Thanks all for a non hyperbolic, measured response to the game. I listened to 15 mins of one and 10 mins of another Celtic fan podcast before having to switch both off. I think credit is due to the opposition for three ruthless finishes and on the positive side we scored two excellent goals and didn’t just fold. It’s another warning though that we have no divine right to win these games and we need to make good use of the summer window to help this squad
I actually felt much better after listening to the podcast. All I need now is to feel good before the game and after the game...with a win in-between 😁
It may be a bit masochistic but I’ve listened to and read a lot of material reviewing the ‘performance’ on Sunday and have been surprised at how often both Alan & James have refuted any lack of leadership in CCV‘s performance- most recently in the podcast with Laura. I’m intrigued as to what data or arguments they’d suggest support that position? It surely can’t just be ‘trying too hard is a sign of leadership’?
Team captains are regularly ascribed as pivotal to successful teams. You can’t have leaders without followers so what they do does intrinsically affect others. Broony was known to often inspire an aggressiveness in more mild-mannered players- could the lack of fouls from our team indicate a lack of aggressiveness in our team on Sunday?
CalMac is constantly encouraging and directing others and often taking risks in order to make change happen.
James suggests CalMac may not have solved our midfield issues on Sunday but might his leadership have inspired or directed others to do more/better/ different?
My evidence of poor leadership was closely watching CCV (and Johnston) at the game to see what they were doing to encourage team mates to give them more passing options both on the ball and off the ball- something tv viewers don’t always have the opportunity to do. I saw none. Nor did I see more longer passes being made- whether as potentially instructed by Rogers to do so, or to make change happen.
I think CCV as captain is a different job to CCV as just a centre half. He could/should have made changes to his predictable passing.
I believe captain is an important position and think we will need to replace CalMac as a midfielder and as a captain soon- neither position appears to be in the squad yet.
Ok, we disagree, but I can still hold the opinion that we need a replacement captain in CalMac’s absence and hopefully it’s not seen as a ridiculous opinion.
Graham - i am painfully and hopefully transparently aware that on ball actions account for a tiny % of all footballer actions and therefore whilst i remain sceptical on the materiality of "leadership" i remain open to evidence of its influence. So, long story short, convince me! I present my data, show me the impact of "leadership".
Hi Alan - that’s fair but the reverse must be true too in asking what leadership behaviours you do see in CCV? As well as what I described in the absence on the field on Sunday of any observable attempts to communicate with midfielders to change the support to break the press, or recognising the effects of forcing balls down the right rather than towards Jota; and in seeing his individual technical performance level drop in an important game (maybe coincidentally with the captaincy?), and in viewing his poor communication skills demonstrated in the after match conference; and in watching Scmeichel be the only guy to collectively get the team together after Igamane’s goal, I’m not sure what more to add?
Yes leadership is hard to quantify, but you know if you’ve experienced it.
Does the data show his performance drops when he’s captain? Does the team’s drop when CalMac isn’t captain?
I get that there aren’t hard measures here but as I said isn’t it widely accepted as an important team role?
McGregor hardly misses a game and even then quality of opposition would be the most important differentiator.
I don't look for "leadership behaviours" in a football match as we cannot know what is said by the players to each other. CCV appears to be a quite reserved person of few words. His performances are usually incredibly consistent. He had a bad day in some respects on Sunday along with many other senior players. I;ve tried to explain that within the context of team shape, roles, etc. I guess i don;t accept "leadership" as a material factor in this case. Leadership, in my opinion, is more to do with what you do not what you say. He clearly took responsibility by having more of the ball than anyone else. It didn;t work out well - that was a systemic failure.
Graham - to be fair i introduce many measurable metrics and hopefully try and explain and contextualise them. Describing a "performance" involves a confluence of many. I think the onus is on you to define the leadership metric and explain how you are measuring it? Then we can understand what the lack of it looks like. Otherwise it is an ethereal concept with no real measurability. Lack of encouraging people is nuanced, for example, and in any case any "leadership" course i have attended speak to how "good leaders" adapt their style and message to the audience.
Great show as always, you got the “I told you so, but didnt tell you so” just right. Compliments to Laura, she lets the other two shine and offers less of her views than others to enable that. First class….keep it up folks .
On the pod we hear a lot about "that's not what they're good at" talking about the Celtic midfield (I agree with it). But I'd be interested to know, based on evidence, what the individuals ate good at in the Celtic midfield.
Looks at trophy cabinet, looks at the table, looks at remaining fixtures in the Scottish cup, looks at UCL results and performances 2024/25, looks back unnervingly and says nothing then looks back at the cabinet, looks back and smiles.
We all have problems right now, I am having a bit of a crisis if truth be told, but this, this, a squad with a proven track record that is otherwise doing well, is not one of them HH
I agree in the chaos moments matter, Johnstone slips and Rangers are in and in a late moment Johnstone scoops his chance over the bar. Those two moments land different all of a sudden we win the game. Even if our players are better they are clearly not “that” much better - if they were faster and more powerful and technically adept they would be able to rise above the chaos and win their battles - I wonder if Rodgers will get another £11 m for a midfielder and another £9 m for a striker.
Thanks for this guys I was beginning to feel I had lost my sanity listening to many of the other podcasts. I have been uncomfortable listening to much of the criticism the players have been getting. As Alan said last week we knew exactly how we were going to play so did Rangers. The players went in to battle with an opposition who had been given all our plans of attack before a ball was kicked. They knew exactly when the ball would be going to AJ 2 passes before he got it and so could press accordingly. We are set up to beat most teams in the league and it works well but we need to vary it a bit against Rangers or this will just keep happening. Would be interested to hear how you think we may did this.
Thanks all for a non hyperbolic, measured response to the game. I listened to 15 mins of one and 10 mins of another Celtic fan podcast before having to switch both off. I think credit is due to the opposition for three ruthless finishes and on the positive side we scored two excellent goals and didn’t just fold. It’s another warning though that we have no divine right to win these games and we need to make good use of the summer window to help this squad
I actually felt much better after listening to the podcast. All I need now is to feel good before the game and after the game...with a win in-between 😁
It may be a bit masochistic but I’ve listened to and read a lot of material reviewing the ‘performance’ on Sunday and have been surprised at how often both Alan & James have refuted any lack of leadership in CCV‘s performance- most recently in the podcast with Laura. I’m intrigued as to what data or arguments they’d suggest support that position? It surely can’t just be ‘trying too hard is a sign of leadership’?
Team captains are regularly ascribed as pivotal to successful teams. You can’t have leaders without followers so what they do does intrinsically affect others. Broony was known to often inspire an aggressiveness in more mild-mannered players- could the lack of fouls from our team indicate a lack of aggressiveness in our team on Sunday?
CalMac is constantly encouraging and directing others and often taking risks in order to make change happen.
James suggests CalMac may not have solved our midfield issues on Sunday but might his leadership have inspired or directed others to do more/better/ different?
My evidence of poor leadership was closely watching CCV (and Johnston) at the game to see what they were doing to encourage team mates to give them more passing options both on the ball and off the ball- something tv viewers don’t always have the opportunity to do. I saw none. Nor did I see more longer passes being made- whether as potentially instructed by Rogers to do so, or to make change happen.
I think CCV as captain is a different job to CCV as just a centre half. He could/should have made changes to his predictable passing.
I believe captain is an important position and think we will need to replace CalMac as a midfielder and as a captain soon- neither position appears to be in the squad yet.
Ok, we disagree, but I can still hold the opinion that we need a replacement captain in CalMac’s absence and hopefully it’s not seen as a ridiculous opinion.
Graham - i am painfully and hopefully transparently aware that on ball actions account for a tiny % of all footballer actions and therefore whilst i remain sceptical on the materiality of "leadership" i remain open to evidence of its influence. So, long story short, convince me! I present my data, show me the impact of "leadership".
Hi Alan - that’s fair but the reverse must be true too in asking what leadership behaviours you do see in CCV? As well as what I described in the absence on the field on Sunday of any observable attempts to communicate with midfielders to change the support to break the press, or recognising the effects of forcing balls down the right rather than towards Jota; and in seeing his individual technical performance level drop in an important game (maybe coincidentally with the captaincy?), and in viewing his poor communication skills demonstrated in the after match conference; and in watching Scmeichel be the only guy to collectively get the team together after Igamane’s goal, I’m not sure what more to add?
Yes leadership is hard to quantify, but you know if you’ve experienced it.
Does the data show his performance drops when he’s captain? Does the team’s drop when CalMac isn’t captain?
I get that there aren’t hard measures here but as I said isn’t it widely accepted as an important team role?
McGregor hardly misses a game and even then quality of opposition would be the most important differentiator.
I don't look for "leadership behaviours" in a football match as we cannot know what is said by the players to each other. CCV appears to be a quite reserved person of few words. His performances are usually incredibly consistent. He had a bad day in some respects on Sunday along with many other senior players. I;ve tried to explain that within the context of team shape, roles, etc. I guess i don;t accept "leadership" as a material factor in this case. Leadership, in my opinion, is more to do with what you do not what you say. He clearly took responsibility by having more of the ball than anyone else. It didn;t work out well - that was a systemic failure.
Graham - to be fair i introduce many measurable metrics and hopefully try and explain and contextualise them. Describing a "performance" involves a confluence of many. I think the onus is on you to define the leadership metric and explain how you are measuring it? Then we can understand what the lack of it looks like. Otherwise it is an ethereal concept with no real measurability. Lack of encouraging people is nuanced, for example, and in any case any "leadership" course i have attended speak to how "good leaders" adapt their style and message to the audience.
Great show as always, you got the “I told you so, but didnt tell you so” just right. Compliments to Laura, she lets the other two shine and offers less of her views than others to enable that. First class….keep it up folks .
On the pod we hear a lot about "that's not what they're good at" talking about the Celtic midfield (I agree with it). But I'd be interested to know, based on evidence, what the individuals ate good at in the Celtic midfield.
Looks at trophy cabinet, looks at the table, looks at remaining fixtures in the Scottish cup, looks at UCL results and performances 2024/25, looks back unnervingly and says nothing then looks back at the cabinet, looks back and smiles.
We all have problems right now, I am having a bit of a crisis if truth be told, but this, this, a squad with a proven track record that is otherwise doing well, is not one of them HH
I agree in the chaos moments matter, Johnstone slips and Rangers are in and in a late moment Johnstone scoops his chance over the bar. Those two moments land different all of a sudden we win the game. Even if our players are better they are clearly not “that” much better - if they were faster and more powerful and technically adept they would be able to rise above the chaos and win their battles - I wonder if Rodgers will get another £11 m for a midfielder and another £9 m for a striker.
Thanks for this guys I was beginning to feel I had lost my sanity listening to many of the other podcasts. I have been uncomfortable listening to much of the criticism the players have been getting. As Alan said last week we knew exactly how we were going to play so did Rangers. The players went in to battle with an opposition who had been given all our plans of attack before a ball was kicked. They knew exactly when the ball would be going to AJ 2 passes before he got it and so could press accordingly. We are set up to beat most teams in the league and it works well but we need to vary it a bit against Rangers or this will just keep happening. Would be interested to hear how you think we may did this.
THIS