Analysis: How Celtic breezed past Aberdeen in the Betfred Cup Final

By Dougie Wright (@dougie_analysis)

If you find yourself near the national stadium soon and fancy a bit of fresh air, then you’ll be spoiled for choice. Leave the West Stand, walk up Cathcart Road for a couple of minutes, and you’ll find yourself in Queen’s Park.

If that’s not to your taste, you only need to cross the road to find yourself in Cathkin Park. Otherwise, if you leave the East Stand and head down Aikenhead Road, you’ll end up in King’s Park.

There are parks all over this part of the city, and, truth be told, Celtic could have been taking a stroll in any of them on Sunday afternoon

The Scottish champions barely broke a sweat as they swatted aside an Aberdeen side who didn’t manage a single shot in the Celtic box during the whole match.

Indeed, Sunday’s clean sheet means that Celtic have now achieved eight consecutive clean sheets in a row in domestic competition. It’s now 758 minutes since Souleymane Coulibaly’s 40-yard wonder-goal consigned Dorus de Vries to the bench, leading to Craig Gordon’s return. The Scotland keeper hasn’t been beaten in domestic competition since.

However, as good as Celtic were, it is worth pointing out that it did not have to be so easy for them. Derek McInnes should know Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic more than most, having already faced them twice this season. He will have seen how a disciplined, workmanlike Kilmarnock side made life very difficult for Celtic down in Ayrshire a week ago. How relentless pressing from Lee Clarke’s men troubled Celtic’s defence, resulting in their lowest passing completion rate this season.

Despite this, Aberdeen left three energetic, pacey players on the bench in Nial McGinn, Peter Pawlett and Wes Burns. This lack of pace in the team meant that Aberdeen gambled on being able to control the game against a team who have soundly beaten them twice in recent months.

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The trouble with having so many players sitting deep is that your more advanced players become isolated. Furthermore, when Lustig and Izaguirre pushed up, they took Hayes and Maddison with them. All of this left Adam Rooney rather lonely, and he only managed to take one shot in a miserable 80 minutes.

The first goal, albeit a fantastic strike from Tom Rogic, was horrible from an Aberdeen perspective. Both Andrew Considine and Kenny Maclean let Jozo Simunovic slip through to the final third after intercepting the Croatian’s pass.

The fact that a centre back is setting up goals is some damning evidence about how well Aberdeen pressed the Celtic backline. However, what will really irk Dons fans is the sheer apathy from Considine and Maclean in letting Simunovic essentially run onto his own pass.

If the first goal was bad, the second goal was worse. Circled is James Forrest where he picks the ball up:

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Right in the centre circle. From there, he runs into the box unopposed and scores. Where was Ryan Jack? What about Graeme Shinnie? Kenny Maclean? Similar to Celtic’s first, the goal was caused by a total Aberdeen surrender in the middle of the park.

By this stage, Aberdeen were well and truly beaten, only offering up three shots to Celtic’s nine in the second half. Their misery was compounded by Anthony O’Connor, already caught in possession a few times, caught napping once again. The Irishman tripped James Forrest. Dembele converted the penalty, and the fat lady could then be heard for miles around.

For all the pre-match talk about putting up a fight, Aberdeen did anything but. This was simply a team who did not have the faintest idea how to play against Celtic. However, the Parkhead side won’t mind about that. Their aggregate score against Scottish sides this season is 64-9. Talk of a treble in November is usually presumptuous. In this kind of form though, who’s stopping them?

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