Gordon Strachan rejigged his side to play the 4-1-4-1 formation that we had forecast yesterday. Likewise Aiden McGeady was included in the starting 11 as we had also predicted in yesterdays articles. Celtic were to line up with the regular defensive line up, with Paul Hartley protecting them behind a midfield of Brown, McGeady and Maloney with Naka free to roam in the space between Samaras and the midfield.
It was a bold line up - designed to retain possession of the ball and also to allow for penetration of the Villarreal rear guard. Whilst it managed the first objective to great aplomb Celtic very rarely got behind the Spanish rear guard and never caused them a great deal of panic other than from corners or from mistakes - from which we should have capitalised.
That leads us on to the chance that Georgios Samaras constructed for himself in the first half after capitalising on some poor defending. Electing to try and curl the ball round the keeper with the outside of his right foot rather than place it with his left cost us the lead that could have frustrated the home side and their many wonderful and colourful supporters. Quite why the big Greek player decided to strike it in this manner is beyond me? Given that he has passed many balls into the back of the net with his left foot, including his recent wonder goal against Kilmarnock why did he choose to be over elaborate? Was it over-confidence?
As the match wore on and Celtic survived till half time with the score level two things were apparently clear. Firstly by delegating the role of man-marking Senna to Scott Brown we negated the one midfielder dynamic enough to support Samaras and secondly the full backs, who were playing well, were not getting enough protection from the wide midfielders, or more accurately Mark Wilson got no support whatsoever from Aiden McGeady whose work rate looked to be approximately half that of his counterpart on the other wing.
Shunsuke Nakamura is a sublimely talented team player who very rarely gives the ball away but with hindsight his services would probably have been better served either on the wing or on the bench as an impact player. Poor Naka is not dynamic enough to offer support to a lone striker. To achieve optimum support in this role you require a box-to-box midfielder. Unfortunately the man for this job was too bust staying goal side of Senna.
If it were up to me I would have played Crosas in the role that Brown was utilised and give Brown Carte Blanche to support Samaras. Put simply we lacked the armoury to support the strategy. This of course is easy to say in hindsight but it does seem obvious to me that in order to shake the shackles of two centre backs you require a driving force through the middle of the pitch, and Nakamura can never be described as such. Credit to Naka, who tried his best, but the free role did not really benefit him on this occasion, although I would recommend that this should be consigned as a "work in progress" and not resigned as a failure.
As I said before all of this is easy said in hindsight, the Manager highlighted a system which very nearly saw us through to the end with parity intact and I am sure he will have seen the same deficiencies in the system he played last night as many others can. I for one am glad that he tried to alter his system in pre season and has carried those experiments into competitive matches to a decent level.
I am also glad that the usual whipping bhoys, i.e. the defence, who had a great game with the much maligned partnership of McManus and Caldwell performing admirably, especially the latter. With the exception of McManus allowing that long ball to land at the feet of Rossi in the first half and the full backs being exposed by the lack of support from the wide players I felt the back four and Artur Boruc handled everything that was thrown at them.
So bring on Manchester United!
Yours in Celtic
Clydebuilt