The Band Tunes Up

Article by e-Celtic's James Payne

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Before I get to the main topic of this article I feel I must comment on last night’s World Cup Semi-Final in Belo Horizonte.

I have to say that despite the hoopla surrounding him that the media have rather overplayed the merits of Neymar – good but hardly great I would proffer- but I felt before the match that the loss of Thiago Silva rather tipped things in Germany’s favour. I did not though expect what transpired. Germany were exceptionally good of course, their superbly crisp passing, clever running on and off the ball and incisive finishing being an object lesson in how to play the game. They played with a freedom that I cannot imagine any team anywhere ever has played with in the first half of a semi-final. Louw must have taken one look at Brazil’s lineup, forgotten about any detailed tactics and just said ‘Fill your boots boys- this team is rubbish’. And boy, Brazil was awful. Even old farts like myself who wax lyrical about their great players like Pele, Gerson, Socrates, Careca, Ronaldinho and Cafu actually know that Brazil hasn’t been great for decades.But that bad? Just didn’t come into my reckoning.I have seen Celtic and Scotland being torn apart often enough but never so absolutely and certainly never so early in a match and I also doubt that Celtic and know Scotland have never been five up in 29 minutes in my experience. Brazil was bewilderingly awful. David Luiz and the Wayne Biggins of the Copacabana, Fred, have been singled out for criticism but Maicon and Marcelo were every bit as bad.

Oh and to pundits, commentators and journalists please stop talking about teams having ‘golden generations’. The expression was used years ago to describe a particularly promising group of Portuguese players such as Rui Costa, Paulo Sousa and Luis Figo and should now not be used to describe any country that produces three or four quite good players in the space of a couple of years.

Celtic plays its first competitive game of the new season next Tuesday and already there is a definite problem. Skipper Scott Brown picked up a hamstring injury in the first minute of Celtic’s friendly with Rapid Vienna on Sunday that is likely to have him out of the team for three months. Brown isn’t every Celtic fan’s favourite but he was badly missed in last season’s European campaign after he picked up a three match suspension for a fly kick at Neymar with Celtic wilting in his absence. Qualification for the Champions League proper already looked a difficult task but right now it looks a fearsome one.

There has also been talk that new coach Ronny Deila has been unimpressed with the levels of fitness he has found amongst the Celtic squad. I felt that under Neil Lennon that Celtic were never quite as fit as they had been during the time when Gordon Strachan was in charge. I think that part of the problem when Neil was in charge – especially post 13 February 2012- was that Celtic’s team never had to fully exert itself to win the league. There was something closely resembling lethargy on display quite often and that meant that Celtic found it difficult to get into a higher gear in European matches but also for cup matches at home against well motivated teams. Anecdotal evidence was provided that suggest the training regimen itself was less rigorous than in Strachan’s era. Critics of the Lennon era suggest that Celtic won games late on far less often than when the current Scotland boss was in control and was often a spent force before the end when it was a goal behind. I think there is probably something in the theory but in defence of the Neil Lennon teams I would point out that they did seem to be pretty good at scoring goals late on against tired teams often turning one or two goal leads into four or five goal victories in the last fifteen minutes.

If though the new boss wants the players fitter- preferably this will be both mentally and physically- then I think that is a good thing but wonder how some of the more experienced players will deal with being made to work harder when they are on the training ground and indeed being at that training ground more often than was rumoured to be the case under Deila’s predecessor. It baffles me that footballers – certainly the ones who play in Scotland- supposedly have so much leisure time and work so little on their actual skills. Ronny’s reputation in Glasgow- such as it is- suggests that whilst he is hardly a martinet he does expect his players to work hard. So, frankly, do I. Good luck to him but it may prove a trickier task to change the habits of some players who have got used to having a lot of free time. Allegedly.

Celtic has also signed a new goalkeeper in the form of the former Hearts, Sunderland and Scotland net-minder Craig Gordon. Gordon did not have a great reputation amongst Celtic fans who recall him charging up the field at a corner for Hearts late in a game that meant little to the Jambos and also for one or two high profile blunders such as virtually throwing the ball in the net to present Celtic with a winning goal in November 2006. I had no problem with the first but although he was agile I never felt he was totally secure- and he was always injured. If he is there to replace Lukas Zaluska as second choice to Fraser Forster I think it’s a shrewd move. If he’s there to replace to replace Forster then I think it’s a very risky move.

It is hard to imagine that by this time next week Celtic will have played a very important match. After last night I realise that anything could have happened by the next time I write this column.

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