There are many reasons as to why Celtic failed to get the job done against Hibernian at Easter Road yesterday afternoon.
We were too passive and timid in the final third. We didn’t have the physical tools to take advantage of the cross-balls we put into our penalty box. The manager didn’t make enough changes to try and mix things up during the game.
Whatever way you look at it, you simply can’t blame the way Hibs set up for us failing to have any success in the game. Frustratingly, this is something Ange Postecoglou looked to push post-match. He showed his frustration at how Shaun Maloney sent his team out to play, as he stated playing against low blocks make it difficult to score [The National].
You can understand what the manager is trying to say. Yes, it can make things tighter in the final third when the opposition sit deep and show little interest in coming out. But if it leads to us failing to score for the entire 90 minutes? That’s when we need some self-reflection and not a critical analysis of how the opposition didn’t let us score.
Callum McGregor was giving similar remarks post-match. He tried to claim that Celtic didn’t get what they deserved and that we dominated the game [Daily Record]. If we’re going to get serious – we dominated in areas where Hibs were happy with us dominating. That’s the brutal truth of what happened yesterday.
And it would be fine if this was a one-off. But Celtic have shown a real weakness in overcoming defensive opposition. Our last dropped points came against St Mirren who did the same in Paisley. The same goes for the 5 we dropped against Livingston this term. It took last minute winners to overcome Dundee and Dundee United at Celtic Park too as we struggled to break through their respective defensive banks.
Celtic should be able to find the answers regardless of opposition tactics
The truth is it doesn’t matter how the opposition sets up. Celtic should still be able to find the solutions. You can forgive it if we were still creating chances but just couldn’t find the back of the net. That’s not what’s been happening when we’ve faced low blocks.
What we saw at Easter Road yesterday was a flashback to the St Mirren draw in December. For long spells it was like the Dundee United game at Parkhead too. Games in which chances simply weren’t flowing throughout the 90 minutes.
We can blame the opposition for their approach, but what good will that do us? All we’re doing then is telling teams our weakness. You’re effectively inviting more sides to try it and that could lead to greater problems further down the line. To sum up, it’s simply not down to our rivals to play a manner of football that suits us.
That’s not to say Celtic don’t have the answers. They have a squad jam-packed with international players who should be able to dig deep to find the extra piece of quality Premiership opposition simply can’t answer.
Ange, for example, needs to look at why he didn’t use more than one substitution against Hibernian yesterday. We can hardly moan if we refused to mix-up how we played throughout the 90 minutes. We hardly tried everything at our disposal on the day. The likes of James Forrest, Yosuke Ideguchi, and Karamoko Dembele were all on the bench in Edinburgh.
Did Hibs play a style that was easy on the eye? Absolutely not, but Maloney likely knew how to halt us from watching the games in which we previously slipped up in. He modified his tactics appropriately even if they weren’t aesthetically pleasing. Let’s not get into the habit of moaning about how opposition teams play – champions generally find a way around that. Something Celtic have generally been good at throughout the campaign.
In other news, Celtic have a wonderful chance to show immediate progress over the next week
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