This was always going to be a big test of Celtic’s recent progress and for the new man in charge in a baptism week full of big tests.<\/p>\n
Little time to implement change but the chance to go clear in the league was there for the taking with a game in hand.<\/p>\n
It was opportunity missed despite an opening that suggested Celtic had been reinvented immediately. In truth, aside from a bright start, few could argue at the outcome.<\/p>\n
“The big talking point will be the change of formation,” said former Celtic goalkeeper Pat Bonner.<\/p>\n
“The first 20 minutes was maybe what he wanted, the speed, the counter-press, but you need to maintain that.<\/p>\n
“When it comes to breaking down opponents in a compact area, they have been lacking for quite a while now.”<\/p>\n
A switch to a back three with Hyunjun Yang and Sebastian Tounekti deployed wide but well advanced. Benjamin Nygren and Reo Hatate slightly more central dropping into space.<\/p>\n
It was a big ask for everything to click straight away. However, in the opening quarter, they looked rampant. The home crowd were loving the energy and intensity of their team and new manager.<\/p>\n
He camped on the touchline throughout the first half. Time and again he urged them to go forward on the ball. No passing sideways, progress quickly either short or long. <\/p>\n
Very promising and Hearts looked on the ropes. When Daizen Maeda got in he seemed certain to score. He didn’t and, gradually, everything turned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was always going to be a big test of Celtic’s recent progress and for the new man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-179962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}