Celtic's bouncebackability question

 For those of us, like me, who sat through the St Johnstone match, I ask is it just one of those freak results or was it on the cards?

For me, I feel it was on the cards, we’ve had a fairly mixed pre-season in terms of results, however, I’m aware that results don’t really matter in pre-season which is true.

Since the start of the season, we’ve had three wins and one defeat in the league so by most teams standard it’s probably not too bad a start but the worrying thing is the way that we picked up the defeat.

I know it’s very difficult to do so when the fact is that we lost 1-0 but if you can, try and pick out a few positives. The positives are that on another day with a bit more luck and better finishing, we could have picked up the three points.

Twice we hit the woodwork, had a penalty saved and had, in my opinion, two strong penalty claims in the second half denied. Shaun Maloney was barged over in the penalty box and Paddy McCourt looked to have been tripped up.

I am also aware that listing those as positives isn’t really of much use to man nor beast since they never actually happened.

Now on to the negatives, don’t worry I won’t list all of them as I don’t want you to end up being suicidal before the end of the article.

The defence looked ropey and will need a massive improvement before the Sion match on Thursday night, well the whole team will need a massive improvement before Sion. With two centre-half’s and a left back out of action through injury, can we really blame anyone for that side of things?

Realistically, who can we say is our defence against Sion? Glenn Loovens out and Kelvin Wilson possibly out, Darren O’Dea on loan and Jos Hooiveld and Thomas Rogne pretty much out the of the picture, we really only have Dan Majstorovic. Or perhaps Victor Wanyama who impressed on Sunday.

I feel that young Adam Matthews merits a start on the left back position with either Cha Du-Ri or Mark Wilson playing at right back. I felt Cha done well against Sion and should get the nod based on current form although I think Mark Wilson will start.

Midfield was pretty awful at the weekend too, Kris Commons either looks unfit or looks like he has suffered a loss of confidence. I felt Shaun Maloney was pretty ineffective, Ki Sung-Yeung seemed to be playing pretty deep and Joe Ledley playing a bit more forward than normal.

Based on the goal threat that Ki has, surely playing him in as advanced a role as possible in the middle of the park would make sense? Or at the very least, having Ki playing more than advanced than Ledley would make more sense.

At times in the game, it was difficult to work out what the tactics and formation were for the game. Anthony Stokes never done much, he seemed to be drifting out wide and playing very deep too.

I think it’s fairly obvious to see that Stokes plays his best football when he’s up front with Gary Hooper. Now that Hooper is injured, we have the option of Georgios Samaras or Daryl Murphy to step in with him. We’ve already established that they two are no good playing up front with Stokes.

The question then has to be asked, is Stokes only effective when playing with Hooper, if so why ? He’s been part of the team for a while so should know his team mates style of play well enough to link up with them.

Or is the problem that other players don’t play well alongside Stokes? Stokes has scored goals for Hibs and scored goals for Falkirk in the SPL so surely that’s enough to show that he can play with someone who is not Hooper?

For anyone who has been reading my previous blogs, you will know that I have been saying that we badly need to get a new striker so again the question has to be asked where is our back up striker? Of course the only people who can answer that question are the people who won’t answer.

I fear that we will bomb out of Europe again and based on the St Johnstone defeat, I fear that we will struggle badly any time that our top players are either injured or suspended and I also fear the worst for our league title aspirations.

I know fearing for the league is neither logical nor sensible at this stage in the season but if we do have a few long term injuries, like Emilio Izaguirre’s, or even sell one of our players, Kayal, Ki or Hooper before the end of the transfer window, it looks like the overall squad isn’t good enough.

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