Stephen McManus was in reflective mode as he looked back on Celtic’s dramatic victory in the Glasgow Cup.
Celtic’s u-20 side looked untouchable for 36 minutes as they raced into a 3-0 lead at Ibrox with Adam Brooks netting a double followed by a strike from Rocco Vata.
The fast passing game, creativity and concentration on delivering low crosses from the flanks was virtually a mirror image of the way Ange Postecoglou’s side has dominated the Scottish game.
Slackness at the back resulted in the home side scoring from a penalty in the 39th minute with further slip ups in the 48th and 88th minutes taking the match into a penalty shoot out.
Josh Clarke emerged as the hero with four saves out of seven paving the way for Corey Thomson to secure the trophy when he converted the 14th effort of the shoot-out.
The first half especially, our performance was excellent. We spoke to the players all week, and before the game, about the importance of our performance.
We showed everything we were capable of as a group of players, with their intensity and their quality.’
In the second half we kind of lost our way a wee bit. We never really played with that same intensity, and turned the ball over far too often. It was very much a game of two halves.
For 45 minutes some of our play was outstanding, and that is the way they have gone about their business across the course of the season.
So we are absolutely delighted with that. Of course, there are still areas we can work on. It’s been a long hard season for the players, and we have one more game to go with a friendly.
I watched the game last night and barring a blistering spell that lasted about 30 minutes in the first half where we scored 3 excellent goals Rangers were the better team.
Lawal was very poor I thought and his distribution at times from the back was terrible though he wasn’t alone in that.
If the plan is to play out from the back then I might suggest you first check you have the players with ability that matches the plan.
The defending on their first goal (the penalty) was so naive it let them back into the game before half time.
I’ve never understood the rational of defenders putting themselves in that position when they are cruising in a game?
You may as well let the attacker go and hope the keeper either denies him or he shoots wide.
Ultimately our keeper won the Cup for us with
3 great saves down to his right.
Goalie was great.
Generally in tactics and not just this match: Strategically, though, credit to Rangers* for highlighting that playing out from the back is not an imperative, even less so if it is predictable.