Celtic 1
(Maeda 79)
Bodo-Glimt 3
(Espejord 6, Pellegrino 55 and Vetlesen 81)
It's not often you say the bookies got it wrong but with pre-match probabilities of 64% Celtic, 14% Bodo-Glimt and 22% the draw they did for this game. Celtic lined up with; - Hart - Juranovic, Carter-Vickers, Starfelt and Taylor - Rogic, McGregor and O'Riley - Abada, Maeda and Jota Giakoumakis, Hatate and Forrest came on as subs for Abada, Rogic and O'Riley.
I did an article https://www.celtictrends.com/post/turnbull-mcgregor-rogic after the home game against Bayer Leverkusen when I commented about our midfield and how they weren't good enough defensively at this level. I called for the introduction of Bitton in the defensive midfield role and McGregor to be pushed forward to the No.8 role. That happened in the next game against Aberdeen.
For me McGregor isn't good enough defensively at this level however due to what he brings to the team (creativity and controlling the game) we can just about get by with him in the defensive midfield role if we play more defensive minded players in the No.8 roles. At this level if you play a Turnbull or a Rogic you need to have McGregor in the No.8 with a Bitton type of player in defensive midfield.
If you are playing McGregor in the defensive midfield role then it has to be Hatate and O'Riley in the No.8 roles. Every Celtic fan was surprised that Hatate didn't start and if it was outwith Ange's control (ie Hatate not fit enough to start) then for me it should have been a midfield 3 of Bitton, McGregor and O'Riley.
Watching the match it looked like Bodo-Glimt were using our full backs inverting as the trigger point to press. Before the match I listened to a Bodo-Glimt expert on TheHuddleBreakdown and I also listened to Christian Wolfe on the Cynic Team Talk and on both podcasts a key aspect was how Celtic could benefit from the inverted full backs and how this should help defending transitions.
Others may have better stats to measure this but I had a look at the full back heat maps to see if they were less inverted that normal and it looks like they may possibly were less inverted.
Juranovic's heat map versus Bodo-Glimt is opposite and he looks to be hugging the touchline a bit more compared to the two heat maps underneath.
The heat maps below are Ralston v Aberdeen on the left and Juranovic v Rangers on the right.
Similarly Taylor seems to have hugged the touchline v Bodo-Glimt (opposite) whereas versus Aberdeen (left below) and versus Rangers (right below) there is a bit more inverted.
However these only include touches so maybe when inverting v Bodo-Glimt they weren't getting the touches inside.
I plan to watch the match again to see if there were any differences with the inverted full backs.
Overall though I just think Bodo-Glimt were excellent with a great shape and structure to their team which is the result of having a good coach in role for 4 years now.
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