I’LL say it: Kilmarnock’s meeting with Celtic on Saturday might not have been the greatest advertisement for Scottish football.
But so effectively did the wily Steve Clarke instruct the Ayrshire club’s players to park the bus at Parkhead that it was a pretty good sales pitch for his one-time Chelsea work colleague Brendan Rodgers employing a variation of those tactics against Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
Read more: Stuart Armstrong: Celtic can still pip Bayern Munich for a last 16 spot
When people talk about blanket defending, this was pretty much it. For great swathes of this match, you could have pretty much covered all ten of the Ayrshire side’s outfield players with the same 40m x 40m tarpaulin on the edge of their own penalty box, tactics which frustrated the life out of Celtic as they succumbed to their third home league draw of this young season.
The Northern Irishman, though, is more idealistic than that. He favours an attacking, passing style of play and feels that staying true to it even amid the most trying of circumstances is the only true way to properly develop it. If that entertainment factor is one reason why supporters of the Parkhead club have come to cherish his time at the club thus far, it is true nonetheless that some of the club’s fans might have wondered at times if a more pragmatic approach might be more prudent when teams like Bayer Munich’s FC Hollywood come to town.
Even big spenders of world football like Manchester United don’t always get this right, but midfielder Stuart Armstrong for one is delighted that Rodgers is so wedded to his principles. “I don’t think that [packing the defence] has been his style in any of the Champions League games we have played so far,” he said. “We are organised and try to control the game a bit more, we do not try and sit in and take what we can get.
“We want to go and attack - do what we are best at doing,” he added. “But equally against better opposition maybe we play on the counter a bit more than we do domestically. So you need to be organised and compact when you play these teams. Finding the balance is going to be important.”
Read more: Brendan Rodgers calls upon the spirit of Celtic Park to aid Hoops' quest against Bayern Munich
Celtic are attempting to buck a Champions League trend which suggests the gap between the first and second seeds, and then the rest, is growing, rather diminishing. “Obviously there are big European teams with world-class players, and you have to recognise the different budgets,” said Armstrong. “But what we focus on is that we are a very good team and we are in a very good moment.”
When does a scatter gun pattern of results become a trend? Well, Celtic will hope that this unlikely run of recent home league draws is just an aberration rather than a new normal.
While it was only their sixth draw from the 62-match run which now stands equal to that achieved by Willie Maley’s Celtic side during World War I, the draw with Kilmarnock followed recent home stalemates with St Johnstone and Hibs to leave the Parkhead side just a solitary point clear of the Aberdeen side they comprehensively defeated on their own patch in midweek. While that is likely to correct itself once Celtic have their Champions League commitments out of the way, Armstrong used the word ‘lackadaisical’ to describe his side’s efforts when it came to that final pass or bit of creative play.
“It is always nice to reach history - it is something you can look back on when you are finished and be happy that you were part of it,” said Armstrong. “But the occasion itself was a bit disappointing and the game, to get just one point when we were looking or all three.
Read more: Stuart Armstrong: Celtic can still pip Bayern Munich for a last 16 spot
“Since the start of last season, we have always been relentless in the league and making sure we take full points from every single game, not being lackadaisical in our performances,” he added. “Kilmarnock were very organised, very defensive minded and closed the middle of the pitch very well. But our job as attacking, creative players is to break through that and create opportunities, and I don’t think we really did enough of that.”
As pleased as Kilmarnock were to come away with the point, which combined with last Saturday’s win at Firhill and riotous draw at Ibrox in midweek for quite a Glasgow hat-trick, they noted too that their results could be even better if they stopped losing the first goal in games. A fine goal from Jordan Jones cancelled out Leigh Griffiths’ first half strike but Clarke will hope the recent good run continues against Hibs on Hallowe’en. “The old manager didn’t do much wrong,” said defender Stephen O’Donnell. “We just weren’t winning - we had a lot of close shaves that we could have won games. The new manager has come in and it naturally gives everyone a new a lease of life. He’s been in a couple of weeks and has kind of just been working on the shape. But I thought the equaliser was a goal Celtic would be proud of so it was great to score it.”
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