Dear Incoming Celtic Manager,
Although you have yet to be appointed, I am writing to request that you finally resolve our long-term defensive frailties in relation to defending set pieces.
As you may or may not be aware, our club has an ethos of playing pure, beautiful, inventive attacking football. Whilst I hope your team aspires to play ‘The Celtic Way’ it is vital that you fix our leaking roof first! By this, I mean focussing on our inability to perform one of the game’s fundamentals – defending set pieces. This has been our Achilles heel for a number of years, but it has become increasingly prominent this season.
Until this ‘leakage’ is resolved, it will be impossible to reclaim our league title or make any progress in European competition.
In order to assist you, I have put together a pictured sequence of the events that led to Morelos’ equalising goal – a theme that has been all too common this season. It is aided by the expert analysis of Martin O’Neil. During his managerial tenure, a major strength of his Celtic side was their ability to both attack and defend free kicks and corners.
Image 1: Positioning
This image shows how Celtic’s defence lined up just as the kick was about to be taken. As you can see, no one was stood at the back post. There is also a huge area of space that Morelos was able to exploit unchallenged.
O’Neil emphasised the importance of positioning a defender at the back post. Had a player been positioned here, he could have seen the situation and dealt with the loose ball before Morelos got to it. He discussed teams ‘placing men all over the place defensively’, but cited the possibility of somebody flicking the ball on from the first header or touch. As a result, it is vital to position somebody in this area.
Image 2: Lack of Awareness
As you can see from the second image, Jonjoe Kenny is ball watching and is unaware that the man he is marking (Morelos) is about to make a move into the space towards the goal. Without meaning to single him out (others have been guilty of it this season), it demonstrates that individuals either lack concentration and/or do not understand their roles and responsibilities when we are defending set pieces. This must be corrected on the training ground and drilled into them by the coaching staff on a daily basis.
Images 3 and 4: Failing To Win The First Header
Although Kent delivered a decent corner, there was an overload of Celtic players between the six yard box and the penalty spot. You would have expected Brown or Ajer to have won the header and cleared the ball. Also notice how Morelos is making his run towards the far post (i.e. the danger area) without anyone tracking him.
Despite being challenged by three Celtic players, Balogun manages to win the ball ahead of them and flick it on towards the far post for the incoming Morelos.
O’Neil told his co-pundit James McFadden that when he was manager his defenders enjoyed attacking the ball. There is nobody of the physical stature of Bobo Balde, Johan Mjallby, Stanislav Varga or Joos Valgaeren in the current team. As a result of not having man mountain defenders that will usually always win the first ball, it is even more important that we set up properly. Furthermore, we will need to recruit players in the summer that are actually capable of consistently winning aerial battles and finally resolve our long running central defensive weakness.
A point was also made about the importance of having a goalkeeper that plays every week as opposed to chopping and changing as we have done this season. O’Neil stated that he let his goalkeepers decide how they wanted the defenders to line up. However, he intervened if we conceded a goal by insisting that the back post remained covered from that point onwards. Goalkeeper is the most important position in any team. Celtic must recruit a quality keeper in the summer if we are to have any chance of solidifying the defence.
Image 5: Goal
As a result of three failures: losing the first header, a defender losing his man, and not positioning a defender at the back post, Morelos was able to score from close range unopposed.
Moving Forward
For the new manager coming in, please study footage from our numerous failures from set plays this season, including Rangers’ equalising goal today. Conceding highly preventable goals has resulted in us failing to win ten-in-a-row. It is also the main reason why we are trailing our greatest rivals by 20 points with over two months of the season remaining. Furthermore, it was a major contributory factor towards our dismal Europa League campaign.
Please also take on board the views of Martin O’Neil in relation to recruiting commanding centre halves and a top quality goalkeeper, as well as the positioning of players at set plays (e.g. putting someone on either post).
Rome was not built in a day but it was built on solid foundations!
Good luck in your new role as manager of the club (whoever you are and whenever it commences).
Best wishes,
Mark Nicholas
themarkjnblog/football 