DMAA

Hoping this gives us a morale boost that we can kick on from. No shots on target against is very encouraging. Have to say I thought Malmo were tactically awful and we will have much tougher games ahead in Europe.

Football is wonderfully unpredictable isn’t it.

You should know by now that when you cut through the fluff, what really matters at the end of the day in football is xG. @compo will back me up.

Hmm. Dessers has a history of wastefulness though so there’s every reason to believe that his current Goals to xG ratio will correct back to being below average. I said it last summer, not a good signing. His stats at Feyenoord are exactly what we see now. Essentially a poacher who isn’t that clinical. Beale should have known that he doesn’t really get involved in the play at all. He’s just there to score. And he does achieve high xG so one way or another he has the knack for getting more chances than most. Probably partly because he doesn’t feel the need to work back as others do. Someone said earlier that Danilo is just the same. He’s a completely different striker who is better than Dessers are getting involved in the play and he’s streets ahead for winning the ball back. Unfortunately the stats seem pretty clear that he isn’t a clinical striker either. Hopefully we get to see him get a run this season.

He’s scored two against them. Not his fault that one was disallowed. He also made the goal for Roofe against them that was wrongly disallowed too. Not saying it’s enough or acceptable but it’s a bit unfair to say he’s only scored one without mentioning that.

It's all going to charity anyway

Always thought Bas Dost would have been good for us but it's too late now

I’d like to see more of a fully fit Danilo. Just seems it will be a while before we get to. The type of striker you describe is pretty rare, especially at our level.

I haven’t really rated their front three either since Jota left. I thought he was exactly what you want in a modern winger, but they’ve failed to strengthen that position since. Unfortunately they have enough about them to accommodate that and we don’t.

Aerial duels will rarely be decisive against them and wasn’t yesterday because it’s their weakness too. But I do see it as important and a blind spot for our manager. We will likely continue to carry zero threat at corners and be vulnerable when defending them and I'd be surprised if it doesn't cost us points domestically and in Europe. It also makes a less obvious difference during a game when duels keep being lost. It might not directly lead to losing a goal but it could be the difference in losing a game.

Unfortunately my conclusion is that Clement doesn’t know how make a team hard to beat. We haven’t been a solid unit since he came in. The 3-2 Ross County game is the one that comes back to me every time. Wide open from literally the first minute when they almost scored to the final minute. Nothing done about it. And that continued on from game to game. The type of player he has signed only adds to that.

Seems to me we were open to Dessers leaving but he wasn't interested.

Just to further my point on aerials, in total there were 17 aerial duels and Celtic won 13 (76%). Nobody other than a centre back won a duel for us, and they tend to have the easy ones against Kyogo. Celtic aren't even good at aerial duels, they complain about it all the time. On ground duels they only won 51%, so there was no real difference there.

That’s not showing you the intangibles like shape, structure, marking etc. but none of that was any better. I think Dio’s numbers will surprise some.

I work with a ref so I'll ask for his take next time I see him. Apparently Willie Collum takes them all through key decisions and says whether they were right or wrong. Doubt I'll get much out of him but I'll see.

A few stats on our midfield: Ground Duels won: Diomande - 16/12 Barron - 4/0 Sterling - 4/2 Aerial Duels won: Diomande - 1/0 Barron - 1/0 Sterling - 1/0 Tackles: Diomande - 5 Sterling - 1 Barron - 0 Interceptions: Sterling - 4 Diomande - 0 Barron - 1 Blocked Shots and Clearances: Sterling - 1 for each Barron and Dio - 0 for both Have to say, Barron in particular isn't doing much defensively off the ball at all? Seems to find a way to avoid duels. Is he not more of an 8 than a 6? Another thing that stands out is not a single aerial duel won by our three midfielders. One thing that has worried me about Clement is that he doesn't seem to value aerial prowess at all, which will cost you in Scotland. Diomande's stats are rock bottom for aerials, like pretty much zero. So are Bahrami's. You almost never see 1st percentile nunbers but that's two signings now, both for midfield. Don't have stats for Barron but he's not much use in the air either. Propper's aerial numbers were poor for a centre back. So even the position that should really have good numbers, Clement doesn't seem to value it. Jefte and Cerny are useless in the air. Kasanwirjo is the one exception.

Was overlooked when we threw it away last year because all anybody wanted to talk about was the “old guard”. Butland’s form fell off a cliff at the same time.

Just to balance this out a wee bit, the Igamane signing was more encouraging. It remains to be seen if we have got our scouting right of course, but those are the kind of signings we need to be making. If the link to the Egyptian boy was true I think that would have been an outstanding signing and it’s another possible good sign in terms of our scouting. His move to Getafe feel through so I hope we revisit it.

Disappointed in the window overall. Big money (for us) spent on someone who has limited upside imo and doesn’t look that good. I know some don’t agree with this but my principle is that we should only be spending big money on very young players who are big prospects. Decent money spent on a centre back who who turns 31 this month and just looks run of the mill. Even with the limited funds we had I just expected a lot more. Diomande was the last window really by after 6 months the jury is still out and there are some red flags. Centre mid looks weak, the wide forward positions look weak and with a real lack of depth. Matondo is very injury prone and Cortes might be too.

Didn't expect it to be close today but I did forget how little I trust Clement against Celtic. The transfer window was very disappointing too and I do wonder now if he'll see through the season. I don't think he is the style of manager to get the results in Europe that we have managed over the years. We probably have a lot of performances like today ahead of us.

That’s the same for most

Raskin much better suited to games against them. Just rarely fit.

This has been coming all season. Clement still hasn’t shown once that he knows how to coach the team to be difficult to play against in these games. It was one thing Gerrard could do with a similar level of squad.

Cheers. Hadn’t caught up with that today. Not surprised with that really. With our injury luck I've no doubt he'll play plenty anyway.

This but I’d have Cortes ahead of Matondo. Granted there isn’t that much to go on to say that yet. The other caveat is that those two CBs have to win the shirt off Souttar. Wouldn't say Propper has shown that yet. Also has to be said that half that team are untried and we don't know much about them yet. Jefte has to show defensive improvement to start ahead of Yilmaz against tougher opposition for me. Very keen to see if Bajrami can do it at CAM in different types of games too because his stats suggest he's not the type to contribute much in those circumstances.