Craig Levein never quite recovered from admitting that he sent out a Scotland team without a striker to play the Czech Republic.
The former Hearts and Dundee United boss wasn’t even streetwise enough to claim a False 9 or some other excuse. These days Levein sends himself up on Radio Scotland laughing off his various nightmare moments in management.
Yesterday Jim Goodwin took a major step down that route. A year ago he earned plaudits for piecing together a scratch team of St Mirren players that held Celtic, fresh from lifting the League Cup, to a 0-0 draw in Paisley.
??’You can’t justify these tactics. Aberdeen gave the game up’ ?
Aberdeen legend Willie Miller was not impressed with his former side’s approach against Celtic earlier today ??#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/GAOCeBVG0e
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) December 17, 2022
There were no Aberdeen players officially self isolating yesterday but their forwards might as well have been watching from the stand, left alone with virtually no scraps to feed off.
Six home wins out of seven, third place in the SPFL with a positive goal difference everything seemed set for Aberdeen to give Celtic a decent test. St Johnstone, Hearts and Motherwell managed it before the World Cup break.
Nineteen per cent possession is a grim statistic whatever way you look at it, some issues can’t be dressed up and glossed over.
Goodwin is free to play any way that he likes, his side are in third place this morning but Hearts, Livingston and St Johnstone are within striking distance with yesterday’s abdication going to be thrown back at the Aberdeen boss with every set-back he encounters.
Dateline November 2012: Celtic 2-1 Barcelona. Celtic had 12% possession in that match. No-one would have given a tupenny toss what level of possession they had if they’d won, or even drawn because that was a game many of the pundits expected (hoped) Celtic would drop points in… but we didn’t. Had Aberdeen won he’d have been hailed a tactical genius or if they’d even got a point they’d have said the end justified the means. They deny it but much of Aberdeen’s fanbase seem to have an issue with Goodwin’s origins and accent, given his playing and management career is practically a mirror image of Alex Fergusons up to 1978, although it’s unlikely he’s going to go on to win three league titles and a European trophy with them…….
Editor: I’m dubious of that 12% stat but Celtic had a very definite plan for that match, when a corner came in they were top heavy in the box for Wanyama’s goal. Lennon had little option for that match, as well as Tony Watt he had John Herron, Paddy McCourt and Dylan McGeouch among the substitutes. Goodwin had a pretty strong squad but chose to play in a certain style- entirely his right to do so.
You may be right about the percentage. UEFA website suggests 73/27 split but I’m virtually certain that the BBC stats at the time were given as either 88/12 or 82/18, and I took a screenshot of it though due to capacity issues it’s long since deleted. If I find it again I’ll refer to it. I’m not certain I agree with ‘Goodwin had a pretty strong squad’ as there were two 16 year olds and an 18 year old on their bench, compared to 5 full internationals on ours, and their front two have 14 caps between them – for the international giants of Cape Verde and North Macedonia – albeit they appear to be a pair of improving players. I don’t think ‘park the bus and hit on the break’ was an unreasonable strategy for Goodwin to take (although not easy on the eyes) given the mauling they took from Sevco before the break trying to play an expansive game. It just didn’t work, because playing like that for the whole match takes unbelievable concentration and energy. Due to the negative reaction of public and press, he’ll probably go entirely hung-ho on Tuesday and they’ll get slaughtered.
This is the graphic I was thinking of, which suggested 11% possession rather than 12%!
https://www.balls.ie/football/crazy-stats-from-the-celtic-vs-barca-match-63613
Sky sports suggested 16.4% possession –
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11833/8234043/celtic-record-famous-2-1-win-over-barcelona-in-the-uefa-champions-league
So it’s about as subjective as VAR when assessing handball in Celtic games!
I’ve also now forgotten what point I was even making…. Probably “only one stat counts”.
Enjoy the World Cup final mate, I love your work!
Editor: Against Barcelona Celtic had a plan to SCORE, Aberdeen clearly didn’t.