CELTIC V MAN CITY – PREVIEW
Just a few weeks ago, Brendan Rodgers schooled a man heralded as a genius by the media only to expose him and show him up as nothing more than a baldy fraud, and tonight he could do the same again, although it’s unfair to say that Pep Guardiola is in the same league as Mark Warburton when he hasn’t even got a Petrofac cup to his name in his career.
We could do the whole ‘Ones to watch’ thing and point out where the game will be won and lost tonight, but we all watch Match of the Day and we all know how good Man City can be, especially this season under their new manager, so let’s not patronise each other.
The key for Celtic tonight is ensuring we have a solid start and stay in the game after the opening twenty minutes.
The managers and players no doubt had some rousing Any Given Sunday style team talk at the Nou Camp, only to leave Lionel Messi himself after two minutes and go a goal down, so if we can avoid a start like that tonight it’ll be a huge improvement.
Tonight the big focus, as it has been since mid August, will be who is selected in goals. Whoever it is (most likely Craig Gordon), the manager has to stick with him and give him a run of games and stop chopping and changing things, as it not only looks stupid but the team really need a consistent goalie behind them to build up a decent relationship and understanding, to build on the single clean sheet we have managed this season so far.
Hopefully the team will not be as pandering as our abysmal social media mob have been recently and treat Man City the same as we would Kilmarnock or Motherwell and just play our normal game whilst being significantly more aggressive as well. I don’t believe in the ‘Respect’ culture, make them feel very unwelcome from the off and get right on their backs with heckling ranging from passive aggressive to downright sptiteful. Bigger and better teams than Man City have crumbled at Celtic Park, so cover every one of their players with as much venom and hate as possible.
Huge night for the attackers tonight as well, and they MUST take any chance that comes their way. It’s alright passing up a sitter against shit like we play in the league, because they’ll always get another chance to make that right but tonight, all we may get is one chance so like Eninem in 8 Mile we have to take it. I’m sure this information will be read by the manager tonight and he will thank me personally if we sneak a 1-0 win.
We want to see a massive improvement on the Barcelona performance two weeks ago, so tonight please go some way to making up for that Celtic.
