Celtic’s u-20 side ended the year with a disappointing defeat from St Mirren on Tuesday night.
Yesterday’s Development match against Blackburn Rovers meant that it was a very youthful side, with only Bahrudin Atajic and Patrik Twardzik over 18, that faced upto St Mirren.
The homeside included defender David Barron, former Celt Graham Carey and goalkeeper Chris Smith in their side but John Kennedy wasn’t putting the defeat down to a lack of experience.
“On another night we’d have handled things better,” the hoops coach stated. “The problem wasn’t St Mirren’s experienced players, we just never played as we can.
“Even without experience we can still be a match for any side. We believe in the young players and that’s why we play them even though we know there will be some inconsistencies.
“That’s something we have to work on, we’ll move on from this, highlight some things that we have to work on and in the long run that’s how you develop players.”
Kennedy added: “Mistakes were made, we were disappointed by the manner of the goals that we lost but the players have to learn from it, they know themselves that they were at fault. We have a lot to look at from the match.
“There were spells in the first half where we did well, we were bossing the game, winning the ball high up the pitch, I hoped that we’d kick on after going in front but it got a little bit flat, we stopped passing the ball around and never quite clicked.”
Despite the defeat Celtic remain three points behind league leaders Dundee United with three games in hand.
Celtic’s next match is at home to Inverness Caley Thistle on January 14 and is likely to be an afternoon kick off.
V ST. Mirren: Daniels: O’Connell, McNally, Findlay, P Twardzik: Atajic, McManus, Kidd, Lindsay, McMullan: Johnstone
SUBS: Fasan, Eadie, Kelleher, Donnelly, Henderson (McManus), Kirwan, McDonagh (McMullan)
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While I agree with John Kennedy’s comments that young players are inconsistent. I’d hope also that the management also learns…If they see that we are not kicking on from a good start then take action / adjust the tactics / style / tempo.
We failed to qualify from a difficult Nextgen group mainly due to making slow starts in most of our games. I think in only 1 did we burst out of the blocks….why was this not recognised earlier.
Such experiences should provide invaluable lessons for all concerned – only if we actually take onboard the reasons.
Did we fail simply because these teams were quicker into their stride than ours – better warm ups ?
Did we fail because other teams were more tactically aware ?
Did we fail due to lack of technique ?
Did a lack of high tempo or the ability to control the tempo cost us ?
This is development for both players & coaching staff alike, I’d like to think we are improving on all aspects of the game On & Off the park.
i support celtic but my son plays for st mirren youth. accept your defeat with grace john please.