Muzzy_Larsson

Good to put Rangers back in their box yesterday. They are always the greatest team known to man in pre-season before a ball is kicked, every year we are told the Rangers are coming, never happens though. Thought Celtic cruised it yesterday without being spectacular, Lennon got tactics, game management, everything spot on. We had half a team out injured as well. Edouard is a majestic player and this will be the last year we have to enjoy him, wouldn't be surprised if he ends up exceeding Dembele and fancy him to have an awesome career himself.

Lingard must have caught Southgate with the cleaning lady, an imposter of a footballer and epitomises the modern day under achieving fame hungry footballer.

I get the feeling there are some unrealistic expectations set on Tielemans after all the hype around will he/won’t he sign in the summmer. I get he cost big money but looking at it the other way this is a player who is still young and didn’t have the best of times at Monaco and as much as I think he’ll prove to be a great signing in time it’s wise to temper expectations and keep feet on the ground somewhat. Yes he had a great 6 months on loan but this often happens with loan signings who then join permanently.

Lots of rumours on Celtic forums at the moment about Mendy.

Your logic is sound for the most part but there is one fatal flaw in it, the part where it would involve us spending money and successfully negotiating a transfer.

Yeah like I said really can't see it myself either.

I'm glad to see Pukki do well as he always seemed like a decent guy but he was absolutely terrible for us and it's pretty mad seeing him having ripped up the championship and now going on to score goals at EPL level. That said would be amazed if the goals didn't dry up somewhat as Norwich are inevitably going to struggle for long periods of the season. I think Merse dines out on the whole "i'm not very bright" act now and you can see some of it is obviously forced.

Don't shoot the messenger here as I've not seen/heard it from anywhere substantial but there was quite a bit of talk on some prominent Celtic twitter accounts last night that Benkovic could be coming back on loan. I can't see it for a multitude of reasons, the most obvious being it would look to leave you short in terms of cover.

I'm a massive fan of Benkovic and think he could cope with the EPL no problem. That said, he's now at the point where Soyuncu is becoming proven and ahead of him in the pecking order so it will be interesting to see going forward. Haven't seen enough of Soyuncu other than the past two games to compare properly tbh.

He’s looked excellent the past two games, if he keeps this up he’ll be a far better player than someone like Dunk and you’ll have saved the guts of £50m also.

Second half here has been like a different side, much better.

Maddison 🙈

Lovely delivery and header!

Being a bit harsh on him imo, was at his best at Newcastle as a striker or a second striker and he’s been flung out wide which isn’t his natural position. The bigger question id ask there is the merits of spending £30m on him rather than a natural wide player.

Yeah but why is the key here. if you had strong nature wide players the decision would become a lot easier and one of the midfielders would drop out.

It’s as plain as the nose on your face watching these first two games of the season. Why would you have to play one of your best players in Maddison out wide and out of position if you had the requisite quality out wide?

An unproven Barnes who can’t even get in the side here and will need time to develop, as much as I think he’ll be a useful player in time. Perez a good player but done his best work at Newcastle as a striker or second striker, another one being shoehorned out wide. That’s before you talk about the lack of strength in depth out wide. A blind man could see you need far better quality out wide. Given Gray seems to be persona non gratis you have two natural wide players in your squad in Barnes and Gray.

Because you haven’t signed the proper wide player you so desperately needed so he’s shoe horning Maddison out wide like a square peg in a round hole.

If you have followed Rodgers as a coach then you’d realise this has feck all to do with the SPFL. He was guilty of the same at Swansea and Liverpool as others have pointed out on this thread. For what it’s worth he didn’t get away with said performances either, in fact he got some unwarranted criticism after such games as despite being in a poor league there is an unrealistic expectation up here that even a draw is a disaster and we should be winning every game 5-0 and the likes.

Lennon is his mate so he’s not been criticising him at all and blaming the board for everything, they are indeed the ones who shoulder most of the responsibility but it smacks of double standards given the abuse he gave Deila and Rodgers at every opportunity. Cluj the other night and Lennon’s insane team selection were far worse than anything under Deila and Rodgers in Europe.

Yeah that's pretty much it, thanks for saying that far more succinctly than I did lol!

Tourists in the main, which is a problem imo as the EPL is becoming a tourist league in general in terms of match going fans, certainly the top half teams anyway. I visited the Emirates a few years back and it was like a library, have experienced better atmosphere at Motherwell with less than ten thousand fans. I really have a problem with ordinary fans being priced out of going to see their team, it's an afront tbh as there is more money in the game (in England anyway) than ever and clubs should be forced to subsidise a percentage of tickets for fans, particularly for children and those in lower income thresholds

As good a manager as Rodgers is on days when it doesn't go to plan that's generally how it goes. Seen it at Celtic and it became more frequent latterly. That's not in any way a criticism because on the days it does go to plan, of which there were tons we got served up some enthralling performances. The only part where there would be constructive criticism would be that on the bad days, when it's plainly obvious that you could play and pass side to side all day without breaking the opposition down he seems too stubborn with his principles to adapt and try a different approach, perhaps something a bit more direct.

Because he’s a pantomime pundit and he’s just controversial for the sake of it to keep himself relevant.

It’s more of a 4-3-3 they play which was why I’m curious to see where he fits in as he’s a number 10 type almost King is that right and they don’t really play with a central player in that role. Also Ojo has been playing wide for them not centrally.