Celtic v Benfica - Wednesday 7.45pm on Sky Sports 3

The 3 types of player we miss for me are as you say a Petrov, a Maloney and a Russell. A CM who gets forward as we have 4 who are all more defensive than attacking. A wide player who is very creative and cuts in, Commons for me is more of a central player than Maloney and a workhorse forward who chases everything and lifts the tempo like Russell, although Russell is also a very skilled footballer but his pace, work-rate etc are something we've not had from a forward since Larsson.

 

Excellent atmosphere tonight, particularly first half.

IMO a draw was a fair result. One of the most evenly matched contests I've seen in a while.

Bit disappointing though as I felt they were there for the taking tonight. We go into this group as major underdogs but they had nothing about them tonight to suggest that they're actually much better than we are. Maybe it was an off-night for them but we really need to take advantage of opposition off-nights in Europe.

I also think our set-pieces were poor and again these are situations we should be looking to take advantage of against (on paper) better sides as we may spend games mainly defending and struggle to create chances in open play. Lennon needs to get to work on this. For example, I found myself wondering why the * a brick-shithouse like Wilson was staying back for the corners. I'd leave two of Brown, Forrest, Izzy or Matthews (all have decent pace and little presence in the air) there and throw anything over 6' into the 18 yard box. May be a bit predictable but against Barca in particular who struggle in the height department we could profit from this. In the end we created little from corners and free kicks when we had 9 opportunities to get it right.

But ach, fair result, enjoyed the game and can't slate the players - they worked hard on and off the ball there was just no cutting edge.

 

:icon_mrgreen:

Wonders indeed. :smiley-laughing002:

 

We certainly do lack creativity when Brown and Wanyama play together in the centre of midfield. Commons was played in front of those two tonight to provide the creative spark but, in my opinion, Commons is not as creative as some people think he is. He's too busy shooting at goal from long range to create chances for others and that habit is starting to get on my nerves.

James Forrest also struggles with his final ball. It's one of the worst areas of his game in fact. So we will continue to struggle to create chances if we rely too much on him.

So yes, the lack of creativity in the team is a bit of a concern at the moment. Although the situation should improve when we get some of our injured players back.

 

Hits u in face every time esp playing decent to good opposition. Got a man in charge in afraid that will not change things anytime soon. Commons should have been told to not move from the centre of the field n pick holes, put his foot on the ball n take cracks at goal whenever possible.

 

On the BBC live score page, Lamont was making quite a few bitchy comments during the game.

Not read the match report yet but his bitterness was shining through.

 

I agree with this. Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and say the other team possesses more quality.

That performance tonight was no different from the Strachan CL teams for me. The only slight difference was the we lacked the special player to turn the game in our favour ie Nakamura or Scott McDonald with a wonder strike.

 

I really agree with this, we lack passes that split defences

 

We do lack it though, we do have creative players but we cant use it to the benefit of the team, because they are seen as the inferior players. McCourt, Twardzik, McGeouch, Stokes, Ibrahim - no one would class them as first choice yet other than them only Commons, Hooper and Forrest are really creative and they never get used correctly for me because we always usually need to use 3 centre-mids which stops Forrest, Commons, Samaras and Hooper playing together.

 

It's crazy how if you based your opinions on last season alone Kelvin Wilson would be down as a * footballer who should be nowhere near Celtic. Based on this year, he has been our best defender. Football is a funny game alright.

 

0-0 isn't a terrible result let's be honest. I'm actually quite happy at how tonight panned out.

On a side note. I'm quite surprised at some reactions here on behalf of Miku's performance. Some being terribly harsh in my opinion. Whenever called upon he never put a foot wrong whether it'd be holding the ball up, linking up play or attempting to create an attack. Think some expect the new boys to come in and score a hatrick no sweat and if not they don't get pass marks haha.

 

Yes yes yes

Do you think we need ki or nakamura type player in the middle would have loved to have Pablo aimar in our team

 

Thats fair enough but we were not playing the cream of Europe tonight. We were playing a team we have beat twice previously here and were there for the taking tonight had we just been a wee bit more adventurous. We didnt even make 1 clear cut chance tonight. Even late on we still didnt have a proper go at them. At this level i dont think we do have a lot of creativity. If Samaras is not playing we will struggle to create anything.

 

people go on about we were up against better players tonite which we all agree,but wot against st.johnstone on sat and last year losing out on treble,we need to address this problem

 

Ledley for Forrest would have given us that spark in the final third.

Can't wait until he is back.

 

Don't think it was.

 

I don't think Miku offered much to be honest, but I'm not overly concerned - he's just joined the club. Would've liked to have seen Lassad replace Forrest with maybe 10 to go as I felt Forrest kept giving the ball away and wasting possession even if his ideas were often good. It would've given us a bit of extra height for late long-balls and from watching Youtube clips he looks a similar type of player to Sammy (besides appearance lol).

 

Happened right in front of where I sit. From what I saw it was never a penalty and Forrest was probably lucky not to see yellow for it. I actually laughed when he ended up on the floor - boy needs to work on his diving as if it didn't fool a fan wanting the penalty it was never going to fool the referee