Celtic’s penchant for set-piece goals this season has attracted attention, as have the attacking contributions of defenders such as Stephen Welsh, Moritz Jenz and Carl Starfelt.
Welsh opened the club’s account for the season with a fine header against Aberdeen, while the latter two were both on the scoresheet away to Kilmarnock at the weekend.
It’s something Ange Postecoglou is now openly speaking about as being a Celtic weapon.
As quoted by The Scottish Daily Mail [17/08 print edition, page 67], the Bhoys boss said: “We’re obviously not the biggest team in the world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t impose ourselves in the opposition box when the need arises.
“It’s another bow in our armoury to hurt teams with and I think that’s important. Our centre-halves are contributing at the moment which is great, but it’s not just the starting XI, guys coming off the bench. There’s no doubt about it, we want to be a team that scores goals and has multiple avenues to do that.
“We get a lot of corners and set-pieces because of the pressure we put on opposition teams. That gives us the opportunity to get the ball into those dangerous areas so, from our perspective, it’s an important part of our game. If you’re in that right area you take your chances.”
Now being just over two weeks away from the first derby of the season against Rangers, it’s a ‘bow in the armoury’ that could be used to great effect in that one – if last night’s Champions League action was anything to go by.
Dutch side PSV punished the Ibrox side twice in a 2-2 draw from corners, giving them a solid result to take back to their own patch in the second leg of a play-off next week.
There’s a feeling Rangers didn’t cover themselves in glory defensively, allowing Ibrahim Sangare fire home after a bit of pinball and Armando Obispo to tower over his opposition to net an excellent header. The weakness was noted by many observers, with players even commenting on it in post-match interviews. [BBC]
This is nothing new to Celtic. In fact, one of the biggest goals we scored last season came after a defensive mix-up at Ibrox, when Cameron Carter-Vickers capitalised from a free-kick opportunity to fire home and give the Bhoys a huge 2-1 win.
While much of the talk around the Bhoys is about the system deployed by Postecoglou and the attacking flair that is shown in open play, it is interesting to hear the Celtic manager now speak so openly about our set-piece threat.
It could well be a big factor in the match on September 3rd.
In other news, Barrier remains tough for supporters as more ticket announcements made by Celtic.
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