What They Said: Deila & Hughes

Ronny Deila

I enjoy listening to Ronny Deila pre- and post-match. He is a modern tactician with a methodical approach to all aspects of the game, which is evident whenever he faces the media. Even after each one of their shocking Champions League efforts he cut a reasoned figure in a difficult situation. After his side laboured to a 1-1 draw against a newly-promoted Dundee, however, even he was struggling to find any acceptable excuses.

When referring to his central defence, Deila stated that ”...you can’t expect too much from young players”. This excuse would maybe carry some substance had Celtic actually started the match with Eoghan O’Connell and Jason Denayer. In reality, O’Connell took to the field at half-time for Adam Matthews (with the amount of time the Welsh full-back spend on the treatment table a separate defensive concern) and, moreover, Denayer is currently valued at around £10m and tipped to be the future of a highly-rated Belgian national side. Besides, the young centre-back pairing actually managed a clean sheet over their forty-five minutes on the pitch together, aiding their side in winning the half and tying the match.

The truth appears to be something closer to the following: shortly after arriving at the club, Deila identified that defence was one of the club’s strongest areas - choosing only to supplement it with the loan signing on Jason Denayer - before identifying the attacking areas as the priority to strengthen. Now though, he has realised that his prized asset in this area, Virgil van Djik, no longer wants to be at the club; that Efe Ambrose, cuts more and more of a nervous figure with each passing appearance; and that Emilio Izaguirre ran up the wing sometime in the past year and has never returned.

Joking aside, on the rare occasions when the Honduran left-back does return to fulfil his defensive duties, his concentration and positioning cannot be relied upon. Deila identified this after the match: “We were too open, especially on the left-side”, which gave Dundee pair Phil Roberts and Martin Boyle plenty of freedom on that side at different points in the match and came very close to securing all three points for the Dees.

This was even apparent in the opening seconds of the match: Straight from kick-off, Dundee launched the ball into Celtic’s left-back area where Izaguirre was caught napping. Denayer managed to cover this time but conceded a corner from which James McPake gave his side the lead. After only seconds played, Celtic were 1-0 down due to a blunder from the once highly-rated full-back.

Celtic have now gone two games without a win in the Premiership, which extends to four games in all competitions, and there is a growing discontent among their supporters regarding Deila’s ability. The Norwegian was expected to come in and quickly assemble a side - spending very little money in the process - to qualify for the Champions League. At the moment he is struggling to get the champions anywhere near the top of their domestic league.

John Hughes

The pretenders to Celtic’s throne are currently Inverness, though their boss is adamant his club are fighting a relegation battle. “I very much doubt it”, Hughes claimed when questioned about sustaining their current run, which sees them unbeaten after five matches and yet to concede a goal. A run which also includes a home win over relegation-rivals Celtic. “We’re going to try as hard as we can...whatever it takes to stay in the league .”

John Hughes’s vocabulary is often cliché-driven and this is yet another. This is a type of deflection used frequently by managers of overachieving clubs, attempting to play down expectations. Maybe newly-promoted Hamilton – who have only one less points than the Highlanders as it stands – can be forgiven for retaining modest aims despite their start, but are we to believe that the height of this current Inverness side’s ambition is to avoid relegation in the weakest Scottish top-flight in living memory?

Inverness have recorded top-six finishes in the previous two seasons and may have finished higher than 5th last season had they not lost momentum from their manager abandoning them mid-season. Furthermore, Inverness have one of the most settled and balanced squads in the division and possess enough quality all over the field to cause problems in any given match this season.

It sounds to me that this is an obvious attempt at reverse-psychology by Hughes in order to take the pressure off his players, thus pre-empting the media hype. The trouble is that he has over-compensated and instead just sounds like he’s talking nonsense.

What They Said: Wright, Adams & Deila

Tommy Wright

“He knows how to link it up, and probably doesn’t get enough goals because of the unselfish work he does outside of the box”, said St. Johnstone manager, Tommy Wright, of Steven MacLean after his winning goal on Saturday. The former Dons forward had earlier struck the post before he netted the winner against his former club. Despite this, and his memorable goal in last season’s Scottish Cup final, it is without doubt his intelligence outside the box that is his greatest contribution to the team.

As well as dropping deep to link midfield with attack, MacLean assisted in bringing about the prolific form of Stevie May last season. There is no doubt the sale of the under-21 international to Sheffield Wednesday has left the Perth side a little lightweight in attack, but to expect MacLean to fill the void vacated by May – as some have suggested - would be to confuse his role in the side.

Granted, for Saturday’s winner, he may have started the move outside the area before finding space within to finish, however, what is required is a strike partner to share the goals with him, rather than him becoming the twenty-goals-a-season striker himself. This is not to say that he shouldn’t be adding to his goals from last season, more that he requires someone with complimentary attributes to work alongside.

When questioned about any recruitment in this area, Wright joked that “Shaun Goater’s gone. It’ll not be him”, while telling of a supporter stopping him in the street to enquire about the alleged new signing. “Are you for real? 43[-years-old] and two stone heavier than me!”, continued Wright before confirming that they were no further forward with any targets.

Derek Adams

“We started really well and Dundee United score against the run of the play…” assessed Derek Adams after their 2-1 weekend defeat to Dundee United. A similar defence of dominating the game for thirty-five minutes and individual errors costing the team was peddled after the defeat to Kilmarnock. Fair enough, but that still leaves the majority of the match where you failed to dominate. At home.

This time around, Ross County travelled to Tannadice and, to be fair to Adams, his side were in control when guilty duo Yoann Arquin and Jake Jervis passed up enticing chances with the score poised at 1-1. “Performance-wise, we were excellent today…”, added Adams. Forgive me, but aren’t defensive mistakes and horrendous finishing part of the performance?

There did appear – although there is only so much you can decipher from criminally short highlights that fail to convey the ebbs and flows of a match – to be some sort of team forming. He has a left-sided full-back in Uros Celcer that seems willing and able to push forward. Just ahead of him is Joe Carlde, known for cutting inside on to his right foot, which allowed the duo to double up on United full-back Keith Watson.

This can make make for a perfect blend when pulled off correctly and, added to this, as we saw on Saturday, is Graham Carey bursting from central midfield, instinctively drifting towards his more natural left side. The goal, as well as the two missed sitters, came from combination play between two of these three and if Adams can foster similarly strong partnerships across his line-up, his team will surely start to pick up wins.

Starting slowly in the top flight is becoming a familiar story for the Staggies though, and much of this is a consequence of the Vladimir Romanov-esque signing policy favoured by Adams. Including loans, no fewer than eleven players have arrived in Dingwall this summer, taking Adams’s total to an incredible forty in the last five transfer windows.

The previous two campaigns have followed similar patters: finding themselves bottom - save for a club in crisis - at the turn of the year before recruiting even more players in January and finishing the season more than comfortably out of the reach of the relegation and play-off spots. Though he managed some continuity in the starting line up during their opening SPL campaign, last season saw Adams struggle to find his best line-up for the first few months before another overhaul of the squad in January.

Managers often bemoan the notoriously difficult January transfer window but it is there that Adams seems to do his best work and whether or not the same happens this time, time will tell. What is apparent is that Derek Adams is still unsure of his starting eleven and that if Ross County don’t begin to pick up results soon, they are headed for another bleak start to their winter.

Ronny Deila

This quote was not taken from the weekend’s post-match interviews but is worthy of inclusion all the same. On Celtic’s upcoming second-leg Champions League qualifier, Ronny Deila started off by, rightly, talking up the occasion. "This is the most important night of this season. The biggest. I can't wait. It's been a long 10 weeks of hard work, ups and downs, and now we're here at the final moment, the moment of decision. We have to go out and attack the game”. He then seemed to completely forget Celtic’s much-publicised and fiercely-debated route to this stage. “If we go through, we will have shown that we belong in the Champions League because we've been good enough to qualify. That is the main thing."

Really?