Rivals lack fight to halt juggernaut
CELTIC Manager believes teams are helping the champions by settling for narrow defeats. Graeme Macpherson reports
SUCH has been Celtic’s dominance of the domestic scene this season that losing narrowly has been adopted as a badge of honour by those who have found themselves in the path of the juggernaut. Brendan Rodgers has been the most merciless of drivers on this journey that, barring some unforeseen crash, will end with the club claiming their first treble since 2001.
Next to stand in the middle of the road are St Mirren who head to Celtic Park this lunchtime for their William Hill Scottish Cup quarterfinal tie, fully expected to meet the same fate as a bug careering into a windshield.
There will be no shame if the Championship side end up on the wrong end of a heavy buffeting, given superior sides have been unable to land as much as a scratch on the league leaders for most of the campaign. The statistics back it up: since the winter break Celtic have won all nine of their matches, conceding just two goals along the way. Both of those came in a match away to St Johnstone when Rodgers’ side ended up rolling in five in reply.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether teams try to attack Celtic or contain them, are at home or away, or face them in league or cup. The outcome is always the same. It has reached a point, Rodgers has observed, that teams have found themselves a goal or two down and decided simply to settle for it, rather than look for a way back into the contest.
There would seem to be a resigned acceptance among many sides – especially those in the ferociously-contested bottom half of the Premiership – that protecting their goal difference is more advantageous than trying to gain something from a match that has already slipped away from them.
Celtic have developed a habit of delivering false hope to the opposition in that they rarely score early goals. In those nine games played since the turn of the year, only once – the 6-0 Scottish Cup win over Inverness Caledonian Thistle – did they score in the opening half-hour of play. Whereas in previous seasons that would maybe have given the opposition hope, it now just looks like Celtic toying with them as they patiently seek out an opening. Eventually they always find a way through.
“There are a few reasons why we score late on,” Rodgers said. “Firstly, if you look at the early parts of a game no team is going to open up against us straight away. So when the game starts you are virtually straight into 11 players behind the ball giving you very little space.
“That is very difficult to break down so in order to do that you have got to wear them down. You have got to get them running and then through bits of improvisation and individual quality you get your goal. It then means the opponent has to attack you. If they don’t, then the new win for them is to lose one or two nil. For us we have to work away around the field to break the opponent down. But we have to have a belief that it will come. So that is the first thing.
“The second thing is the supporters. They are huge. This is why when I first came in I stated how important it was they become educated in the way we were playing because you cannot attack all the time. You are on the attack even when you play it back in order to go to the side to then go forward. Early on when I came in if the ball wasn’t going forward there was a little bit of nervousness [in the crowd]. Now I think the supporters understand how we are working and know when we are trying to break down teams in order to win the game.”
It has created a situation where almost every Celtic game features only one team trying to win it but Rodgers is not critical of those managers whose first thought is damage limitation.
“I can’t tell coaches how to work or how to have their sides play. I think for [the media] you probably look at it and think it would be nice to see two teams try to win but I respect where teams are at. There is no discredit on any opposition coach with a game plan and a way to try and win it.
“I think where our players deserve a huge amount of credit is for showing that they have more than one way to win. If we need to be patient, if we need to fight, if we need to be aggressive…they can do all that. In the winter break people asked me what we needed to improve on and I said it was our defending. And from that we have hardly conceded.”
Rodgers has managed to retain a core of first-team players for each match while rotating others in for the occasional guest appearance. When Gary Mackay-Steven lined up against Inverness in midweek it was for his first start in almost a month but there is an understanding that it is hard to chap the manager’s door when the regulars are playing so well.
“I was injured at the start of the season,” he said. “I had an operation on my ankle and I didn’t make my first appearance until December. So it takes time to get up to speed and really buy into what the manager wants from you. “You want to be playing every week but training is of such high standard which helps the boys who are not playing. It means you are ready when called upon and it’s an enjoyable place to be right now. There is a wave of positivity around the club and I’m happy to be part of it. I’d maybe want a few more minutes but the team has been doing so well.”
Where our players deserve a huge amount of credit is for showing they have more than one way to win