That loss sums our season up. But this is not the Celtic that I know...
BROWN ADMITS LENNON’S MEN HAVE FALLEN APART
CALL it a dramatic downturn in form. Call it a collapse. Whatever way you want to describe Celtic’s demise this season, it has left their skipper scratching his head for answers.
In fact, Scott Brown admits he doesn’t even recognise the team who have failed to find any lasting consistency these last few fateful months.
A fourth league defeat of the campaign to Ross County on Sunday left Neil Lennon’s side 18 points behind their fierce rivals with just eight games left to play.
Jordan White’s header for the Staggies in the second half ensured John Hughes’ men jumped off the bottom of the table while denying the Parkhead side the chance to claim a sixth straight league victory.
Celtic’s dismal attempt to retain the title has been compounded by two meek European exits, with the Dingwall outfit also loosening their grip on the Betfred Cup in November.
And Sunday’s latest loss to the Highlanders drew a truly damning admission from the club’s combative captain
‘It sums the season up,’ said Brown. ‘It has pretty much been our season, to be honest. You go two, three, four wins in a row then have a defeat.
‘It’s been hard for us to take, to be perfectly honest. That’s not Celtic, that’s not us. We know we’ve not played as well as we possibly could have.’
It leaves Celtic facing the distinct possibility of Rangers travelling to Celtic Park on March 21 needing a point to be confirmed as champions. Were Lennon’s men to beat Aberdeen and Dundee United with Rangers also taking full points from Livingston and St Mirren, Steven Gerrard’s men would journey across the city needing a draw to make certain of the title arithmetically.
Asked where Celtic go from here, Brown replied: ‘We’ll take it one game at a time and we look forward to playing next week. We’ve got to focus on that game and make sure we’re ready.
‘The gaffer’s got to make sure he’s got the best team out there possible and that we get a result and get back to winning ways as quickly as possible.
‘That’s what this club is all about and this season’s not been great for us, to be perfectly honest. The performance against Ross County probably sums up our season. We played not too bad throughout the 90 minutes, concede a goal and lose 1-0.
‘We could have scored two or three goals but we’ve got to take it on the chin and defend set-pieces a lot better as a team as well.’
Celtic’s current weakness in that area was underscored by a revealing statistic from Sky Sports that stated 43 per cent of the goals they have conceded this season have come from set plays.
When Jonjoe Kenny clipped the ankles of Harry Paton on Sunday, Celtic fans watching TV pictures in their living rooms shuffled uncomfortably on their sofas. Long gone are the days when Johan Mjallby or Bobo Balde would treat any delivery into the penalty box as a personal affront.
Paton’s delivery duly caught Celtic’s defence ballwatching. Showing the required desire to get on the end of the in-swinger, White timed his jump to perfection and scored with embarrassing ease.
Lennon (right) reflected: ‘It’s been a real weakness of ours this season. It’s really, really poor.
‘I can’t do it for them. It wasn’t a problem for us last season, but it has been a real problem this season with more or less the same personnel. You have to go and head the ball. You want to block runners.
‘I don’t see us getting any free headers in the opposition box, but I have seen it plenty of times for us. It’s not good enough.’
Lennon and his backroom staff have tried to eradicate the problem with work on the training ground. Yet, still it persists.
So either the players are unwilling to carry out instructions. Or they are simply unable to do so.
‘He was between me and Kris (Ajer),’ said Brown of White’s goal. ‘It’s zonal marking. We work on it and it’s how we do it. We keep a line. It’s part and parcel of football. People want to do zonal. Others want to do manmarking. We do a mixture of both. We can stop the run. We can head it better.
‘It’s those small margins in football. You lose concentration for a few seconds and he scores a header at the back post and gets a run on the lads.
‘We need to look at it and make it right.’
As for the finishing? None to speak of. Ross Laidlaw made a couple of saves but none that were over and above the call of duty. Ryan Christie had a particularly poor run of failing to even hit the target, but there was lethargy and a lack of potency across the front line. ‘You go late, into the 91st, 92nd minute and we’re peppering the goal and we’re forcing mistakes and errors and, to be fair, we still did that,’ Brown said. ‘It just wasn’t clear-cut chances that were falling for us. ‘It was half-chances and we maybe didn’t do enough in the final third for us to say that we deserved to win.’ Whether they were unsettled by County’s aggressive style or simply unable to engage top gear, Celtic’s midfield also badly malfunctioned. Callum McGregor had a couple of gliding runs but David Turnbull made several basic errors, with Aussie Tom Rogic showing none of the guile that had been part of the recent mini-renaissance.
‘Ross County had a game plan, stuck to it and fought well throughout the 90 minutes,’ said Brown. ‘It was a slack decision from us (at the goal). We could have squeezed the game. It’s small margins of error and we’ve got to take responsibility for that.
‘Every team misses chances, but we need to create a few more as well. The chances we created were from their mistakes. We need to play better as a team.
‘We just need to make sure the final ball is spot on and put on a plate for somebody.’
The five-game winning run Celtic enjoyed prior to the weekend was fooling no one. It is all very well ticking off victories when the pressure is off but, when it truly counted last autumn, they were found to be badly lacking.
There is at least one crumb of consolation for a support long past the point of feeling dejected. The looming prospect of seasonticket renewals means it is surely inconceivable that answers to the team’s problems will not be forthcoming.
We have got to defend set-pieces a lot better as a team as well