Best Performance
Celtic’s draw with Manchester City is a game that Scottish
Football should be proud of. Celtic bounced back from a very poor result away
to giants Barcelona in the previous round of matches when they lost 7-0. As a result many people were expecting a
repeat for Celtic to lose yet again.
The comparison between the amount of money that Scottish clubs get from
TV rights playing in the SPFL is almost miniscule from what many English clubs
get in Premier League. So for Celtic go
out there and score 3 goals against a team of superstars coached by the
supposed best coach ion the world seemed implausible.
Manchester City were on great form in the BPL and looked unstoppable
under Pep Guardiola who when the time came to play Celtic at Parkhead had still
not dropped any points as City manager.
The tactical genius from Brendan Rogers was to put massive amounts of
pressure on the Manchester club as they were playing out from the back.
Celtic’s star players really did perform on the night with Moussa Dembele
scoring two and a Kieran Tierney shot leading up to a Raheem Sterling own
goal. It will remain as a historic night
for Celtic under the Rogers Revolution.
Kieran Tierney has been putting in some fantastic
performances for Celtic and was perhaps the only player in the Scotland team
who could be given pass marks in their recent qualifying games. He has stole Emilio Izaguirre place at
left-back and has won over the fans with the Green Brigade making up the chant
“Shalalalalalala Kieran Tierney!” In my opinion he has been the most inform
Scottish player around the world.
Tierney’s chance against Motherwell when he cruised past 3 or 4
defenders and then proceeded to hit the cross-bar really showed his attacking
ability as well as his composure. He
thrives defensively as well, when Tierney was picked for the Scotland team the
Celtic captain Scott Brown told the BBC that Tierney wasn’t afraid to go into a
challenge and it was great to play alongside him.
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| Celtic's £30 million man..?? |
Best Goal
James Maddison’s goal against Rangers was an absolute
stunning free kick from 35 yards out. It
has remained as a very significant goal that showed yet again the troubles of
the Rangers defence. There was
controversy leading up to the freekick as even the referee admitted after the
game that the tackle on Jonny Hayes from James Tavernier was fair. It was in
the very last minute and many people presumed that Andy Halliday’s leveller for
Rangers was going to mean the game ended in a draw. However Maddison, the Norwich loanee, stood
up for the freekick and placed it right into the top right corner giving Wes
Foderingham absolutely no chance, it was an absolute cracker!
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| James Maddion's goal of the month effort helped Aberdeen sink Rangers with the last kick of the game |
Biggest
Moan
One of the biggest
moans in Scottish Football has to be National team. The tartan army’s first game was against
Malta and they hammered them 5-1. It was
great result with Snodgrass scoring a hat trick although against minnows Malta
the result was expected and anything less would have been a real
disappointment.
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| Scotland didn't need pink strips to look silly in their recent World Cup Qualifying games |
So there was reasonable confidence into going into the next
game at Hampden against Lithuania however, it wasn’t to be. A very poor display
meant Scotland found themselves behind at home to Lithuania only a late goal
from James MacArthur levelled the score at 1-1.
Gordon Strachan appeared to be at fault from many of his player choices
and overall bad tactical performance.
The former Aberdeen, Manchester United and Leeds player chose to play Chris Martin ahead of
Leigh Griffiths which was a real source of frustration. A lot of Scotland fans consider that Martin
doesn’t suit the loan-striker role and doesn’t make the correct runs, and is in
fact completely ineffective at times up front in a Scotland shirt. Leigh
Griffiths scored a total of 40 goals last season and seemed like the player
that would fit perfectly into the striker role, yet he started the game on the
bench.
Scotland’s team played Slovakia later in the week at their
ground and another disappointment came.
The 3-0 loss has made it nearly impossible for Scotland to qualify and
many fans called Strachan for the sack. The
Russia Dream seemed to be a complete imagination and looks over already
by Innes O'Donnell
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