OVER the forthcoming weeks and months there will be no shortage of moments at Celtic Park where viewers of a nervous disposition would be best advised to look away from the action. While a key part of Brendan Rodgers’ managerial modus operandi revolves around defending with the ball, employing a goalkeeper as a sweeper keeper and encouraging him to knit possession together with a series of fearless short and long passes, such tactics will be tested to the full by the high pressing favoured by almost all top European sides, including Bayern Munich, Paris St Germain and Anderlecht.
As such, St Johnstone on Saturday was as good a beginners’ guide as any to what Celtic supporters are likely to be subjected to on Champions League nights. In addition to effectively fielding two right backs in a bid to hamper the Parkhead side’s generally unstoppable left flank, the wily Tommy Wright committed plenty of his men into advanced areas in a bid to catch the Celtic backline out.
The ploy succeeded in generating a mistake from Craig Gordon which led directly to the Perth side’s bizarre opening goal, tucked in nonchalantly by Steven MacLean, who wrongly thought he was offside at the time, and took the visitors within nine minutes of ending Celtic’s invincible domestic run. The tactic caused enough anxiety to transmit itself from the Parkhead stands for Rodgers to issue one of his occasional post-match reprimands, a plea for patience echoed almost word for word by his skipper Scott Brown.
“We play our game no matter what,” said the Celtic captain. “It’s hard to listen to fans during the game because we are too busy being focused on keeping the ball down and trying to play attractive football. That’s what the teams do in European football and that’s what we’re going to find in the next few weeks against top teams in the world. You don’t just kick it long and play the percentage game. That’s the old-style Scottish football. We’re trying to bring in a proper European culture.”
It isn’t strictly correct to say that Celtic under Rodgers don’t play percentage football. What they do is back their own abilities and 99% of the time they get away with it. It may have cost them a goal on Saturday but then just think how many goals such tactics have harvested too. Having equalised through Callum McGregor with nine minutes remaining, the only real surprises on Saturday were the slow, laboured start the home side made - a nine-minute lay-off for a nasty head knock to St Johnstone’s Murray Davidson didn’t help - and the fact they couldn’t get the winning goal, twice hitting the bar in the closing stages.
“It’s risky, but that’s why we play good football,” added Brown. “That’s what we practice every day in training. Craigy builds it and we pass it instead of just pinging balls up the park long to Leigh. There’s not a lot of height in the team, so we need to play that way. Things like losing the goal on Saturday happen. We could all have been in better positions and could all have been more aware of where we were, but St Johnstone took their chance well.
Celtic’s usual Scotland squadron - minus Saturday’s goal hero, of course - have international week to get out of the way first, but already minds are focused on an epic first Champions League outing again big spending Paris St Germain and Brown’s sometime nemesis Neymar. The Brazilian was on the target in the 7-0 rout against Barcelona at this stage last season but Celtic have no intention of allowing history to repeat itself on September 12. “That’s a group which will be hard to get out of, but we want to try and get European football after Christmas,” said Brown. “The first game is really important and we’ll try to bed ourselves in. We know what happened last year. We started with a 7-0 defeat against Barcelona and kicked on after that, but we don’t want the same thing to happen again this season. It’s 11 vs 11. Neymar is just another player to face.”
Good news for Scotland supporters, as well as Celtic fans, resided in an energetic second-half display from Stuart Armstrong, his happily-resolved contract dispute apparently forgotten. “Maybe he was affected, but Stu’s a very intelligent boy,” said Brown. “He wanted to stay here and he wants to play for Scotland. He showed his qualities in the second-half against St Johnstone. He brings the legs now and I just sit in and tell him where to run!”
Particularly delighted with taking a point back to Perth was 20-year-old Aaron Comrie, who showed flashes of potential on his first start - even if he ended the day with fresh stitches in a head wound after his part in the first-minute collision which left Davidson unable to continue. His happiness owed in part to the fact that he was released by Celtic as a 17-year-old, having been a team-mate of Kieran Tierney in the Parkhead youth ranks.
“The last 15 minutes was relentless,” he said. “I felt fine til then. Every time he [Scott Sinclair] was getting the ball I was thinking ‘oh no’. At a club like Celtic there’s always boys coming through so there’s no hard feelings.”
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