The Weekend Update – 06.03.2026

0:00[♪ OUTRO MUSIC CONTINUES [♪ Hello and welcome to the weekend update for the 6th of March 2026. I'm your host Graeme McKay and I'm joined by two. We are those twiddled in, twiddled dumb if you will. I'll go to twiddledee first and that is Scott Fleming, how are you Scott? A good, I spent a while since I've been on me yourself. It's always a pleasure. I was a pleasure to be on the Christian as well. When I'm on the Christian, she was a little bit like the Ben Affleck, Matt Deem, in scriptwriting, partnership. I'm Affleck, so I'm

1:04kind of very much right on his coat, too. Robin Williams maybe, but I'm sorry. Robin Williams, yeah. I mean, not to jump in there, Scott. Not to jump in there, but I've been told my celebratory look like it's Ben Affleck. So maybe I should be Ben. Wow. That's like the episode of Love is Planned and people will know if they know. And yeah, it's been the dumbest Christian Rolf who was supposed to be here 25 minutes ago. That's a lie. I was supposed to be here 15 minutes ago. Okay. So our ticked time, our ticked time. Okay, let's get cracking with this because we have a hard out and that is a hard out of who would girl be in this? That guy with blonde hair and good well-hunting that tries to show up. How about those apples? That guy. Yeah. That's that's girl. Okay, let's start with an opening question. We've got this opening question. How'd you like those apples? Just to get the right question. That's not the question. Okay. The opening question is from Paul and Paul said, hi, a question for one of the tactics lads. Maybe it could still take learn from the way by me and it played Thomas played Thomas Muller, similar strengths to be engine, niggering

2:09finding space and scoring goals, but gash at football. I think that's going harsh on that is harsh. Yeah. But but we'll ask it anyway. So the wrong daughter that this was a space interpreter. Christian, let's start with you. We've obviously been having rolling questions, rolling discussions about Benjamin niggering and what he can do in the football pitch outside of scoring. I think some of the lads speaking about the second half of the Rangers game last weekend were impressed with him and his general play. What do you think about it? I think you've described them as someone who is utterly horrendous in the first and second parts of the game, but the third section, the kind of goal scoring section, he's decent. So how do you how do you solve a problem with Benjy and niggering? How do you solve a problem like Benjy and niggering? I love it when you quote to a site story on a look. It's a really it's probably one of the more interesting technical questions at the moment, right? Because he's

3:11like, I call them David Turnbull and sedatives, right? Because he is a lot of similar things where he does have a knack of how do you describe it? People would describe it differently. Instinct got to right movement around the box. It's got something with him. Give some, I guess it means that he ends up in these other situations because it's not, I mean, he's all performing his XG a little bit, but his XG for a midfielder is pretty mad. Like it's and we always at the start to the seasons, it's not going to last, but I think I looked at something like, so over C4.51 XG per, per 90 without any penalties, which is like numbers that I don't think have seen any Celtic midfielder per ops since we looked at it. Matt Riley is probably the closest batting even he was like C4.35. So you need to get into like, even the attackers and the wingers for the Celtic wingers 0.51. There's a really good one. So he's getting to the amount of chances.

4:14This is not a fluke that he's getting so many goals because he's getting to so many goalscoring opportunities. I think coming from Nordschallan, he scored a lot of goals there as well, right? So it's always the part of his game. The problem as you say is that he's really a net negative until Celtic gets to those positions. He's not a bad footballer, but I don't, he's definitely not an elite level footballer in the first two, first of the pitch. And what that means is obviously his close technical skills. I think his speed, his work rate, his ability to just be a really good cog in any sort of build up play. I, I, it doesn't have that. And I think his career is probably an example of, illustrates that in terms of where I think he definitely has a ceiling. And so what do

5:18you do with, with Bench and Ugren? Ideally, well, there's a couple of things you could do with him, right? It's, you can either use some as in more of us a stub in a lot of senses, but within domestic football and Scotland, you would usually get away with having a player like that in most games, I think. Or you try to find a position for him, Graham. I guess we're coming to eventually that where you keep him out of the way, the build up. And that is either you, okay, people have talked about, okay, is can he be a second striker? Can he be a number 10? Both of those roles, you would still need to contribute, I think a lot more than ideally, then you, he will be able to do. So the last thing is Graham for me, then, should we try him as a striker? So tell you what, none of the other lads are doing that well this season. So Bench and Ugren, as it falls nine, where we are just now, not, you wouldn't start your season with that, but just now, look, I mean,

6:18let's just do it. Why not? Is that kind of season? That's the thing about it as well. Scott, like it gets people, if you put Negro in that forward position up front, it gets people in their favorite positions, for example, like you could have my either playing back on the left wing, obviously, Yang on the right or maybe to Nick. And one of the things got about Benjamin Negro in, I think, and I mentioned this on the reaction, is that number eight usually are like your Frank Lampard box crash and getting goals from the edge of the box. This is a guy who it wasn't even as if it was sustained pressure, but he was fending himself in the six-shad box against Aberdeen for cutbacks. And that's just not how you would, you would tend to see a number eight scoring goals. A number eight, as I said, usually scores gold, because the ball comes back to him at the edge of the box, for example. What do you see as a feature of a Negro in itself? Yeah, that's a good point, because I might be wrong, but I can't really remember I'm scoring from

7:22outside the box this season with the exception of the feet kick at 10 castle. It is mostly just those sort of late arriving runs in the box. I'm quite encouraged by his last two performances, and I think one hour at a stage where I understand the argument about some people make of, it might be better, it's a super sub, it might be better as a false nine. I think when he's far and away, our biggest goal for it, and we are just struggling so much collectively to score goals, I don't think you can justify saying I believe him underbends to the 67-70th minute or whatever. I think he should be starting games, and the reason that I mentioned his performances has been a little bit better against Rangers and Aberdeen. It's not just a cross for a T and a header or the goal we have on the night. I think something might disagree with me, and it's just against a little bar for the rest of the season, but I think he was also a little bit better in linking the play and his

8:24decision making. It wasn't just, you know, a lot of other games more recently, it's just like he gets a ball, and you can tell the only thought in his head as how they get an angle to shoot, and especially when I grew up with Tinekeken and stuff at Ibrookson Sunday, I felt he was a little bit better at just progressing the ball upfield as a team, and even the other night it was a few half decent balls in behind for Dyson, which Dyson Sphere said did not take advantage of. As I say, I just think he has to be in the team, the problem is how, what I keep thinking about Saturday and our selection issues at the moment is it's a bit like Wacomall. You can you can change something tactically, you can bring someone off the bench and ostensibly solve one problem, but it inevitably creates another problem, because the squad is just so unbalanced. So, I'm not 100% sure about the whole Negan false nine thing, just because so much of his success so far is based on those late runs

9:28and basically sneaking up on people when they're not expecting it. I think it's much harder to do that when you're a focal point of the attack. At the same time, he clearly just doesn't really work when you play him in a central midfield free, so I think the best solution is to have him in that number 10 role. The problem is if a state of our midfield just now, especially in big games, can we really save it? We're basically just going to leave it up to two players in the middle where and see how we got on. We saw how badly that went in the first half of Ibrook's when we left Ox and Kalmak in there, and OK, we remedied that a bit by bringing in Hatati, and hopefully we can keep Hatati in the team and he keeps playing well for now until the end of the season. I still think it's a big ask, a bit against teams like Rangers and Hearts who will just try and overrun us in midfield to basically say, OK Negan, you don't need to worry, but you just play that number 10 role and you're not the best at pressing a track on anyway. So, like a lot of issues, where I said the team at the moment, I don't think there's necessarily an obvious solution now.

10:32I think Scott points out that the obvious issue with him as a force 9 is that even though he shows a lot of the attributes of maybe a good force 9 or a striker in terms of his movement, Scott says it is different. You get a different focus on you when you do play the role itself, and maybe a lot of the reason why he's getting into those areas is because he's maybe not expected to be there or he maybe doesn't show the movement that you would maybe from a traditional light. As an aside, I think you can see shot maps from New Grand going back to 2021 season. He's only got three goals, open play goals, outside the box. If you look at shot map and the league this season, all his goals is pretty much, it's like a yoga shot map in terms of the goals, it's all right in front of the goals. He's got quite a lot of shots from outside the box, he shouldn't do them because it's not great time, unless he's got a free kick. But I think that's

11:34Scott points out that's probably the main drawback putting him higher up in a second striker so how do you mitigate that? I think short story this season, I don't think Celtic is set up technically to mitigate that. What you could do if you wanted to carry, say a player like Negren is, Scott alluded to you, you get to the two other guys in central midfield needs to have a huge running capacity. Spoiler, the Ox does not, and I think that when you put the two of them together, look at my cabin, it doesn't really either, so if you put him, what's any then, another, well, I say the two other two of the two other two have to be two from Bernardo, Hattate, my Gregor, at the moment, I think to do that. But even that, I think you can leave yourself a bit short. So in previous seasons, I can't play a managed turn this discussion on to Greg Taylor again, but you would have a Greg Taylor, right? Your full back would come in and set

12:35beside Calvin McGregor in a lot of restaurants, but also in the buildup, that would then allow you to do, maybe have a bit more of a free man from Negren. If you had a manager played something like a 3, 4, 3, you know, you'd have four midfield central midfielders in a lot of ways and you can do that way, but you don't. So I don't see, you kind of just, with the season that is, you kind of go playing Ben Ginny, Gregor, and we'll give you an upside. It will give you a downside as well. I don't think this management team, or even the space during at the moment, they have their ability or the time to try and mitigate it. So you kind of just, they're a little bit pick your poison with them, which could also be what's up to the other poison. I'm not really know. Quite a coffee. Yeah, maybe. Yes. And then you go, you see what it chips full. You just go with it and say, look, he's going to be a net negative there, but his goals might carry us over the line, because who knows what's going to happen this season, because it's bunkers anyway.

13:37Yeah, I mean, I think with the players that we've got, I think someone who, Tam, Big Tam, would benefit from having someone closer to him. Maybe some kind of 4-4-1-1 formation. Is that something that could even work? Do two man central midfielders even work in there with us? I mean, I think Rangers were playing it, but they were playing in almost 4-2-2 formation against us. So a John Barnes, if you will. I don't think it's very quickly. I don't think it works. Graham, if the focus on your attack is wide, if you still want your full backs in wingers wide, it's not going to work with two central midfielders. Yeah, as you say, Rangers midfield is pretty much 4 central midfielders and strike is dropping and two wide players. So if you played something like that, it could work, but not the way Celtic are playing now. So let's get, we want to cover, because we know there's well known on this podcast, and like the game outplan and the re-review, etc. That Christian, as a Scandinavian, as a pervert, and he has watched not only the Rangers game back, but the Aberdeen game back

14:45to see if there's any kind of joining any red thread throughout the season or the last few games. And Scott, I want to get your opinions about it as well, because I don't think you've been on the podcast since the weekend. First of all, Scott, what was your, what was your reading of the game? What was your reading of the first half, second half, overall, and then moving into that Aberdeen game? What were your thoughts? What were your confidence levels? Did it peak at any point? Did you think, fuck it, were winning the league? Or did you think we were doing that? What were your overall thoughts of those 180 minutes of football? So I watched the Rangers game in London, I was in London over the weekend, I was very hungover, and I went into it with very little expectations, and the first half absolutely conformed to those expectations, to a degree that I may have been hungover as part of this, but I wasn't even that angry. I was just like, okay, this is what was always going to happen. If you're going up against

15:49the team like them who have good, we can agree that they're not the greatest team on their off, but what we do have is a lot of legs and energy in midfield. So I think the idea of just chucking Kalmak and obviously Chamberlain in there to counter that wasn't sane. And as much plays as we've all given the management team recently for overcoming adversity week after week, which I think they deserve. I think we also need to acknowledge that one of the main adverse things they keep having to overcome at the moment is the questionable team selections. I think it was certainly one of them, I actually think the two are two is another. So yeah, it was particularly depressing that first half and partly because it was just so predictable. And I also, I've probably rolled back on this since, but one of them was depressing moments I've had all season was just looking at that and thinking, what's been so frustrating about a lot of our poor results against Rangers over the last two or three seasons is knowing that we have better players. Therefore it's embarrassing because you're thinking, how have we contrived to

16:50throw away this obvious talent advantage we have? That was the first that I've worked recently where I just thought to know what they might have better players than us. We might have depreciated to agree with that's the case. So at half time, I will fully admit that, you know, shakeback mentality, I was thinking there was a lot more chances getting hummed than there wasn't a comeback. So it was very, very pleasantly surprised by the comeback in the second half and the way we controlled the game, how well, how much Hattati and Tuneke and even Forest contributed. And yeah, it was a remarkable turnaround to be actually a little bit frustrated, you haven't nicked it at the end. So yeah, we sort of, it's definitely not a phrase, it's felt appropriate very many times a season, but we sort of skated and if we told you in a little bit of a wave of enthusiasm off the back of that. And I, naively, although I myself to believe maybe this would finally be the game where we would win by more than one goal and

17:53actually get to relax a bit at some point, because it's remarkable when you think about it. Like, since when you came back the second time, nearly every single game has been like a horrible anxiety fest. The only exceptions are when we humped undenighted, it was very first game. And in a weird way, stuck out at home, because they basically just winded us and very early on, and it was so obvious the time was over. It was disappointing obviously, but it wasn't tense. Every other game has been, we're always, it's always level of a one go ahead or one go behind, and it's, it's, and there's so many frustrating aspects, but a bit of performance, and you just can't relax. And I'd, as I say naively thought, the other night might be different, just because this is such a poor Aberdeensite, but I think we're illustrated the wave that we gave away that equalizer so quickly, even without them building up a harvesting. And many chances, it just showed we're vulnerable like that against everyone. And I suppose we already knew that because we struggled

18:55so badly against fucking Dundee, Livingston and Commanding, but that was, that was scary for me, and I know maybe they played above themselves a little bit because they had a prospective new manager in the crowd and stuff, but it's still such a poor Aberdeensite, and we made such hard work of it. And I really didn't even have that much faith that we were going to get, going to get the winner, until the subs came on, and the subs to be fair to them made a big difference again, but again, I think part of that is just to do with getting the starting line up wrong in the first place. So, yeah, that game where we get to relax and score a few goals, and finally address the goal difference issue, which I've now given up on, it's just obviously not going to happen, we're not, we're not, you know, if we finish on points, we're cooked, I've, I've, I'm resigned to that now. A level on points were cooked, I'm resigned to that now, but yeah, this is just the way it's going to be clearly between now and an end of the season. Christian, you spoke on the weekend update before the Rengels game, and you predicted it could go,

19:58it could be a ha, a camping from them, it could be a camping from us, and we basically got that in the same game. The, the halves felt very different only, having watched it the first time, and I don't think I've ever experienced a Rengels game where I've been so convinced that's starting to line up with wrong. For me, they're starting to line up in this game with wrong, just from that frame on midfield. I think I put into grip chats at time, I was like, where the legs coming from, we just don't have any running in that midfield. We had basically two luxury play-als and a 33-year-old 32-year-old Kalemaghriger in there. It just felt as if we were definitely going to get overrun. That's what happened in the 45 minutes when Hattati comes in at halftime. Is that the only thing it changed? Because it feels as if one player coming into the midfield is not enough to create such a difference between those two halves. My sub-question to that is, was there actually a massive difference between the two halves? Or did they just feel that way? A lot of questions, Graeme. You're welcome. No, yeah, I was going to say far from being a contrarian.

21:04I think you hit the opponent at the end of the game. In terms of watching it back, and you'll like to scream, I've started watching it on a higher speed now because you can do that on the Celtic TV. I still have to turn the sound down because Peter Grant, even on double the speed, doesn't it? Anyway, watching it back, I think it did struck me that the halves weren't actually that different. And the way I mean that is, they felt very different. But in terms of the tactical plan of both teams, I don't think it was a whole lot of difference in them. There were smaller chains. I think Rangers' press was maybe as aggressive in the second half. That might be a tie-in issue. I think the personnel changes, ends up with the Celtic having more of an outlet,

22:05a bit more calm on the ball in the third half, which means they can get to range just as half in a slightly more control fashion. But I think that's probably more of a player changed a tactical change. But overall, I think the tactical plan and execution from both teams were very similar in both halves. I think what you see in it, I think this game crystallizes that really well, is that both teams were very direct. Now, I don't know how much of a plan that is in terms of Celtic. I think the plan for Celtic is to be more direct, but it feels like they go directly quicker when they're pressured more often, even when they're not pressured so much. And on the Rangers' side, we sat our last week and we talked about how they lined up against hearts. And hearts was obviously a bit more passive in their press, but Rangers' build-up play against hearts. It kind of led me to believe, they're going to try a few things to talk about

23:08asking falling down into the center backs and then trying to build up. So nothing on that from Rangers as well. So you went, you had two teams whose the main tactical style was get the ball up, launch it to put a finer point on it. And I think what you do with that, you reduces, you deduce a lot of the game and how you get into the positions have were a long ball that then there's a duel. And then it all, for me, a lot comes down to how are you set up to win the second balls. And that's not really for me about energy or passion or being stronger into jewels. It's just how are you placing your team around that second ball and around that duel? So for Rangers, I think they lean into that a lot more. So for Rangers, I almost like to describe

24:10as a bit more of an organized chaos ball. Whereas in this comes back to how they set up right, they really just have two white players and they put everybody else in the center of the pitch and they have strikers dropping. They have these two kind of inverted fingers. So they're more set up to get into Celtics half with the minimum of risk, because they're not really trying to play through the Celtics press anymore. And then what happens is in the first half was they're more better set up for it. And the thing with chaos ball, you need to get a bit of a lock away the ball falls as well. So I think Rangers were better set up for it and they had a bit more random variance in where the ball falls. And then once Rangers had the ball and Celtics have, I think this comes to Scott's point. Scott makes a really good point here. I don't think Celtic has a talent advantage anymore. And that's not to say Rangers is a markedly better team right now. And because I think they're not, but I don't think to have any worse players overall than Celtic.

25:12I think you can pick any, you know, any part of the team from goalkeeper all the way to strikers and you can make a case that there's not much in it either way. So if you do then have that, I think Rangers then they don't create a lot in the first half, but they're better set up for it. And as Scott also pointed out, I think starting Oxley Chamberlain in that game is an absolutely criminal decision. As you said, Graham, that was so obvious. That was so signposted that this game would be one game that did not suit them at all. I don't know. The naivety of starting him, especially based on his performance against Hips as well, I just go, yeah, it's for me, he's almost a criminal offense. He has, he can have a purpose this season, Oxley Chamberlain. It's not starting a game like Iberats. It's not starting most games for me. There's periods of games he can come in with

26:13Hill skillset and the way the game is where he can contribute. That wasn't it, especially with if you're pairing with, you know, Philippi and Sagi. It's a Philippi or Simone. He's the real anyway. Philippi. So, but it comes to it. But then we've come to the second half, Graham. You get Rio Tattei and so you get somebody who's got more legs. I think Rangers do tie maybe a little bit. So there's kind of a shift towards Celtics advantage in terms of we're still playing the same way, but the, the odds are maybe a bit more stacked in Celtics favor. But a lot of this is random. It's a bit of luck. It's where the ball falls down. I don't think Celtics play, I don't think Celtic outplayed Rangers in the second half in any way. It was just some minor tweaks in a little bit of of variance. I think I shared with you, Graham. There is the moment when Rangers has a good start to the first half, but there's a moment when they attack about two or three minutes before Celtics first goal and Chimita does this ridiculous back heel to stop the

27:17attack and give Celtic the ball. The ball stays in Rangers's half the next two, three minutes, a couple of corners and Celtic score. There's such fine details that if Chimita doesn't try that ridiculous back heel, Celtic don't go on to score. I don't think they may be going to score the whole game, right? Maybe they would, maybe they're not, but I think when you both teams are playing this type of football, as I think I said before, this is more a talent equalizer than a talent magnifier. You can play the same way almost both halves and you can have completely different outcomes in those two halves because that's the way that football puts that in place and that's a result of that. Rangers were better set up for it in the first half, Celtic made some personal changes and maybe the lock the variance swung a bit, but for me, there wasn't actually that much of a difference in the two halves coming down to the way both teams actually tried to play

28:19and the selection issues that influenced that as well. It's got a Marlano made I think five changes from Rangers going into Aberdeen with Adamu obviously came out, Maeda came out, the Ox came out, Nickering came out and obviously Dan Murray had to come out as well. Do you see, do you think is, do you think that was a case of he tried something and then he was trying something different or do you think that's a case of resting players for this game? And do you see that, do you think he's going to flip back to the kind of Rangers lineup or do you think that was a more of an evolution and the Aberdeen lineup is maybe what we're going to see similar on Sunday? No, I very much assumed he was just resting people, but my problem with it was that we can't and afford to rest anyone in any game because we're so limited and I think we just need to put our best foot forward over time no matter what the cost might be of that physically. So I

29:27with a hundred percent as I touched on earlier I with a hundred percent started Negan. I think we need to be finding a place for Dyson at the moment as well, which is in Barrison in a way because he's all over the place and he does not look like Skoda, but purely just for his pace and his work rate and the way that he sort of animates the fenders and gives them something to think about. I would have a man there. I think that's a really striking thing at the moment is at such a condemnation of an awful work we did in the Giantsley transfer window. I think only you more than anyone is hyper aware of how bad all of our strikers are. That's why he keeps chopping and changing it in a moment. I don't think he fancies Chvinchara or a Dhamu and he clearly doesn't fancy an actual because he's just not even getting scored at the minute. I think that's why Maida suddenly, as a lone striker, is suddenly back on the agenda after it hadn't been for quite some time. So bad. I think there's just a degree of impulsiveness in the Celtic team selections at the moment that has been for a while. I don't think there's a

30:33full line of logic through them, even just as simple as going, well, he played well last weeks, so he's staying in. Even the fact that we kept a Dhamu and a starting lineup because he had that one good pass from the Cowan and Stuttgart didn't contribute in Nelson Stuttgart. That's actually a good game and all of a sudden he's starting the biggest game of the season. I do wonder, we've talked over time about Mother William Foveringham and how much of an influence are these guys having behind the scenes. I'm sure that I have an influence but I would I would suspect that it's only all that's really having the final word on the starting line-ups and that is just a little bit of, as I say, of impulsiveness that you can detect in them. But for Sunday, yeah, I would assume Arthur would stay in the midfield, is a really interesting part. I would assume it would just be McGregor, Taty and Yegren. I thought, yeah, I was really

31:37pulled the other night. You haven't won a major sort of relapse. But again, can we afford to drop him or are you going to start foresting? I probably not. So I would assume it would, I think it might be Yang, Dyson and Tineke because I'm not sure you can justify another start for big time. I feel a bit sorry for him because there were some signs when we first brought him in that we were going to tail in our game slightly to do something that stood out more, especially when he scores that really good header against Falker from the Tierney Cross. But we're not really doing that. We're not getting the amount of crosses and that he could benefit from. And we're not, I wouldn't really want us to anyway, but when we try and do a long ball thing straight up to him, that's not really working either. He's coming way too deep and he's getting involved in a lot of stupid push-and-pulling with every centre back he comes up against. So yeah, I just, I wouldn't want to see him start on us

32:39Sunday. Christian, when it comes to formations, so one of the things that Mark and there was known for and his first spell was the Free 5-2, which he used for a season and a half, maybe two seasons until basically Ranger Switch to Tactics and we had to go for 4-4-2. One thing that I've been quite surprised by is the fact that he hasn't changed formation this time with the 4-3-3 being basically in every match. It's just been a case of shuffling the players and then that for each match, Rangers doing a 4-2-2 gives him that box midfield that we've spoken about so often in this podcast. However, it's a varied, well it's not very different, but it's a different formation to the free 4-3-nancy box midfield formation. It was a tempting why is it, you think Daniel Rowe would be going for this 4-2-2 and what does it offer? What is it that he gets from it or what does he think he's going to get from it?

33:41I think I guess the quite lacy comparison is always going to be that it's quite red bullish and I think what we mean by that is that there's a lot of an emphasis on two things getting the ball up the pitch quickly, whether that's along the ground or a bit higher up and then get the ball up. If the ball doesn't stick or if you lose possession, that is okay because the other big element is counter pressing and winning the ball high up. And I think in simple terms, the most effective way of the way you can set up for the most effective counter pressing is to have a lot of lads centrally, which short distances between them. The way you do that to make it even more simple is you don't have as many lads out wide, right? So that's pretty much it. You focus going quite a lot direct up the pitch,

34:46and you set your team up that even if you lose it, actually losing the ball is actually a chance creates and mechanism because you have a lot of players centrally that is not a lot of space between them. And it's not like bang in the middle, but it's out to the half spaces. You have players moving a lot between those as well. And then you have certain player types and certain positions. So it's self-discord, self-arranged, it's got often too big strikers who can move a bit. So you have a good matchup against opposition centerbacks for those kind of maybe sort of aerial drills and things like that. And then you have two more technical players behind them because you want them to get them on the ball, the second ball when they have it, you know, their day to create and popping them out of spaces and so on. And then you have the two guys behind that, which is you should then a combination of, yeah, you need some physicality, you need some running power, but you also need players who are decent on the ball. And so I think that's looking at their line

35:51up on Sunday, it was kind of, that seemed to be the plan, right? So as you said in the first half against Rangers, I think you saw, Rangers played a lot less, build a play that I thought made their wood based on the hearts game, but there was also, you know, this is what they're set up for. They are set up for that direct football in the counter pressing. And Celtic is not, I think Celtic's plan is often to hit, turn the opposition centerbacks, hit our really fast players behind them. But even if you do that, it's really, it's the couple of things that might be issues to do that effectively is where you're hitting those long balls from because if you press tie and you hit them from quite deep, it's just going to land in the center circle and it's going to be a jewel there. If you hit them from out wide, okay? Again, you need a really, really good ball over the defense to do something and then you're reliant on your winger to do a lot. So

36:56I don't think Celtic is set up well to go along well, you know, so I don't know. I know what range this is. I guess this is what it is. I know what range is this plan is. I think they could also kind of, if they put the ball down on the ground and played, tried to play true Celtic a bit more I think the action got met a bit. I locked that. It's see our previous discussion with, with new grin and that kind of midfield, but at least they're leaning into this kind of chaos football a lot more. They better set up to do that then Celtic are at the moment. I think that's my main worry. It doesn't Celtic, it seems only wants them to go more direct, more often, but Celtic's not really set up in that way formation wise and player selection wise. So I think that's my main worry at the moment. It's kind of like we're volunteering to play the game on their

37:57level when they're set up to do it and we're not. So that's it. When I think about the smartest decision for range is to be honest, because as we talked about, I don't think they have to play that well to overcome a talent deficit, which from Bronkers day to against Ange, because I think Celtic's talent advantage was much bigger than, I don't know if range would need to do that. I think range is could play say more progressive or more through the middle and still have some success against a Celtic team that teams like, you know, powerhouses like Motherwell, Falker and Dundee has had in playing through the Celtic press. So I don't know if range is, I don't wish that to smartest things for dude for range, but at least there's a plan behind that. One of the things that I think we should not get away from and not to talk about it, feeling this podcast, because we don't have the time, but we're talking about a football club that went out of existence 14 years ago, haven't spent a crazy amount of money. Took years to

38:58come up the divisions and they have equalised, they've got to stage with us not a talent deficit within those 14 years, and that for me is completely on the Celtic board. There should be a talent deficit between Celtic and range, for the foreseeable future, because of the foundations that we've had over the last 14 years that they haven't had, and yet there's not. But Scott, I'm going to come to you in a second, I just want to go over a detail with Christian that came from the debrief. We use Falkmob mostly for looking at things in game. It's just that I was quite kind of surprised by it, because Falkmob for last week's game gave us an XG of 2.4, which would be a render about 1.65 with non-penal XG. On the debrief, Wales says that we had an XG of 4.6, which is a massive difference. Now, I said to you about this, and you said that you will always

40:00probably get any stats from a different place, which I said how we're supposed to mainstream these stats when we're getting massively different stats. What has happened there, just in case, anyone listening noticed it as well? What is the difference between those two numbers? I love the way you say we don't have much time, and you want to get into the really neat, the earliest details of the XG, but a long story short, different XG models will reduce the possible XG you can get from one attack, for example. So say you have a shot and a rebound, or maybe two rebounds. Most models will do it slightly different, but most of them, if you have three shots and combine, they make 1.8 XG. Your model will reduce that to under one, and they'll have some sort of formula to do it, or they'll have some sort of threshold that it only counts shots within the last 30 actions, and they pick the highest one, maybe they divide them.

41:03So it sounds like if, so I think I know where Wales got that XG from, that model then probably just counts real heart attacks, three shots, they just combine them together. And if you go into, if you really want to do this, if you want to go into the football and go to real heart attacks, game shot map, you'll see that his penalty is 0.79. His first rebound is 0.65, and his actual goal is 0.99. So I think that's, I should have done this, is something like 2.4 XG altogether from those three shots. Now, if you look at football stats for Celtic overall, that's 240, right? So I think they've, and if you look at Hatati's combined XG, for him, it's probably at 1.16. So in football's model, which I think is up there, they've essentially reduced the total XG from his three ones down into essentially, I don't know how they've done it, but it's under one,

42:03so that's essentially but where I think the company that they're wills referring to is probably just chopped it all together, and they don't have that kind of mechanism. So now you know there's quite an early debate going on whether in principle, whether you should just count all the XG, or you should find some way of just running in one to up to one XG, right? But in essence, that's why you have to be very careful with like single game XG, because you might have those some outliners like that. But yeah, I think with, you know, but so I think 2.4 for Celtic overall is probably, it seems roughly right, but you have to remember, even within that, you got, most of that is real tactics, like three attempts at scoring. If you look at Celtic's like open play, XG from open play, it's 1.12, and I think most of that will be Hatati's like goal essentially. I love how XG is 0.79 for a penalty, so 79% of penalty scored in theatre,

43:09and I was sent to you the other day that Harry Kane has an 89.5% success rate from the penalty spot. I think Celtic is what brings the average down to 0.79, just like Harry Kane up here, Celtic down here, and that's what makes it 0.79 overall. Scott, if you have anything to add to that, near the discussion go for it, but overall, are you worried? Do you think it's a bad thing that Rangers have had seven days just to focus on this game, whereas Celtic have had other fish to fry, or do you think it's a good thing that may be Celtic, keep the wheels turning a little bit by having these games or this game in between? Yeah, it's an interesting one. The Rangers psychological aspect of it, I think that this Cup game is a one, when we all looked at this really daunting run of fixtures that we've got, the Rangers one was one of the ones I looked at, and I went, I don't

44:09really, you know, that I visited someone for a go, so I looked at it and I went, I don't really care. I obviously don't want to be humped, I don't want to be humiliated, but if we lose that one, the Cup is, you know, we're already split to a fin, the Cup is not a priority. Now that it's came round, particularly off the back of last Sunday and the specifics of how that panned out, I feel like it's really big in terms of the psychology of a title race, because for all, for all the self-doubt, we have a bit of self-doubt, a season for good reasons at Celtic fans, I think what you have to realise is maybe less on address, you know, what young guys haven't been here that long, but at the club as a whole, certainly within the fan base, we lost a big game on, and for us to get so comprehensively outplayed in Sunday for 50 minutes or whatever, and still come back and get a draw, I think it undoubtedly will have rattled them to a degree, I mean, you can see it even just in someone in mad pod clips that are coming out of the guys saying that apparently Ruth Bönch shouldn't be allowed and stuff like that, so I'm now, I would now

45:14have gone from not really caring about this game that much to really wanting to win it, just because if we win it, I think the psychological bonus is massive, I wouldn't go so far as to say to be dead in the water or anything at that point, but I think it would really put a pin in their balloon, all that said, I don't think they'll have anything, anything elaborate plan for Sunday, I think they'll be quite confident of just saying, more or less sustain line up, more or less the same tactics, we'll just do that again and take two more of our chances, and so I'm a little bit fearful for that reason, because I think what we're good at, and it's not a good thing, but I think what we're quite good at, a safety fund sometimes, is just telling ourself the things and believing them, like sort of self-satisfied narratives, particularly when it comes to this fixture, I always remember the lead cup final that we won on the landing, where we just get battered, but Julia and scored that hilarious off-site goal,

46:15and what we all told ourselves as fans at that point was, if we turn up and play as badly as that, but we still beat them, then they're never going to beat us and are not afraid to us, and any turn up and beat us at Part K, the couple of weeks later, and it didn't really matter, because we still won a league, but the exact same thing happened last season, we were all fully in the lead cup final, we still somehow won it, and we thought, you know what, this is a piece of dust and they're never going to be us, and then the battle's as free now at Irish, not too long later, so I think we all need to be cautious of this idea that just because we rather didn't finish the game well, that we've just got the number, and that's that, and we're going to roll in at Irish, and the first half of this game is essentially going to be the third half of last week's game, and the same pattern is going to continue, and we're just going to pass rings around in that ballerbar, I still think there's going to be some really specific problems to overcome tactically, and that's where my main concern lies. Yeah, I mean, I always think back to, I think it was one of Lenin's first ever seasons,

47:16and what was Smith who was still in charge there, and we were beating them so often, but because we played them six times that season, by the sixth time, the most important game, I think it was a league game, they'd basically got the measure of us and held us off, and I'm just worried that that's going to happen for this game, the Celtic part game, and the league, which is obviously the most important one. Okay, there's an element of familiarity to it, because I actually see we played them so often, like five or six times in some seasons, and it is interesting, like you mentioned a minute ago, the dynamic between Van Braun cost and post-acogal, and post-acogal glue was absolutely smashed on melee doors, but if you remember, they did kind of figure us out, and beat us in the Scotch Cup semi-final that season, so the more and more you play them, the more it does give people options to learn and to tweak things. It's a lot easier to learn how to stop someone doing something than it is to try and create something to beat another team, so I mean, that's what I worry about to start with, but I want to get nuances to decode with us, but I want to get into just thinking about

48:22the last few fixtures, so Christian, if you imagine to win this league, there's nine games left, we're going to play arrangers again, and we're going to play hearts, we need to beat arrangers, no, we need to beat hearts, that's a given, to make up the five points that we are behind hearts, we need to beat them, that was put as two points behind them, we then need to replicate a result that they have, which I'm going to say we need to basically at least draw with arrangers, so if we beat hearts and draw with arrangers and hearts get beat by us and they draw with arrangers, that puts us joined probably about four or five goals behind them and goal difference, where do you see the rest of the wins coming? I don't mean wins in that we need to win all the games, I mean, wins in that we need to get better, a better result than hearts, so if we beat hearts and we draw with arrangers, there's seven other games, where do you see us winning that hearts don't win or us winning where hearts draw, for example? I, long story short, I think

49:27can be completely random, and the reason why I say that is it comes back to the way Celtic is playing at the moment, it's partly how wrenches are playing both, how hard they're playing with they are similar playing style that you're leaving by playing this way, and especially not being set up properly for it, you are leaving, this is, and you're leaving a lot more up to me, chance than any other season, so chance then is if you go along, just a ball, you know, bounce the right way on the second ball, do you get some refereeing decisions? Do you have a couple of moments of individual brilliance when you need it? Do you have a couple of mistakes for the other team when you need it? So, and I think this is, if you look at Celtic's issues this season, the performances and results in Europe and in the Darby's aren't much worse than against the

50:32rest of the league, and I think that has a direct effect on how Celtic's style is, so if you look at all this and you go, in one way I wouldn't be surprised if Celtic lose to Hearts at home, but still win the league, because it's that kind of season, because everything I said about Celtic, I think into a large degree is true of Hearts and wrenches as well. Hearts can drop points against any team in this league, and wrenches can do the same, you know, there's a scenario there where wrenches just beats Livingston, and they keep a two-go lead, right, against Celtic, and they're four points ahead of us, and then there's such fine details, and then the season is looking really different, whereas now everything considered, I still sort of, if you put one to my head, keep Celtic as a side favourite for this league, right, so you can look, I guess what I'm saying

51:33going, you can look at all those games and say, well, Hearts is, you know, they lose points against rangers, I think Hearts can go and beat rangers in Celtic away, but lose enough points in the other games that one of the teams win it, and that comes back to the way all the teams are playing. Aberdeen was a good example, like Aberdeen is one of the worst teams in the league right now, and they're perfect for us because they're so bad at, they're not good at anything, they're not terrible, and they're not good at anything, they don't have a team where Modwellis is really good at wanting, rangers is probably good at wanting a heart, just good, Aberdeen is just a nothing team, and we still really struggled to get past them because we're playing in the same bloody way against every single team, and I think that's where it comes down to, so Celtic still have a talent advantage over most of the team, of the teams in the league, so I still, they have a good chance of winning leagues and anybody else, but if you look at this, I wouldn't be surprised to lose point against any of the teams, I wouldn't surprise if we beat any of them either. Well, we heard that here first, it could go absolutely anywhere.

52:35So look, I've got the league table in front of me, and I don't think I can remember anything being any wild as this one, it comes to Scotch football, you're talking about Celtic having the most losses in the talk for, seven losses, five more losses than rangers have had this season, same as Hips as well. Yeah, four more losses than Motherwell have had this season, that's just absolutely wild to think about, because when these losses are hard to the Motherwell combined. Yeah, there was gold difference in the talk for, but with scored the most amount of goals in the whole league, it's just that I don't get what's happening here. Scot Arne Slot, can I recently and spoke about how he hits the way that Liverpool perfect ball and he hits, he basically is bored by the whole of the EPL, the set piece, Premier League, and he was bonning the fact that we've lost the kind of, the lost art of Pep Guardio, let's take it, I'll keep us alone now. As a case of Celtic are basically pissing and pissing in the wind with, of Celtic fans are pissing in the wind with this idea that we

53:38continue to put, like the passing, passing moves Celtic way, when rangers are clearly embracing this chaos ball set piece future, or do you think it's just going to be a case of Celtic in the Scottish league, because of that talent, the assure talent deficit that we usually have, we will be able to continue on playing the Celtic way, even when the rest of world football has gone to this kind of set piece horrible future that we don't really want to see in football. Yeah, I really agree, there was college from Slot even though I don't necessarily agree with everything he said in recent press conferences, but I watched, I don't know if you saw match of the two last weekend, but the Arsenal Chelsea highlight package, it was 10 minutes long roughly, and every single clip, there was like, apart from two was a set piece, every single one, there was like one shot from open play and there was a red card, and all the other clips were set pieces, so it's mental the way it's gone down there, and you can see a little bit of it creeping

54:42in up here, certainly a range or certainly it has. I would like us to think that we would at least have that in our Arsenal to do it from time to time, and it is encouraging that we are starting to score slightly more from set pieces over the last couple of months, how much of that is acted, how much of it is designed, God knows. I'd think any, the game is so complex and over-analysed nowadays, any differential you can get, you do need to try and grasp it, but it shouldn't, like it has Arsenal come at the cost of all constructive, attractive passive football, and at Saturday we should be able to strike more of a sort of happy medium and find the balance, and then if you've got those dark hearts, if we can call them that up your sleeve, then maybe use them a little bit more in Europe or wherever you deem it appropriate, but I think especially in the Scottish League, let's be honest, not so much that season, because we've been at constant state of jeopardy in panic, but there's lots of seasons where

55:43Scotland is just a bit boring for us, so I think at least we can do is have good technical footballs and nice passive football to watch most of the time, and there's no reason we shouldn't be able to do that once we get guys at Jorah back, and once we slot a life at Jorah's centre on that field. I think we're in a lot of what's happening in England specifically, so you've got this concentration of wealth that then comes with the talent advantage in the Premier League between the teams is probably less and less, because you've got even the lower teams that can buy really, really good players. The other thing you've got, you've got probably the cream of coaching within that, so every single team is probably tactiqued out of the runoff, right, in terms of they're so drilled, so the tactical awareness is really high, so in one way what that does is just creates, you'll get less advantages out of being brilliant tactically, because everybody's pretty good tactically, so that I think the natural kind of next step to that is like, okay, where can I get an advantage? Set pieces,

56:48physicality, and that's where the kind of small gains are at the moment, so that's what Arsenal has leaned into. This is all, I think in Jorah's, it's cyclical, right, so you'll have a response to this, might, some other teams find a way to go the other way, but if you put in a Celtic context, that talent and financial advantages is still there, so I don't think you, as we've clearly seen this season, Celtic leaning into being a lot more direct and physical, it's not going to get you better results. What get you better results, consistent better results, is probably more akin to your angiopostocogular teams. Now, we're anxious that good results in Europe and in the Darbys with this kind of style, because then that disadvantage is that talent advantage. They've never won the Darbys, you know, the scrim, having won the league. One of the ones in the last 14 years, there's a reason for that, I think, is a lot to do with the way they're starting to play, but if Celtics now losing their talent advantage and they're starting to mimicking that type of football,

57:52without being properly set up, this is the thing, I'm not too precious, well, I like my football a certain way, yes, but if Celtic wanted to lean into total Red Bull, you know, why not? But then lean into properly, get the players, get the system to do that, to go direct, you're not doing anything now, the kind of sort of mimicking going more direct without being set up for tactically and without having the right players of it. So, but I still think in Scotland, the landscape is different and you probably have more control of the league and you probably get consistently better if you just try and keep the ball more than I sell to get during at the moment. Who's that Norwegian manager that used to wear the Wellies on the touch line? Eagle Olsen. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's what you're born, then, isn't it? You like this, that's for one football, and now you've got the thing. And you saw the results on the 90s as well, you know? So, I mean, I think, I think Norway could have a strike for sort of three players over six foot four. Whereas now, Graham, in the 90s, we didn't have a very good place for the

58:56great team. Now we have fantastic players in a really bad manager in the way. So, so there you go, that's where it goes. Hopefully, hopefully you get far in the World Cup. Third in the England. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so let's just go to the teams for the weekend. Scott, you gave us, I think, the midfield in the attack. What would your goalkeeper and defence be? Schmeikholt, no, it has to, it has to be sent a salad, doesn't it? And I don't think I know who's been great in the last two games, but I would start them. I agree. And the dynamic between him and Mike Humur, certainly, is a good interest in again. I do, I do feel like, you know that, you know, when you see those kind of stupid rage red cards, sometimes, and there'll be less so nowadays, but certainly 5, 10, 15 years ago, I think there's a little chance he might wind them up so much that he might sort of tempt them into one of those, which could be nice. Send her back, send her back to interest naturally because trust is back,

1:00:01isn't he? But I don't think any of us, and I don't think they rush this lot on back in now. So assuming he doesn't make it, then I'd be quite happy with our fun and skills. And then left back, it's going to have to be Sarah actually, isn't it? Which is fine, but I do like the option, whatever one of those you start hearing me or Sarah actually, I do like the idea that you can sort of job share it and take one of them throwing another one on half an hour to go. It's going to be, it's unfortunate we won't have the option to do that, but I think we've all got a decent amount of confidence in Sarah actually to go there and go to a place like that and not be rattled and have a fairly solid game. In question, what about your full 11? Well, the defence there is really interesting here. You go with Sun, Sarah, no matter what now. I think putting Sun on Sarah out to the team, who's Casper is fair. I think again, it would be quite criminal, right? I agree with, I've actually, I'm no matter how much I practice,

1:01:04I'd say wrong, but I think I said, I think you had this worst game for Celtic against Ranges, but I'd love him even more now after that. So yeah, it's still, the alternative to him, I think he's way above that, even on a bad day at the moment. So actually, it's an interesting one. They have very different skills. I think, I think Karin Cheney was a big part of what Celtic's build will play broke down in the first half against, against Ranges. I think it was pretty awful in this decision-making and on the ball. It's not his thing anyway. He's very good in the final third, those crosses, you need to get him into those positions. Again, popping up on set pieces, stuff. So he's got a certain skill set that I think, Sarah, he's better for Celtic in the build-up, just where it's because it's fast, his movement is happy to try shorter passes and jumping in the other spot. So I would mind him starting as well. Trust his back, but I think he's not a camp play against Motherworld the next week. So again, if you want to play Arfer against Motherworld,

1:02:04I think you need to give him another game, just to settle him in. And this is, you know, it is a one-off, it's a cup game, so it's not going to have consequences for League. So again, I think it can be really stupid not to play him. Okay, fine. You play Murray against Motherworld as well, but you play one of those because one of them has to play against Motherworld. Deep breath after that. Oh, my feel free. I think the ox, obviously. I think you play Hattat in my Gregor. I, to be honest, I would mind seeing Bernardo in there. I think that doesn't, he does. I know I've put a new grin out there. Again, I'm okay with that. Why don't we try that? Why don't we try a midfield that can run properly in the first half, see where that gets us. And then in the second half, you do have new grin, you have the ox, you got even look at Luke, my Calvin to pop in. That's a better time for them to come in. So yeah, I would go with those three. This front, I'd start trying Kara. I don't think you start against, I've started against him. Yeah. I know, I know, I'm

1:03:08kind of tempted just to go with my Jedi in Yang again in a way that I think you need that running power in the physicality in the first 1560 if range is going to do the same way. And then you got forest and connect to again, for me, but for our substitutes, you got to neckties, it's been he is why he is. It's not a great starter against those teams, but you can come on. So yeah, I would go physicality speed and midfield players who can keep the ball quite well for six to seven to minutes. And then you can add those kind of more wild cards. So yeah. I mean, if you're, if you've got a bench, where you can bring AOC, Negron, forest and to neck off on, it's probably one of the best that we've had all season. And if you're trying to spend the same way, so we're going, they will have spent a lot of energy in the first 60 to 70 minutes. Right. And that's when you want those guys, it's because games are all different. They'll have more time on the ball, and that's when they can do it. So that's logical to me. Okay. Two second prediction, Scott. What do you think it's going to be? Two one toss. Two one Celtic and Christian. I think it's going to be

1:04:15no no and Celtic over on penalties. Okay. I think it's going to be a two each and Celtic will win on silver goal, which will be for this game. Remember that classic. Okay. Well, this has been an absolute pleasure. I'm going to get some lunch, a Christian. What you up to for the rest of your day? Well, this was my lunch hour, so you're welcome. So I'm going to be working. So there you go. And Scott, what about you? Yeah, I've got a big pile of iron into the ironing though, to be honest. It is great. I don't iron. I just let the creases go out on my body, the heat from my body. So is that work? This is definitely going to come in. You're like, we're going to have a final section to start. So we have to win it. I've won it. End. Okay. So this has been the update. I've been your host, Graeme Kelly. He's been Christian. He's been Scott and we will catch you during the road.