Callum McGregor

see all the we have so much strength and depth chat when the transfer window shut it really isnt the case . abildgaard doesnt look anywhere near fit in fact he looked completly * at one point. cant begin to describe how angry i was seeing forest and mccarthy coming on. with any luck mcgregors injury aint too bad watching mccarthy pointing at things aint good for my stress levels

 

All this chat about strength in depth. Look at our starting line up against St Johnstone when we had injuries last season. Dawson played 75mins after Kyogo went off injured.

Our team at the weekend will be much better than that in general.

 

half of them could be playing this week again ! but i take your point

 

We have squad depth, no reason at all why we cant weather injuries. The players just need to rise to the occasion when they are needed. That applies to those left of our starting XI too.

It can't be overstated how important Rogic was for us last season, not least of all because he stepped up for us when we needed him to in these games in December when our squad was decimated. He was a leader when we needed him to be, he kept his composure and that kept the inexperienced players around him calm. Who in our current squad has it in them to do that for us in McGregor's absence? Bitton and Rogic being released lost us alot of experience from our midfield in one swoop and has left McGregor shouldering possibly too much, which is why we are seeing the odd uncharacteristic mistake in his game this season.

 

The fact they had 70 odd yards of space to run into would suggest it wasn't the right position to be in.

He's supposed to be the deepest midfielder yet he's in line with Hatate as he passes it. Even without the poor touch he's gonna be in trouble bcoz it's a square ball across their 18 yards box. There's 4 of them in and around Hatate and Mcgregor.

Deepest midfielder means exactly that. He's there to provide depth he can't do that standing in line with Hatate. It invites their press.

Again tho, it's not all his fault. He's not a natural DM so that discipline isn't always there and there's still that desire to get forward bcoz that's his natural instinct as that's his game

 

It was a corner kick, something you either forgot or didn't notice in your haste to find reason to criticise Callum. Because there is no way anyone who knows anything about football is complaining about a CDM being stood at the 18 yard line for a corner. Juranovic was sitting deep, our CH were the ones who were way out of position.

 

DEEPEST midfielder. Its pretty self explanatory. Standing square to Hatate isn't being deepest midfielder.

If I was wanting to critisice him I'd point out; as many others have; his shocker of a first touch.

The point I'm making, that ur missing, is that if you play a natural attacking midfielder as a DM then he will be caught out of position as he was for both of their goals in the 1st half and the shaktar goal

Our CHs are out of position??

As you keep pointing out it was our corner kick. Where would you like our CHs to be at a corner if not in opposition box.
Our CHs have no way of recovering bcoz they are standing in the opposition penalty box waiting for a delivery when Mcgregor loses the ball and leaves us completey exposed

 

Callum was stood where you would expect the CDM to be stood during a corner set play. It's not occurred to you that they practice set piece routines and where to stand or that maybe it was Hatate that put too much on the pass making it difficult to control?

 

No its where you would expect him to stand.

I'd expect the deepest midfielder to be * deeper than the others. How many * times do I need to say it. Deepest means deepest.

There * all wrong with Hatates pass ur just desperately looking to absolve him of all blame

 

Thank * ccv and starfelt weren’t injured that time last year , people say we aren’t a 1 man team which is true , but it s amazing how a main player breeds confidence and brings out best in others, goalie defender s around him feel more confident and the midfield more confident of going forward, ccv a massive player for the team

 

Why are you being so aggressive? We are only having a discussion on a football forum for goodness sake. You very clearly forgot it was a corner in your orginal post and are now being majorly defensive instead of just admitimg as much.

Clearly something wen't wrong with whatever Reo and Callum were trying to do from the speed the ball came off Callums foot. Could be Reo put too much on it and Cal couldn't get it under control, could be the pass was decent and Cal just misstimed his touch, could be a mix of both these thingd lead to the ball coming off Cals boot like a rocket. Either way his positioning at a corner kick wasn't the issue.

 

His first touch being rotten was the issue. That’s the long and short of it.

 

That square pass is one of most dangerous passes you can play from a defensive point of view bcoz it's so easy to intercept or to put pressure on.

It makes no difference if its a corner or not his positioning is wrong. Either him or coaching staff should recognise the risk involved with it as if it goes wrong they are breaking onto 1 man (Juranovic) with 70 yards of space.

Had a look at corner from motherwell game that Hatate scored from its the same one the tried to work, and he's actually even further ahead than Hatate but difference is there are 2 players deeper than them (Juranovic and Welsh) on Wednesday there's only Juranovic.

So tactically something is wrong. Someone whether it's Mcgregor as captain/defensive midfielder or someone on the bench should recognise the risk, especially given its a team of the quality and pace of leipzig not * motherwell.
Again I'm not necessarily saying it's Mcgregors fault, I think a proper defensive midfielder would notice that risk and change his position whether he's told initially to stand there or not. If he drops 5 yards Hatate has a much safer pass and we don't lose the ball imo.

Mcgregor and Hatate stand 25 yards from goal either side of the D, I'm guessing the plan is if ball is played into box directly they are there for anything that is knocked out. But the ball isn't played directly into the box. As the ball is played to Hatate, Mcgregor should then react and adjust his position but again as I keep saying his natural instinct is to be attacking bcoz that's his game.

 

First touches being bad don't tend to happen for no reason. Can be a result of the receiving player switching off and being unprepared, can be a result of the delivery being poor, can be the result a bad bounce on the ball, or a combinations of all of those thing. It happens, who fans blame for it is usually dependent on whose fault they want it to be.

 

We need to buy someone of similar quality and rotate plays far to many games.

 

That first touch was one of the worst i have ever seen. I ripped the remaining hair off my head when it happened

 

Maybe, but it was not a hard pass he received and you just can't have a first touch like that in a CL game. He's not alone though in * chances up. It was a fantastic chance that should have been taken.

 

His shooting with his right foot is generally awful and even if he does set himself right he has 2 players closing him down and about 10 players in front of him and the goal.
The more you watch it the worse the whole thing looks. We are absolutely asking to be punished from it and we were

 

We had two good chances to score right before this happened and didn't take either.

Mistakes are going to happen and we will conceed, it's part and parcel of how open and attacking Ange wants us to play.

Ange said after the game players are going to make mistakes but as long as they make mistakes while trying to play positively he isn't mad or frustrated, it's when mistakes happen when we play negatively that he takes issue with.

Saying Cal is too attack minded to be a natural CDM and he should have been thinking more defensively for that corner, perhaps in another team set up you would be right. But that isn't how Cal is being asked to play. Abildgaard is going to struggle for us if he can't adjust and play more like Callum. Our best like for like replacement for Cal is actually probably Ideguchi in terms of his positive play, speed and quick distribution. But no idea how far out he is fitness wise, he damaged his leg pretty bad.