Post Match Thoughts

By: Matt | August 6th, 2009

I gave you the nitty gritty yesterday. Your basic rundown of the game, your highlights (are they still up or have the fun police come yet?), and your pure unadulterated joy of finally winning a match away from Celtic Park in the Champions League. We clearly out played the Russians yesterday. From the kick-off, they were clearly playing for the draw, putting 10 and sometimes even 11 men behind the ball in an all out defense. For the first 43 minutes of the match, it was pretty effective and Celtic could not get many good chances on the Dinamo Moscow goal. However, a perfect Andreas Hinkel cross and a good finish by Scott McDonald finally opened the scoring for Celtic. Since they no longer could just defend, Dinamo had to try and attack. However, their attacks were pretty toothless, with their only chances coming off corners. Andreas Hinkel saved the day yet again, when he saved a near goal off the line during one of these corners. For most of the second half, Celtic controlled most of the possession. Scott Brown and Georgios Samaras came on as subs and seemed to change the game for Celtic. Brown created numerous scoring chances and seemed to relish his new role playing behind the strikers. Shaun Maloney nearly won the game with a chance alone on goal in the 88th minute, but shot it right at the keeper. It mattered not, as Georgios Samaras got his chance and took it. I’ve got to imagine Celtic supporters all over the world were yelling at Samaras to shoot it, but he held it just long enough and put it past the Dinamo keeper.

I decided to try a player rating system this time, let me know if you like this better or if you like my random bullet points I usually go with.

Boruc-8-Didn’t have much to do and one one corner was beat, but Hinkel saved him.
Hinkel-10-Set up both goals and saved a goal. Ran rings around the Dinamo wings and fullbacks. My Man of the Match.
Caldwell-7.5-Not a great game, but solid.
Loovens-7.5 See Heeeid.
Fox-8.5-Still seems nervous and struggled at the beginning, but settled down. Played some good defense, which isn’t his best suit.
McGeady-7-Did some fancy footwork, but his final ball was atrocious.
N’Guemo-9.5-Ruled the midfield. Only thing keeping him from a 10 was the yellow he picked up. I think he thought he was fouled and got frustrated, and took it out with his Rugby tackle. He better get use to not getting calls in the SPL.
Donati-8-Passing still something left to be desired, but I thought one of his better games with us. Seems to realized that he’s a big guy and can win a 50-50 chance and strung a few passes.
Maloney-6.5-Struggled with corners and free kicks and didn’t see much else of him. Should have scored the chance before Sammy did.
Fortune-8-Showed his game, which is holding the ball and creating chances for others. Held the ball well in the box which lead to Skippy’s goal.
McDonald-7-Not much from him besides the goal. Still, he got a goal.

Subs:
Brown-9-Came on like a man possessed and put Dinamo on the back foot. Created some great chances.
Samaras-9-Did a good job controlling in his sub stint and obviously did well in his goal.

ToMo-10-Perfect game. Knew that Dinamo would be bunkered in and came up with a great plan for it. Got the subs exactly right tonight it seems.