Ahead of today’s Celtic vs Rangers clash, the Hoops fans were entitled to feel confident.
The Hoops had bossed the last two Glasgow derby matches under Neil Lennon and, latterly, John Kennedy. Today’s crunch clash in the Scottish Cup fourth-round at Ibrox was a colossal opportunity to give our rivals a bloody nose.
Instead these Celtic flops leave Govan with a shockingly hapless 2-0 defeat at Ibrox. Indeed, first-half goals from Steven Davis and a Jonjoe Kenny own goal secured the result for Steven Gerrard’s side. Kennedy, meanwhile, was left ruing yet more missed chances, particularly at 1-0.
Here, we take a look at three things we learned from the massively disappointing display:
1. Rejects for a reason
We went into this game so confident about the prospect of getting at Rangers’ full-backs. Borna Barisic had shown major weaknesses the previous week against Hibs.
Instead, it was our own full-backs that got a total rinsing. Diego Laxalt and Jonjoe Kenny, both loan players from AC Milan and Everton respectively, were all at sea for the two goals.
Both of them came down Laxalt’s side, with the Uruguayan disappointingly beaten for the second in particular. His performance today against Nathan Patterson was nothing short of shambolic.
As for Kenny, he was the one who failed to deal with pressure from Ryan Kent – bundling into his own net at the back post. Not to mention the fact he consistently found himself in plenty of space going forward yet failed to run into it. That was exactly the reason we failed to exploit Rangers further defensively. The space was available behind Borna Barisic but he failed to use it.
It was no surprise to see Laxalt hooked at half-time for Greg Taylor. We may do well to ever see the Uruguayan in a Celtic jersey again.
2. Kennedy gets it all wrong
There was just so much wrong with Celtic today that it’s difficult to know where to start.
First of all, whatever Kennedy told them to gee the players up, it didn’t work. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a Celtic team play a derby with so little fight or aggression about them. What on earth was involved in the interim boss’ team talk this afternoon? His half-time chat wasn’t much better.
His decision to start with Laxalt and Kenny ensured that we lacked any sort of pace down both flanks. Odsonne Edouard, meanwhile, was far too isolated whilst Ryan Christie was too narrow to have any impact on the game.
Playing a diamond with two full-backs who don’t overlap was
3. Dominic McKay watches on as his massive task is laid bare
Watching on today was new Chief Executive Dominic McKay. Yes, you could attach so many negatives to that fact. The fact we didn’t manage to produce in front of the new man shows the scale of the task on show to him.
But the truth is that’s probably one of the few positives to come out of today.
It’s important that the new man is left in no doubt as to the problems we have at this football club. As to the massive rebuild that he has to oversee this summer and the scale of the players that just need to leave Parkhead.
He got a bird’s eye view this afternoon. He was in attendance at Ibrox and watched the same guff we did. From the playing field to the technical area, there was so much wrong with that.
This is why it’s so important that McKay arrives early. He needs to have an audit of the club ahead of the summer. An opportunity to see what everyone offers and who should truly survive the rebuild. Going by today, not many should.
It was a disaster from start to finish today. Hopefully, we see some genuine change next season.
In other news, John Kennedy provided a pre-match James Forrest update.
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