Rovers tough tactics riled O’Riley and Co
MATT O’RILEY felt Blackburn were plain nasty in scrapping their way to a 2-2 draw in this not-always-friendly clash at Parkhead. He felt they stuck the boot in. And he has warned his Celtic team-mates to get ready for more of that at home this season as teams try to kick them off their pedestal as champions.
After Jota and David Turnbull had scored in the wake of a quickfire Sam Gallagher opener, visiting attacker Ben Brereton Diaz bent in a free-kick with quarter of an hour to play to leave honours even.
However, more concerning for O’Riley was the fact that right-back Tony Ralston, only brought on at half-time for Josip Juranovic, had to be taken off late on with a foot injury requiring stitches.
‘They were feisty,’ said the midfielder. ‘They were a bit nasty, I’ll be honest. They left a few on us and Tony’s boot was split in half.
‘We have to handle that. We are going to come up against teams, especially in the Scottish Prem, who are going to try and kick us a little bit to stop us.’
Of course, this season is about more than just domestic baubles for Celtic. Progress in Europe is essential after last term’s disappointments and, questionable as the evidence may be in preseason bounce games for forming concrete opinions, Rovers’ visiting support felt compelled to offer their thoughts on Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou’s chances of adding European success this season to last term’s unlikely Premiership and League Cup double.
Moments after Brereton Diaz’s equaliser, chants of ‘Champions League? You’re having a laugh’ boomed out from the away end.
Quite how prepared Celtic will be for UEFA’s premier competition by the time summer rebuilding is complete remains to be seen. However, it is hard to watch them and their commitment to pushing forward in search of goals and not fear big teams with big budgets will punish them unless Postecoglou re-evaluates his principles.
It is a thorny, old debate. Slightly boring, truth be told. Big Ange has made it clear how he wants to play and that’s that. We shouldn’t read much into pre-season games either, particularly when established centre-back Carl Starfelt is still out injured, but Celtic’s last three have been end-to-end goalfests.
They beat Banik Ostrava 4-2, drew 3-3 with Rapid Vienna and could have both scored more and conceded more yesterday. Gallagher caught them cold with the opener after 20 seconds, but they were sprung on several other occasions.
Postecoglou is understood to be keen to bring in a central defender and hopes to do deals this week, but seemed largely unperturbed by yesterday’s concessions and was clear when asked whether adding more physicality to midfield is part of his transfer plans.
‘Nah, it’s not my style,’ he said. ‘Our role is to dominate games in a collective sense. Blackburn are a big, physical team, but in the first half I thought we played really well and handled them no problem.
‘When we are playing our football and moving the ball around, we don’t need to rely on that side of the game. We have players who can be physical in their own way.
‘One of the goals was a set-piece and the other one was after 30 seconds. It is part of the process of where we are at. I still thought our reaction to conceding was really good, especially in the first 45.’
O’Riley, though, admits there have already been discussions on the training ground over how the side will operate in Champions League matches against higherclass opposition. ‘We have put plans together in training about how we are going to set up,’ he revealed.
‘When we play against better opposition, we’re going to have to be at our best defensively or you’ll get picked off. It is different from the Scottish league where people might go a bit longer, so we’ll have to be organised with our press.
‘We need to tighten up a bit. We’d rather make the mistakes in preseason. Back end of last season, we were really sound defensively and we are still getting into it.’
It was certainly some powderpuff defending that led to Celtic going one down.
Caught cold, they failed to take action when Jack Vale advanced to the edge of the area and were exposed again when his clever reverse pass found Gallagher moving through the middle to finish past goalkeeper Joe Hart.
Celtic were level just after the quarter-hour mark, though. O’Riley swung in a corner from the right, Kyogo Furuhashi knocked it into the path of Jota and Portuguese did the rest.
It wasn’t exactly pretty, mind. He sclaffed the ball and saw it end up in the back of the net after coming off the inside of keeper Thomas Kaminski’s left-hand post.
The goal that nudged them in front was hardly the embodiment of cold-eyed killer instinct either.
Referee Kevin Clancy awarded them a free-kick around 20 yards out after a foul on O’Riley. David Turnbull stepped up to take the setpiece and his low effort hit off a visiting player to leave Kaminski completely wrong-footed.
As the game became disjointed due to the number of changes, though, the visitors did get themselves level with 15 minutes to play.
Substitute Christopher Jullien gave away a free-kick around 22 yards out and Brereton Diaz curled it beautifully, low into the corner.