CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM
McAvennie: If Ibrox men bomb forward, Bhoys will destroy them
RANGERS are not for turning. Celtic see no reason to mess with a winning formula. When they meet on Sunday, something has to give.
And those finely detailed, intricately illustrated coaching plans drawn up with such diligence by the opposing coaching teams? One of them will end up resembling a Rorschach ink-blot test.
Given the steady stream of unflinchingly confident comments coming out of Murray Park over the last week, with several members of Mark Warburton’s first-team squad suggesting they would even stick to their all-or-nothing attacking style against Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, there is a genuine risk of hubris preceding a painful stumble.
Facing reigning Premiership champions who have banged in almost 80 league goals this season, surely there is no way the Championship title holders will send both full-backs bombing up the wings in a hell-for-leather attempt to disrupt Ronny Deila’s best-laid schemes. Really?
As for Deila, well, nothing he does may completely quell the clamour for him to abandon the lone-striker formation — and to recall Kris Commons for a fixture he graced with a goal and a whole load of mischievous scheming just over a year ago.
If we assume neither manager wants to be the guy who blinked first, even at the risk of appearing stubbornly inflexible, the clash of styles — neither overly defensive, both liable to give up chances to opponents of sufficient skill and daring — certainly won’t be boring.
Former Celtic striker Frank McAvennie, while unlikely to lose any sleep over the potential weaknesses in the Rangers blueprint, believes there are reasons for Ibrox regulars to be alarmed ahead of this swift return to Hampden.
‘Whenever Paul McStay or somebody like that ran by me I used to fill in for them,’ said the man mostly remembered for his penalty-box instincts during Celtic’s centenary season.
‘I don’t see anybody helping the full-backs at Rangers. They bomb forward and I don’t see anyone chasing to fill that gap. I think everyone’s just going: “I’m in my own wee position and I’ll look after myself.”
‘You’ve got to cover your pals. The manager shouldn’t have to tell you because you should do it yourself.
‘You can get away with it in the Championship. They won’t get away with it when they come up next year. And they can’t leave these two centre-halves against Leigh Griffiths — especially if Commons plays — because he’ll find them and he’ll destroy them.
‘James Tavernier and Lee Wallace both bomb forward. Normally one should go forward and the other sits in. And they’ve got one full-back crossing the ball and the other full-back’s getting on the end of it!
‘It’s good for the supporters to watch but there are only certain times you can do that. You can’t do that against teams like Celtic because they will punish you.
‘If I was a Celtic striker now, I would fancy my chances on Sunday.’
If there is one aspect of playing under Deila that McAvennie wouldn’t enjoy, it is the requirement of one striker to play on his own in front of a supporting trio. Not that he didn’t do it during his own playing days, at least on occasion. But he sees no reason for Celtic to remain so wedded to a set-up that, when it doesn’t work, can leave his old club looking stymied.
‘You’re not going to tell me this is better to watch than when I played,’ said the former Scotland striker. ‘It’s common sense, two up front is more attacking.
‘When you’re playing one up front, you don’t get left one-on-one. There are always a couple of defenders around you. Look at Leicester. They play with two up and people don’t know how to defend against them. It’s incredible. Defenders are so set in their ways.
‘It’s a strange one. Having said that, I don’t know who the second striker is — I don’t think they’ve got one.
‘Colin Kazim-Richards is too volatile to play in an Old Firm game. He could even beat my record of 14 minutes for getting sent off! That would be interesting, wouldn’t it?
‘But the biggest thing for Celtic this weekend is, with a confident Griffiths up there, you’ve got to get Commons on the park. I just don’t understand — and I’ll never understand — why he’s not playing. In my humble opinion, he’s the best player Celtic have got.
‘He can open up defences. If Leigh gets left facing two at the back — because the Rangers full-backs bomb on — then Kris is going to find him.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong. If you’re fit enough to be on the bench, you’ve got to be on the park. I think he brings more to the team than Callum McGregor or Gary Mackay-Steven. I just think he is a better player. Kris Commons is an absolute must. He’s got to start the game.’
It is indicative of the emotions prompted by this week that even Celtic fans happy with recent performances are prone to second guess every aspect of their team. Low-level dissatisfaction with individuals and the collective, not to mention the man who has pulled this unit together, are amplified.
Across the city, there is definitely enough bluster to suggest that Rangers harbour no uncertainty about their team. Or how they intend to approach this game. Underdogs they most certainly may be. Unless they’re all trying to pull a fast one, however, they’ll be aiming to put the bite on Celtic from the outset.
‘We just play the way we play,’ said on-loan Spurs all-rounder Dominic Ball. ‘We have had hiccups through the season but we have realised that, when we had them, it was because we stopped doing what we were doing.
‘We always reiterate that we win and play well when we do what we do. That is what we are going to do on Sunday against Celtic.
‘I think our team has stepped up when we have played against better opponents. When you do play a better opponent, you have got to lift your game.
‘Sometimes it is hard to beat an opponent at a certain level that is in front of you. You can play as well as you can but if they are not pressing you, then how can you do a quick one-two or a quick pass?
‘When you have a harder opposition who are pressing you and making it a tougher game, we all lift our game and play better. I think we will do that again on Sunday.’
Confident or naïve? Flying high or heading for a fall? Questions guaranteed to be answered pretty soon.
One of these teams will end Sunday writing their names in lights. The other will be lying in a low-lit room, studying those messed-up patterns for a sign of where it all went wrong.