BRENDAN RODGERS IS RIGHT TO CALL OUT ABERDEEN’S BRUTAL TACTICS
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 10 hours ago
- 3 min read
Celtic won 5-1 this morning (the game was on at 4am in this part of the world), and yet the main talking point again probably won’t be Celtic’s scintillating display of attacking football.
Reo Hatate left the pitch at full time with his knee on ice. Brendan Rodgers described what happened to our Japanese midfielder as a “needless challenge”. He’s absolutely right.
In a game where the tackles were flying in thick and fast, with far too little intervention from the officials, the only surprise is that Aberdeen only lost one player to a red card.
Brendan Rodgers Anger at Needless Challenge on Hatate
Aberdeen clearly set out with a plan to kick Celtic’s players at every opportunity. It’s sad, but for too many teams in Scotland this seems to be an acceptable approach when matched with an opponent of higher skill and finesse.
This whole “get in tae them!” attitude is reductive, primitive and it’s holding all of Scottish football back.
I don’t blame the player himself who landed that “needless challenge” on Hatate. He’s young, probably all fired up at facing the Champions and he’s had a rush of blood to the head.
However, that was far from the only bad tackle that we saw from Aberdeen’s players in this morning’s game.
Clearly this was a pre-planned, coached approach. A lot of the debate around Celtic when we have underperformed this season has centered around our apparent “lack of physicality” particularly in the midfield and defensive areas.
However, I wonder. How much of it is down to Celtic not being physical enough and how much of it is a consequence of the opposition being allowed to scythe into our players at every opportunity, usually without any meaningful consequence?
Before the last Glasgow derby, we predicted on the ACSOM Pre-match show that Diomande of Rangers would commit multiple fouls and escape sanction.
Surprise, surprise, that’s exactly what happened.
It’s gotten to a point now where we just expect the opposition to kick out at Celtic and the referee will, more often than not, look the other way.
This isn’t a refereeing problem though, it’s a coaching issue. Too many teams in Scotland continue to rely on rough-house tactics in the absence of actually trying to compete on purely footballing terms.
Sure, such an approach might get you the odd win here, or a point there. But when was the last time a team entirely focused on hard tackles and robust physicality actually won anything meaningful?
Wimbledon in the 1980s? Leeds United in the early 70s?
Even then, both of those teams augmented their overt physicality and general sh*thousery with some genuinely talented individual footballers.
The whole “let’s get in about them” approach needs binned, for the greater good of Scottish football.
Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening any time soon. Much like league reconstruction, Scottish football outside of Celtic is deeply-rooted in short-termism and a chronic fear of innovation and change.
Next season, Brendan Rodgers will probably once again have to talk about several more needless challenges and reckless fouls on his players.
In modern football, he shouldn’t have to. That we all know he will, is a blight on Scottish football.