Brendan Rodgers yesterday outlined his commitment to Celtic’s playing style and confirmed that it would not change, even after the 7-1 defeat in Dortmund on Tuesday evening in the Champions League. Chris Sutton offers the Celtic manager some advice…
Celtic’s ambition should be applauded as the Scottish Champions went toe-to-toe with the Bundesliga side who reached the Champions League final last year. However at 5-1 down at the interval few Celtic supporters were appreciating the wisdom of Celtic’s attacking philosophy against all-comers.
Both Manchester City and Chelsea were beaten by Celtic in the summer tour of the United States and the likes of theRangers and Hearts have been easily swept aside in the Scottish Premiership. The Champions League opened with a brilliant 5-1 win over Slovan Bratislava and next up was Dortmund. Could Celtic’s thrilling football rattle the German side packed full of star players?
Well, the answer was as emphatic as the scoreline. Next up in the Champions League for Celtic is Atalanta away and Brendan Rodgers is determined to do it all over again, perhaps it will work against the Europa League holders, who knows?
Yet while there was optimism ahead of Dortmund, the Celtic support is perhaps looking for a more cautious approach against Europe’s elite sides and that includes Atalanta.
Today in his weekly newspaper column in Daily Record, Chris Sutton put forward an interesting proposal that should at least be worth of consideration.
Perhaps it will take one or more bad results before it filters through to Lennoxtown or perhaps Brendan Rodgers will be shown to be right in Italy and we can all put Dortmund down as a bad day at the office.
“It’s not tough to understand why Rodgers would consider taking the risk at kick-off of trying to impose that on to Borussia,” Sutton wrote in Saturday’s Daily Record. “He clearly felt Celtic’s football could be better than Dortmund’s press. And vice versa. You can argue the rights and wrongs of that with hindsight.
“What can’t be argued is that, very quickly, it was apparent Celtic were not able to impose themselves and, indeed, the polar opposite was taking shape. That’s the moment when you have to address it because being adaptable in-game is crucial,” Sutton pointed out.
“Listening to him afterwards, I got the impression Rodgers did see it, but the players had lost their way in that painful first-period demise and the slide was irreversible, but someone had to sort it.
“I’ll use an example of Arsenal. Most of us would agree they are an aggressive, offensive team who are easy on the eye when things are working for them. But Mikel Arteta and his players seem quick to understand when a tide is turning against them. The most obvious example came this season when going down to 10 men against Manchester City.
“At that point, Arsenal changed their plan. They got ugly at the Etihad. Simply put everyone behind the ball as they devised in-game that it was their best chance to get a result. They were 30 seconds from winning by keeping out City a full half of football.
“My point is that Celtic, when the waves started crashing against them and it became clear Borussia were in the mood, just kept doing the same things and kept doing them progressively worse. Players have to act sharper and smarter. Get streetwise, be mucky, break the game up, stop the opponents. Don’t just keep making the same mistakes.”
