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Greg Taylor says there’s no time for charades at the Celtic team hotel on Christmas Eve.
The only festive board games that interest the Hoops team this week are the 3-point ones. Brendan Rodgers allowed his men to take the day off on Christmas Eve and then spend the morning with families. But everything was back to normal by Christmas. afternoon for the dust of Boxing Day with Dundee.
Taylor wasn’t complaining about letting go of the holiday shenanigans because he knows this part of the season is strictly commercial. He said, “We were in a hotel. There were no charades or anything like that!You exercise a little later on Christmas Day. to spend the morning with your families and enjoy it with them, as they make many sacrifices during the season. You are away from many hotels and can participate in 3 matches a week.
“So even though we’re in a privileged position as footballers, I would never take it for granted because it’s an honour to play for this club and play professional football for a living, but it’s one of those days where Have a Look to give back to them because there’s a lot of sacrifices for them.
“I celebrated it on Christmas Eve because we were off. We’ll had the family up and enjoyed it with them. Pretty standard, prawn cocktail, soup, turkey, ham … certainly no wine for me though, I left that for other people!”
“We then trained on Christmas Day to be in a position to prepare for Dundee. It’s a lot of games and we have to finish them with smart performances and positive results. Boxing Day kicks off in front of Dundee.
There are no charades yet. Celtic looked like themselves on Saturday against Livingston and Parkhead sounded like themselves. Functionality looked more like this after back-to-back league losses to Killie and Hearts, while the Green Brigade’s return to the box gave the position a more familiar noisy feel.
It took Celtic until now to break through but it was a comfortable 2-0 win and Taylor admitted it was a lot more like that after a few weeks of pretending to be champions. He said: “I would say yes, it was very dominant. ” . I don’t forget that Livingston entered our area. Maybe we would have made it a little less difficult if we had taken an opportunity in the first half, but we kept the same speed in the second half and they gave us the opportunity. result we needed.
“It’s been a tough week. We got some complaints, and rightly so, the last few performances in the league weren’t smart enough. We knew we had to do it and we did it to the maximum. The enthusiasts were smart. It was fantastic to have a full stadium. It helped us.
“Of course, they were a bit frustrated when we didn’t score in the first half, but that’s natural. Our task is to remain calm. We need to win the game in the first half, but that can’t happen. At Celtic they know it”. one defeat is a disaster, let alone two. It wasn’t really smart enough, although the Champions League in between was a major performance. The two league games didn’t live up to our point and it was a matter of looking to get back to that quickly. There was a lot of breakthrough, smart power, getting to the right areas.
There was a noticeable difference in Celtic’s technique this weekend. It was faster and more accurate, and that technique helped Kyogo get back on the scoreboard after drawing seven games. It’s all about the striker’s serve and, regardless, he had something to sink his teeth into.
Taylor said: “He did a smart job of getting in the back bat. He may have had a few in the first half. It’s been a challenge for Kyogo, it’s been a challenge for all of us this week. He probably didn’t get as many opportunities as he’d like, so it’s a matter of occupying the right spaces to get there. It’s about looking to run errands. It’s tricky unlike a deep, low, five-back block, there’s not a lot of space. .
“Sometimes you have to make those selfless runs in a domain where you’re never going to get the ball, but that’s in the hope of dragging some other frame with you and opening it up to someone else. There were a lot of them, unlike Livi, but it’s fantastic to get the functionality and result we wanted.
Taylor expects Celtic to triumph in their difficult era, and they may get even stronger with the return of big players this week. Rodgers revealed that Reo Hatate and Liel Abada are ready to return and that he probably won’t need a guessing game to recommend what that means for the Hoops team.
Taylor said: “Yeah, those are players we’ve missed. Reo provides us with genuine dynamism in midfield, he has this ability to get a player ahead in midfield.
“Liel speaks for himself. He’s got so many goals at the back stick, he’s always there making good forward runs. So, yeah, that will strengthen the squad and give us a few more options. Will we be stronger? I hope so. I think notoriously we have been pretty strong after the break and had a real consistent run of results.
“With the boys coming back, and I’m sure there will be additions to spice up the festival and help the guys who are there, we’re looking forward to the guys’ return and the opportunity they’ll have. It comes with that.