, there's no chance he will now. While supporters can say play this one and that one, it's his job on the line and he's under the kosh so he'll go with what his strongest team is in his mind, despite that same guff failing him time and again.
With Lenny its shades of Martin O'Neill, very little bringing players through and when available played the same 11 week in week out and ultimately ran them into the ground as much as he could.
MON is night & day from Lenny in relation to giving youth players an opportunity, Shaun Maloney, Stephen Crainey, Aiden McGeady, Jamie Smith, Stephen McManus, David Marshall, Liam Miller, Simon Lynch, Colin Healy, John Kennedy, Ross Wallace, Craig Beattie were all given starts under MON, probably some others that I haven't listed too.

Even though I can see the point you're making, still continuing to play Brown would be a far worse bet than any of Turnbull/Soro/Connell imo.
 
IMO a really big problem too is that far too often he choose completely the wrong starting line up and tactics. So instead of getting well ahead early on then resting his key players while letting the fringe players come on without too much pressure to close out the last half hour. Instead we were terrible early on in matches then spent the last 20 minutes scrambling around at the end of matches trying the salvage a positive result.

And most frustrating of all is that we never learnt from our mistakes and repeatedly did this game after game after game.
i agree completely BB, to be honest, a couple of games aside, he could have played the reserves for most of the first half this season. we've rarelt turned up till the other team score or we're chasing a late goal
 
MON is night & day from Lenny in relation to giving youth players an opportunity, Shaun Maloney, Stephen Crainey, Aiden McGeady, Jamie Smith, Stephen McManus, David Marshall, Liam Miller, Simon Lynch, Colin Healy, John Kennedy, Ross Wallace, Craig Beattie were all given starts under MON, probably some others that I haven't listed too.

Even though I can see the point you're making, still continuing to play Brown would be a far worse bet than any of Turnbull/Soro/Connell imo.
Yes and no
MO'N never had a choice but to blood youth, he blew his budgets on top operators and had to fall back on youth
i always remember being in Villareal and someone got injured and he had to bring Jamie Smith on, he spent around a minute with his hands outstretched looking at the directors box, look what i have to bring on
i have no gripe with 9 of our 11 being dropped
 
We need to win every game left in the season. It's that simple. It starts with Ross County.
Sounds a lot more simple with a competent manager, not so sure about Lenny.

For me a few things that need to happen going forward are clear, first of all we need to go two up top every game from now on, that doesn't include players like Christie or Elyounoussi being one of the front two (which Lenny has done a few times this season), that means selecting two players from the four natural strikers we have at the club in Eddy/Ajeti/Griffiths/Klimala, Eddy should always start when fit, so it's a toss up between Ajeti or Griffiths for who partners him (personally I'd select Griffiths due to the added bonus of his set piece deliveries)

Then Lenny needs to have an another formation up his sleeve as opposed to 3-5-2 that still gets two strikers up front, he needs to find an alternative back four formation on top of the 3-5-2 formation that also gets two strikers up top, something he has never done in his second spell, that could be a 4-4-2, 4-2-2-2, 4-2-4, 4-3-1-2, 4-1-3-2 etc, there are many variations, personally I would go 4-3-1-2 which gives extra protection to the defence.

He also needs to take Christie off set pieces urgently, they're far, far too inconsistent.

Brown needs dropped with immediate effect, not just for one game either, for the rest of the season, he simply cannot start another game at the expense of younger, fitter, better players in and out of possession.

Domestically, due to being dominant in possession, we don't really need holding MFs, so even CMs (Christie, CalMac, Ntcham, Turnbull, Connell) will be enough in there domestically, personally I'd play one holding MF between Bitton & Soro, but as I say, it's not really necessary domestically as opposed to Europe (which is now over).

If he's still here, a new GK is needed in January if Barkas doesn't prove himself between now & then (I fully expect Barkas to be brought back into the starting 11), but Barkas deserves the run between now & then to show what he can do.

Barkas
Elhamed Jullien Ajer Laxalt
Turnbull Bitton CalMac
Rogic
Eddy Griffiths

Bench : Bain, Ajeti, Taylor, Christie, Duffy, Frimpong, Soro, Ntcham, Elyounoussi
 
Sounds a lot more simple with a competent manager, not so sure about Lenny.

For me a few things that need to happen going forward are clear, first of all we need to go two up top every game from now on, that doesn't include players like Christie or Elyounoussi being one of the front two (which Lenny has done a few times this season), that means selecting two players from the four natural strikers we have at the club in Eddy/Ajeti/Griffiths/Klimala, Eddy should always start when fit, so it's a toss up between Ajeti or Griffiths for who partners him (personally I'd select Griffiths due to the added bonus of his set piece deliveries)

Then Lenny needs to have an another formation up his sleeve as opposed to 3-5-2 that still gets two strikers up front, he needs to find an alternative back four formation on top of the 3-5-2 formation that also gets two strikers up top, something he has never done in his second spell, that could be a 4-4-2, 4-2-2-2, 4-2-4, 4-3-1-2, 4-1-3-2 etc, there are many variations, personally I would go 4-3-1-2 which gives extra protection to the defence.

He also needs to take Christie off set pieces urgently, they're far, far too inconsistent.

Brown needs dropped with immediate effect, not just for one game either, for the rest of the season, he simply cannot start another game at the expense of younger, fitter, better players in and out of possession.

Domestically, due to being dominant in possession, we don't really need holding MFs, so even CMs (Christie, CalMac, Ntcham, Turnbull, Connell) will be enough in there domestically, personally I'd play one holding MF between Bitton & Soro, but as I say, it's not really necessary domestically as opposed to Europe (which is now over).

If he's still here, a new GK is needed in January if Barkas doesn't prove himself between now & then (I fully expect Barkas to be brought back into the starting 11), but Barkas deserves the run between now & then to show what he can do.

Barkas
Elhamed Jullien Ajer Laxalt
Turnbull Bitton CalMac
Rogic
Eddy Griffiths

Bench : Bain, Ajeti, Taylor, Christie, Duffy, Frimpong, Soro, Ntcham, Elyounoussi
lot's of thought went into that, but as i said earlier, we need to be the team that picks teams off, not be the team thats picked off
be more defensive, invite teams out and punish them with the space gained and the quality/pace we have
i think its that simple, stop conceding and create space in behind, we'll do damage
 
lot's of thought went into that, but as i said earlier, we need to be the team that picks teams off, not be the team thats picked off
be more defensive, invite teams out and punish them with the space gained and the quality/pace we have
i think its that simple, stop conceding and create space in behind, we'll do damage
What's your starting 11 & formation between now & January domestically?
 
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