Now that all the wailing and whining has more or less died down, we can look back on Celtic’s loss to Feyenoord with a little more rationality.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Yeah, we got beat…though to be honest anything else would have been a bonus. And there was something else.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If you can stomach watching the game back, listen to the crowd in the first half.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You’ll probably have to turn the volume up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Celtic got it right tactically. now there’s a sentence I’d never thought I’d type.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At least until we decided to make it a handicap event.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Two young players making their first appearances at this level had a rush of blood to the head.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As they say, shit happens. The trick is not to let it happen again.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The optimistic side of me is hoping that’s the duff game out of the way.\u00a0 We’ve still got three home games to go.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The pessimistic side of me is fully aware that we have three home games to go.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Celtic Park is now on the bucket list of players to play at, as opposed to being a venue that scares the dinner out of them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It’ll be interesting to see how we deal with that.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One of the most alarming things about the defeat on Tuesday is the way we’ve turned on the probably already fragile confidence of those who have stepped into the fray in the absence of others.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Liam Scales has done well again, and until he was sent of, Gustav Lagerbielke was coping quite well.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Midfielder Thon was the obvious choice to replace a tiring Hatate, who unfathomably had his attitude questioned, but his enthusiasm got the better of him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We are down to the bare bones , not because the board haven’t backed the manager, but due to a series of unfortunate circumstances.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And we’re still in with a shout.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I expected Rodgers to approach this game differently, and he did.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How about we judge him at the end of the campaign ?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I’m genuinely worried about the reation of the home support should things not immediately go our way in the next game.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Whether or not it’s down to a sense of entitlement, or the media hype around the current bank balance, a sense of reality needs to sink in somewhere.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We’ve got five central defenders, for instance, and one on loan for emergency cover . Under normal circumstances, that’s more than enough. There may be an argument to have a look at why they’re all injured, but there’s certainly not an argument to rush out an buy even more.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They’d probably get injured anyway, but with a wage bill of around \u00a38m a month, it’s little wonder the money men have elected to decide what we have should be enough.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I ignored social media for the last couple of days, to an extent, as I’m tired of players, such as Luis Palma, being slated after just a couple of hours in a Celtic shirt.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And Joe Hart saved a penalty, in case you’d forgotten, but he’s still being blamed for conceding a more than decent free kick …that he got a hand to…after Kyogo Fuhruhashi had been rolled by a forward in the wall.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We’re a work in progress, and whilst there is an argument that we always seem to be a work in progress, we should maybe start to look for and encourage the positives that we are seeing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A full strength Celtic is far and away the best side in Scotland, it just needs to learn a little more for the higher levels, and that takes time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So give them that time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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