TC Tactics A-Z

As an isolated incident I'm not sure Ajer could be getting involved in that just to a little fairer to him here.

Jullien should be controlling the situation bit ends up losing a tight tussle yards away from the original knock on.

Ajer has every right to expect his partner to win the ball and knock on to him, if he runs back and Jullien does then ball goes out.

If Ajer gets involved in the tango, by the time the ball steadies on the floor (the d) Killie are getting a free kick in a dangerous position as ref will * it and blow due to advantage being lost after all the pulling by Jullien.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Either way though, by and large im with you in a sense that our cb's need to be more imposing given their frames. hartson, sutton, jvoh, those type of guys would ruin our cb's regularly.

 

Aye we look very easy to break through..

It's been noticable for quite some time that our midfield and defence is disjointed when team's break on us. We're no tight enough..

9 time's outta 10 we dominate the ball and create/score enough domestically for it to be an irrelevance but it's concerning..

Broony looks so slow now. That means we have to sit deeper. He isn't looking as comfortable on the ball either when pressed..

We have the likes of Taylor on the left that doesn't have the pace to get back when he's gone up..

We have 1 and occasionally 2 centre halves that don't like being manhandled and bullied. They don't smash their opponents and also let the ball bounce leading to major problems in our third..

I'd like us to go 3-5-2 most week's. It gives the opposition 2 strikers to deal with which they can't handle. We then have a more balanced trio in the middle that can dictate and make things happen. We also have a back 3 that is more compact..

I'd also like to see us try a diamond sometimes out the blue as side's may start cottoning on to our 3-5-2 eventually..

Barkas

Elhamed/Frimpong
Ajer
Jullien
New left back/Connell

McGregor
Ntcham
Christie
Mo/Rogic as the 10

Eddy
Ajeti/Fletcher/Klimala

That kinda side does serious damage on tighter pitches..

 

Don’t care what formation but 2 strikers up top in all league games.Lone strikers against teams that park the bus is a waste of time.Lennon will sort it,he always does,he maybe doesn’t quite trust Klimala in a 2 man pairing yet until Griff is back.

 

If Jullien wins it, Broony or Calmac are getting on the ball. And it's not isolated, it happened last week too.

 

Players are gonna have bad days and make mistakes , the best form of defence is attack, you would have to fancy us to outscore any team in the spl so we should play to our strengths. It's nearly more important for us to attack away as it's where the majority of teams think they can get something off us. If we wanna play with two strikers maybe we should look at 41212

Barkas
Frimpong jullien ajer Taylor
Brown
McGregor ntcham
Christie
Edoaurd ajeti (hopefully).. connell would really do well in that left side centre mid. Soro could play instead of brown, we may need to strengthen and lb though as don't think Taylor is mobile enough for providing the width that would be required from him

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This guy is worth a follow/read on Twitter. Uses data to his analysis on the hoops. If you look back. His analysis on Brown needing to be phased out and why the 4-2-3-1 formation produces less goals than the 3-5-2.

Apologies if this has been posted before.

 

Ye his stuff is very good, saw he put out lot of figures on how boli was very underated or maybe given a harder time than the figures suggest he should

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Which is exactly why people need to take statistics with a very big pinch of salt and instead use their eyes and then use statistics where necessary, Boli is clearly a poor defensive footballer which we have all seen with our eyes and is not good enough for Celtic regardless of what stats say. Statistics can be very useful in terms of narrowing things down when there are big margins of data and letting you be more specific, but in terms of all this expected goals, expected assists ect it's absolute horse * tbf and theres a big reason why teams don't really give a * about it.

While we are on with XG yesterday we created * all so its no surprise the XG was 0.3 cant disagree with that but then anyone who watched the game could tell u we didn't look like scoring, XG as a model is absolutely full of * in my opinion, it doesn't take into account the person taking the shot, what foot the player taking the shot is using, bodies in the way of the shot, the trajectory of the ball, the keeper facing the shot, the conditions of the match ect all of which play a massive part, its all well and good taking a shot from the penalty spot and XG saying thats a 0.7 chance, but when there are 7 bodies in the way, and it's Greg Taylor on his right foot with the ball skidding away its not actually that good a chance then but will still be put down as one.

 

His stuff is very good and he’s been preaching for a while now about the 4-2-3-1 formation not suiting us and how Brown just doesn’t offer enough anymore to warrant a starting spot.

I agree with him, Brown offers next to nothing in an attacking sense and in these last two games he’s been getting bypassed defensively. One slip of the shoulder or a missed interception and there’s no way he’s recovering. I think Brown needs to be used as a sub coming on at 60mins to calm the game down and see games out not starting when we need to be slick with our passing to open teams up.

 

I am all for stats and reviewing them but they can be easily manipulated to tell the story you want them too.

The one on Christie giving the ball away a lot and being the worst player is misleading. He did have a poor game free kick aside but the reason he lost possession or failed at dribbles more than say Forrest, Moi or CalMac was due to him being one of the few that continually showed to take the ball and try something. For me Moi and Forrest has far poorer games than Christie. The two of them literally contributed nothing to that game, particularly Moi he would have been of at half time for me.

The shooting % chances argument is another that doesn’t tell the whole story, yeah the chances of scoring from some of those positions were low but passing the ball square or to the one player near the box marked by 3 or 4 wasn’t creating anything either.

On Ajer our defence had very little to do yesterday, Julien made a meal of a couple of long balls and crosses in to the box but by in large Killie camped in and around their 18 yard box, their striker was even behind the ball. My one memory of Ajer was him running the near length of the park with the ball unchallenged and giving the ball
Away of a 5 yard pass.

McGregor playing as one of the 2 in a 4-2-3-1 with brown must be where he is least effective apart from LB. He has been far more impressive in a 3 man midfield as a deep lying playmaker (Pirlo type) with two attacking players in front of him or as one of the attacking two with another playing the holding role.

As for Boli being an underrated option, anyone that knows football can tell he isn’t a player.

For me a physical striker would make a big difference to our team, someone who can hold the ball up, head the ball and tie defenders up. A CB who similarly can handle the physical side of the game would be another good addition. A left sided player either LWB or attacking LB who can go past a player. If I was being gready I would like a CM who could go box to box and be able to do win the ball and make driving runs, that would be dependent on perhaps 1 or 2 moving on or perhaps getting to see Connell in a competitive match.

 

While I agree with you and I remember going what the * when he made his debut in Sarajevo last summer I also think he maybe hasn't been given a fair shot, yesterday was actually made for him. I'm not saying I haven't watched boli and been worried about his positioning or passing but hes naturally a lwb and yesterday for me was the first time he played lwb.. 4231 isn't just dead with us it's been dead across the board for some time. Our problem is the players we have i.e Forrest elyounassi will struggle to play if we play 353

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That’s bang on.

The balance between midfield and defence in transition is shocking. When a team counters we get turned so easily and midfielder and full-backs are chasing their tails.

Centre of midfield is a place where we have an abundance of players but we are missing a destroyer. Someone who can sit in front of the defence and break down attacks before they escalate. Especially in Europe, the defence needs a lot more protection. Soro could do a job but I’d like someone who’s more physically imposing.

 

Yeah, your right, it can be manipulated to a slight degree in terms of players and passes etc. But think its near enough correct. Was merely offering his analysis as an alternative view. I'm not convinced as Boli as a LB, but more of a LWB/LM. But dont think he'll make the grade here.

Think there is enough comparable date from the previous seasons in terms of formation to conclude 352 is better suited for us as well as the slow decline of Brooney.

I think it shows a move to the moneyball (film) theory in terms and how it's is coming in to the game. Something I think BR was in to and took most of his staff to Leicester with.

 

I totally agree with the overarching points and thanks for sharing them. I am also fairly fond of stats being used Just pointing out where I think there can be more to it than just the numbers. We are better with 3-5-2 vs 4-2-3-1 as the latter leaves us with too few players getting in to scoring positions and packed defences crowd the single striker, not to mention Eddy prefers to drop off leaving us with no striker.

The decline of Brown is obvious to see he was very poor in the second half of Copenhagen away where the game got physical and would have suited a younger Browny down to a tee but he was well off the pace.

In fact when games get like that too many of our midfielders don’t like it. As good as the likes of Ntcham, CalMac and Christie are they all struggle particularly the later two when pressed. Ntcham used to be pretty good at using his strength and skill to turn out of those scenarios but I have not seen too much evidence of that recently.

We are overcrowded with numbers in CM but a strong destroyer type with a good engine would add a lot to our team.

 

Wrote this in feb about left back position.

Fast forward 6 months and couple games into the new season and still no resoloution.

If anything its worse, Hayes is away and Boli (well was away techinally) is going too.

We require a CB a LB and striker and we need these players ASAP to bring some good feel factor back

 

McGuire is spot on about us being easy to break through. Always seems to be a big gap between the midfield and defence.

As soon as a team starts countering us, it quickly becomes a 2v2 or even worse at times.

Brown’s lack of pace is a serious issue. It’s no coincidence that we look ropey in these situations when we have two centre backs with mistakes in them and a defensive midfielder who isn’t as mobile as he needs to be.

Another factor is our lack of physicality. Again, the two centre backs are bullied too easily, and our regular midfield 3 are all wee guys/not physical.

Early days for them but from what I’ve seen of Soro and Connell, they look like they’d be a good option to play in the Brown role. They have mobility, seem to play a lot of forward passes and they look robust in the challenge.

 

Think it's interesting to compare our results using the 4-2-3-1 to 3-5-2

4-2-3-1 results
Celtic 1 Rangers 2
St Mirren 1 Celtic 2
Celtic 2 Aberdeen 1
Hearts 0 Celtic 2
Celtic 2 Hibs 0

The only game in that where we performed well was the hibs game, we were lethargic at Tynecastle and horrendous away to St Mirren, huns game speaks for itself

We then changed to a 3-5-2, in which some of the results were
Celtic 5 Hearts 0
Motherwell 0 Celtic 4
Hamilton 1 Celtic 4
Kilmarnock 1 Celtic 3 (both home and away)
Celtic 5 St Mirren 0

Teams didn't know how to handle us, and this was with Simunovic/Bitton filling in at CB. During this period we did still use the 4-2-3-1, and to good effect, winning 3-0 against Clyde and Ross County. At the same time we decided to go back to using it against Copenhagen, in which we were abysmal both games outside a decent 25 minutes in the away leg.

We did struggle against Livingstone using the 3-5-2 but we also had Elyounoussi starting up front, which in itself was a poor choice considering Griffiths form prior.

New season and we go back to using the 4-2-3-1, mostly due to Griffiths's stupidity leaving us with only Eddy, Klimala and a clearly unfancied Bayo. We romp Hamilton easily (yet still concede) and draw against Kilmarnock in one of the most insipid performances i've seen from us since the 4-0 loss to hearts, if Killie decided to actually try and attack us I think we might have lost that with the way Jullien and Ajer were playing.

I think we would have beat St Mirren had it gone ahead, but at the same time going into that game against a team that will play more defensive, and also have a big lug up front in Obika? There was a real chance of a repeat of the Kilmarnock game.

We don't need to play every game using 3 at the back, but it should be our main formation. We can use 3-4-3 if one of our strikers is hurt, or push the wingbacks further up midfield, allowing elyounoussi and forrest to shine.

It also allows us a lot of depth on the wings. If we just want out and out wingers we use Elyounoussi and Forrest, if we want the best of both we use Frimpong and hopefully, our new LB(Similar to Frimpong if possible) and if we're up against it? Use Taylor and Elhamed.

 

I would have liked to go 4-3-3 in Scotland but struggled to fit square pegs in round holes with the squad we have.

Barkas

Frimpong
New CB
Ajer or Julian or Elhamed
New LB

McGregor
Ntcham / Soro
Christie / Brown

Eddy
Adjeti
Klimala /Toney

In probability we will go 3-5-2 and 4-2-3-1.

Why stop at plan b, have a plan c too.