Celtic’s sensible Tynecastle tactics and our best formation

The captain’s remarks follow yet another underwhelming display that has intensified scrutiny on both the players and manager Brendan Rodgers.

McGregor spoke candidly about the challenges confronting the Scottish champions. The midfielder admitted the team has failed to meet the club’s usual high standards and stressed the importance of greater determination and unity to revive performances and results.

Celtic’s defeat against Steven Pressley’s side – their first league defeat against Dundee at Dens Park in 37 years – highlighted once again persistent flaws throughout the team.

Repeated defensive lapses and a lack of quality at the top end of the pitch have plagued Celtic’s performances since August, with McGregor’s remarks mirroring the mounting frustration within the squad.

Speaking post-match via TCW, the Celtic skipper said: “This is what it’s like playing at Celtic. Everyone thinks it’s great, you’re winning trophies, you only win trophies if you’re together and you’re ready to fight and you’re ready to run and minimise the amount of days like this, because at this moment in time, we’re too easy to play against. We’re giving up too many goals. It’s as simple as that; we’re giving up too many goals.”

McGregor’s comments laid bare the core issues troubling Celtic – a noticeable drop in quality in the calendar year 2025 and focus that has left Rodgers’ men exposed against run of the mill domestic opponents.

His acknowledgement that the team is “too easy to play against” serves as one of the clearest indicators of Celtic’s ongoing struggle to rediscover any sort of decent performance levels whether that be domestically or in Europe.

Attention now turns to Thursday’s must-win game against Sturm Graz. Anything less than three points and it could be curtains for Celtic in the Europa League with three of their toughest games – against Feyenoord, Roma and Bologna – still to come.

Perhaps the trip to Edinburgh on Sunday afternoon to take on Scottish Premiership leaders Hearts is now an even more important game for Brendan Rodgers and his Celtic side. The manager has relented in the second half against Sporting Braga and also Dundee to change from his 4-3-3 to play a bizarre version of 3-5-2 but on both occasions that produced nothing.

Brendan Rodgers has been at Tynecastle to know that its a tight pitch and an intimidating atmosphere and all the more so this weekend with Derek McInnes eyeing an eight points gap and his Hearts side will certainly fancy their chances.

Surely the Celtic manager must go 4-4-2, forget all about wingers and bring Engels into the middle of the park. Get the two fastest forwards – hopefully Daizen is fit – to play up top and sit deeper, frustrate Hearts and hit them on the break every chance we get. This looks like the chance to play against a team that won’t park the bus and tactically it’s a great opportunity for the Celtic manager, one he really needs to take.

The Celtic team for the Hearts game, playing a 4-4-2, could be Schmeichel; Johnston, Carter-Vickers, Scales, Tierney; Nygren, Engels, McGregor, Hatate; Maeda and Balikwisha (who can play as a striker).

Before that it the ‘must win’ Europa League match on Thursday night but truth be told many supporters are now writing Europe off as a casualty of the summer of incompetence at board level.

Conor Spence

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