Football is a relatively simple game made complicated by idiots. It sounds like the sort of thing that Brian Clough would have said but I’m not sure who reminded us that, sometimes, managers can make life difficult for themselves by overthinking things.
If you look at our last five games against Celtic, when we have played well and when we haven’t, there have been certain characteristics of the performances both in terms of technical and emotional aspects that are pretty straightforward to replicate or avoided and that can be applied to Michael Beale’s short tenure as well.
When we press high, aggressively and as a unit with the midfield joining the attack, we have looked like the team that we all know we are capable of being, when we sit off and are passive, we look slow and easy to break down.
In possession, when we take 3-4 touches before playing horizontal passes to the full-backs it gives time for the opposition to set up their defence and to get into position, it also makes it easy to counterattack if passes are intercepted.
We have to press aggressively and we have to move the ball quickly – or is this oversimplifying things?
This squad is capable of so much more than it is currently showing but they will need to be at their best to lift the first trophy of the season, as we saw in 2019, all it takes is a bad call from the officials and a good performance becomes pointless – if ever there was a time to rediscover our more clinical side and put in the perfect 90-minute display, it is now, but Beale has to get it right from the first whistle, by half-time it could be too late.