Scottish Premiership Celtic V Motherwell Sat 15 Oct 15:00

[numpty]

An encouraging display and I'm sure 99% of us would've taken 0-2 at 2.55pm today.

I guess I'm in the 1%. I've been known to take a draw or a scrappy win before a game, but never a defeat, however narrow.

[Andy_P]

Positives and negatives.

 

I was apprehensive beforehand, and a little more so when seeing the youthful look of some of the team but it was far from the worst performance of the season. They could have scored a few more but we were never out of it, well until they got the second, and even though it was still a defeat it was night and day to our last visit there. Moult had one chance in the second half that I would have expected a player of his calibre to have done much better with but nothing really quite clear cut otherwise.

 

The main point of discussion for me from the game was the younger guys.

 

I'm presuming the inclusion of McMillan and MacLean in the starting eleven and Hastie on the bench were through necessity for on the face of it would seem quite an odd place to chuck young players in for their first starts. There's an argument that if they play at Parkhead there is no level of expectation placed upon them as you expect to lose anyway, but what if we'd been toed and say McMillan had been utterly destroyed at full-back? It could have had a really negative effect on the guy's confidence.

 

But the flip side to that of course us that if you are willing to start them at arguably the most difficult venue you can play at in the country and they've done themselves no harm whatsoever with their performances, then there really should be no reason why they shouldn't be considered against the rank and file of the division.

 

Whatever the reasoning it was pleasing to see them involved and I hope we'll see more of them in future games.

[1991]

I think for the first time in a long time we have a great bunch of young lads able to make the step up into first team, think we will see quite a few before end of season

[GrahamH]

"Thought the Scott Brown booking was a strange decision I thought.

 

I don't think he touched Cadden, and Cadden has tried to con the ref Kyle laugherty style, but the ref has booked Brown, so presume he does think brown has stuck his head into him.

 

I've never seen a booking for that, always a red card. Shat it? Moult should have probably gone too mind you."

 

 

 

I thought it was more that Brown stuck the ball in Cadden's face as Cadden was trying to prevent a quick throw.

[The African]

Never happy with a defeat, but we have had worse weekends when we have had an away trip to Parkhead.

Good to see that a good few youngsters made the squad and the manager thought that a few were worthy of actually getting a bit of valuable game time.

[ropy]

Was it McManus that left the ball to run in the lead up to the penalty, strange decision.

[milo]

Don't know what happened at the penalty between McManus and Samson but that is the single most avoidable penalty I've ever seen a team concede!

 

Absolute shambles! Imagine it had still been 0-0 when that happened?!?!

 

Pathetic!

[capt_oats]

Again it's not the first time there's been a complete breakdown in communication between the defence and Samson. Neither of the possibilities look good. Either McManus has left it for the keeper not knowing his goalkeeper's position or Samson's given his defender (another) bad shout.

 

Going purely on the highlights package the club posted I'd have to echo McGhee's post match comments on Samson too, penalty aside, though he did well the majority of those saves are ones you'd expect a keeper to make.

[Kmcalpin]

Just watched the TV highlights and both goals were totally avoidable being down to defensive errors. For the first the Celtic player arrives in the box and is completely unmarked, not tracked by anyone. Yes, he finishes well but he has the time and space in our box to do what he wants. The second, as has already been mentioned was a shambolic and totally avoidable error down to poor communication. Samson may have been culpable at the penalty, as the Captain has said above but overall his defence and midfield continually left him badly exposed and to that extent he did well.

 

Surprised at the large number of empty seats. Not a midweek game, a 3pm Saturday kick off and not the week before Christmas. I wonder what the official attendance was.

 

Worrying that our injury list seems to be growing again and that our only two left backs are unavailable. Certainly these are the kind of games that traditionally our managers rest players who are not fit. To finish on a positive note, good to see some young lads get an opportunity to gain some first team football.

[capt_oats]

Actually having watched the penalty incident back again it's occurred to me that it's something I've noticed fairly regularly this season with Samson in that he seems to get caught on his heels with back passes. He's often been slow to either read them and he's almost been caught out a few times with forwards closing him down. While it clearly wasn't a back pass yesterday and whether or not it's him or McManus that's at fault he's definitely caught out in terms of his starting position and seems slow to react.

 

As I say without having been near the park to hear whether there was a shout or not it's difficult to say but you can go through almost every game this season and find similar instances that could have cost us. So the fact that it's a recurring theme and not just a one off should be enough to highlight that there's an issue there.

[ropy]

Even if the keeper shouts, McManus has to usher the ball back, not just stand like a haddy.

[CrosshillWell]

That totally sums up McMannus for me.

[capt_oats]

Even if the keeper shouts, McManus has to usher the ball back, not just stand like a haddy.

That's more than fair. The ball's at most, 5 yards away from him. For him not to just deal with it is criminal.

[underboyleheating]

Was it McManus that left the ball to run in the lead up to the penalty, strange decision.

 

Don't know what happened at the penalty between McManus and Samson but that is the single most avoidable penalty I've ever seen a team concede!

 

Even if the keeper shouts, McManus has to usher the ball back, not just stand like a haddy.

 

I watched the game live on Celtic TV and I felt at the time that McManus should have done more. If I had to blame someone it would be 70/30 in favour of McManus. A defender of his experience should have protected his keeper and ushered the ball back safely.

[GazzyB]

Think they're both massively at fault. A poor poor goal to concede.

[Aidan bell]

I'm really pleased McGhee gave McLean a Start. It seems Mcmillan and Ferguson did ok aswell considering. Hopefully they can kick on from this.

[Tweed]

Think they're both massively at fault. A poor poor goal to concede.

 

Normally agree with your reading of the game, but completely disagree here. I think Samson only started moving because McManus was doing sweet naff all and I think the blame lies entirely with him.

[Pepper]

The more times I see it the more I'm convinced McManus is to blame, which is what I thought at the time. He's literally a yard away from the ball at one point then turns away. At the very minimum he should be positioning himself between the ball and Dembele but he was probably too bust patting himself on the back for it only being one nil at the time.

[Waldo]

Centre half's fault all the way. As the last man you take no chances but, I feel, people are looking to blame Samson for 'mistakes'.

[jonnymfc]

I agree here, i am a strong critic of Samson. However, today he was great. He couldn't do anything with the penalty, McManus, even, could have put Dembele under pressure, he, is to blame imo.

Centre half's fault all the way. As the last man you take no chances but, I feel, people are looking to blame Samson for 'mistakes'.

[Lukemfc1]

Had nothing better to do on Saturday so decided against my better judgement to go along..

 

Thought for the most part we did better than our recent outings at Parkhead. We looked far more comfortable on the ball despite the fact we didn't really create any clear cut chances. Our passing and ball retention was encouraging. I was sceptical at giving the young guys a debut at Celtic Park but I thought they were fine and perhaps they had a bit more fearlessness than some of the older squad members. The boy Maclean in particular looks like he could be a playler. Also Craig Samson had a really good game and pulled off numerous saves that kept us in the match, so hats off to him. Chris Cadden, I thought was tremendous throughout and by far our best player. His pace running the line is a real threat and I think with the right mentoring he can go very far in the game.

 

Negatives; In regards to the penalty it was clearly McManus fault, he as a senior member of our team should be taking control of that situation. Also Richard Tait looks completely out of his depth, I've tried to give the guy the benefit of the doubt but he really looks no better than Josh Law and that is saying something. I appreciate he was playing against a higher quality of player on Saturday but his defending of crosses is non existent. He gets turned every single time and does not press his man effectively. I can count on my one hand the amount of times I have witnessed the guy block a cross from wide. His defending on the whole is pretty poor. He is a bit better going forward but nothing to write home about. At this point I would be looking to the u20s to supply competition to him. Another grip from Saturday was Mark McGhee's mentality at the end of the game. 10 minutes to go at Celtic Park 1-0 down and we didn't look as if we were trying to win the game tactically. Granted he hasn't been great recently but one of the fastest, most technically gifted guys in our squad Lionel Ainsworth is left on the bench in favour of a 17 year old. No harm to the boy that came on but he offered no threat, I find hard to comprehend McGhee's thinking and I'd to hear in terms of this match what his thinking behind this decision was. I want to put it out there that McGhee has got a personal gripe with Lionel as he has consistently been overlooked in big matches. Against Hearts he offered more from the bench than the majority did for 90 minutes. I understand the work rate argument but it's my opinion that McGhee should find a way to utilise his talents from the starting 11 or let him go elsewhere. I guess this is more of a general feeling from the last few months but it irked me on Saturday that after paying £26 Mark wasn't using the best options at his disposal to win the game.

[Onthefringes]

How was he not using his best options at his disposal? Lionel Ainsworth is lazy & workshy. That's got nothing to do with a personal gripe of the manager.

 

As for the 'find a way to utilise his talents from the starting 11 or let him go elsewhere' chat. They did and tried the other too. As you can see not many on the uptake was there?

[capt_oats]

I understand the point about Ainsworth and I'll admit that I raised an eyebrow that he didn't get a run out but equally he was hooked at half time in the 7-0 and got the 2nd 45 in the 5-0 (where we conceded 3) as a counter I suppose you can point to his impact in the 2-1 win there last season. For all Hastie's 17 he's also a naturally left sided player Ainsworth's not (though in fairness neither is MacLean), he's also been in excellent form for the 20s playing wide left. Also with McMillan having been subbed off perhaps that used up one of the changes IDK.

 

Ainsworth's contract's up at the end of the season, in the summer just there in order for him to have left one of two things would have had to have happened 1. we pay up part of his contract and reach a mutual agreement or 2. a club comes in and buys him off us. Ultimately it's difficult to see where Ainsworth fits in a McGhee side. That doesn't have to be a personal gripe between manager and player, it's just one of those things. He scored a superb goal against Killie but I think the general consensus has been that the wide 433 with 2 wingers didn't really work unless you drop McDonald and just go with either Bowman or Moult through the middle. Were we to stick to the same shape then at the moment would you drop Cadden or move him to play Ainsworth? The alternative is to take Lasley out and stick Cadden in the middle with Ainsworth wide right as we ended up against Thistle, that might work as on option in the future but McGhee's given him several chances tweaking the system to find a way to integrate him into the side. The brief flirtation with 4231 last season (vs Killie and ICT) seemed to be almost exclusively designed to give Lionel a platform.

 

There's been enough chat about why doesn't McGhee give the younger guys who are playing well a shot. He gave a 17 year old who's been playing consistently well in that area of the park a run out and it's now "why didn't he throw Ainsworth on?".

[Lukemfc1]

Not disagreeing with the fact Ainsworth can be lazy but my point is that we had 20 minutes to get a goal away from home. No matter what you think of Ainsworth, of the people on the bench he has the most proven track record of 1. providing assists 2. scoring vital goals 3. making a match winning contribution. So my question then is why would you not put him on for the last 10/20 minutes?

Let me rephrase 'personal gripe' and just say McGhee doesn't fancy Ainsworth. I take on board the points you have made regarding the system but McGhee has actively went out and bought players (Bowman) in order to play this which goes back to my original point that he does not fancy him. I applaud McGhee having the bravery to put in so many youngsters at Parkhead but as a Motherwell fan it frustrates me to see someone of Lionel's quality as unused sub when the team was crying out for a bit of creativity

[capt_oats]

On the point about Tait I think it just depends what you're looking for. From my point of view he's contributed to a fair number of goals, reads the game pretty well from that position and has an excellent delivery. It may well be the case that he's suspect in certain areas defensively but at the same time he's still clearly finding his feet at this level.

There can be an element of confirmation bias at play I suppose, if there's the idea that say; "Tait doesn't block crosses", then it can be natural to notice and put more emphasis on the times he doesn't and overlook or explain away the times he does. He may not not do it as much as we'd like but he does block crosses and put in tackles in that position.

As an example of him in a positive sense defensively our equaliser vs Thistle stemmed from his interception of a through ball in our box (it was also his cross we scored from). You could counter that with his poor header that led to Accies first goal but in his defence him dealing with the ball in the first place came from a terrible shout from another player who had a much better view of the game than Tait.

Like any player we sign there will be positives and negatives to his game, if he was a new Zanetti or Maldini I doubt he'd be at Fir Park. There will absolutely be games he'll get roasted, equally though I'd say he seems to have enough about his game that could see him turn into a solid enough player, he's already chipped in with contributions for a number of our goals this season as it is.

 

For what it's worth we've scored 11 goals in the league so far this season, 3 have come from crosses by Tait (Cadden vs St Johnstone, Moult vs Accies, McDonald vs Thistle), so just over a quarter. Small sample I'll grant you but still. Probably worth noting Moult's wrongly disallowed goal against Accies came from a ball by him too.