Celtic supporters react to club’s worst start to league season in 23 years after Livingston defeat

A chastening 1-0 defeat against Livingston on Sunday maintained Celtic’s wait for a first domestic away win in seven months and capped off their worst start to a league season in 23 years.

Ange Postecoglou’s side have suffered six losses out of seven on the road in all competitions this season and their wretched away form has been a major talking point among Celtic fans in light of yesterday’s match at the Tony Macaroni Arena.

The Parkhead club are already four points behind their Glasgow rivals Rangers after just six games and are languishing in sixth place in the Scottish Premiership table.

Postecoglou stated in his post-match interview with BBC Scotland that his side had “played well in every game” but accepted “It’s not good enough. If we want to be successful, we can’t continue not picking up results in these games. That’s the test for us.”

Without a domestic away success in seven months and their fourth loss in five games, supporters took to fan forum chat Celticnoise.com to express their views.

Here we take a look at some of the main talking points:

Frank Owen has been satisfied with Ange Postecoglou’s start to life at Celtic but outlined their need to rectify their poor away form.

He said: “The facts are there and they’re stark. Our away record is abysmal. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that we play to our capabilities on the wide-open space of Paradise.

“My own feelings regarding Ange’s early tenure are still on the positive side. We have indeed witnessed some terrific football, but we’ve also seen some absolutely amateur defending at the same time. We’ve beaten a couple of very poor teams by a big score line, and for sure the football was very good. The flip side of the coin is Tynecastle, Ibrox and Livingston.

Dagurney criticised Postecoglou’s decision to persist with playing inverted full backs.

He admitted: “Turnbull needs a spell in the reserves to decide whether he wants to play or not and Jota is brilliant apart from not being able to find a cross to one of our players. We need to stop playing inverted backs when it is not working for us and on dodgy pitches. Same as last year, always the best team, always losing sucker goals.”

John no has called for tactical changes to be made on their travels as he believes the Hoops have become easy to play against.

He stated “The biggest difference I’ve noticed in our current shocking away form is the roles of the wide men. Only using our wide men to hog the touchline and getting crosses in from very deep areas, not a tactic I would welcome whatsoever as it’s too easy for their full backs to play against and winning them battles hands down.

“Would have thought getting the wider men more infield to support the central striker and the possibility of quick one two’s with the overlapping full-backs getting crosses in from the space available would be a better attacking option, as the inverted full-back’s have only produced one moment in the three games I can recall.

“Need tactical changes away from home, as we’ve became far too predictable in our play and tactics.”

JamSam67 reckons the defeat to Livingston is a result of having a number of their first-team impact players out injured.

He stated: “The players and the manager are responsible for yesterday. We did everything but score and it only proves that we’re missing our top 11 players. As much as I detest our board they aren’t picking the picking team or the tactics.

“They’re getting no time on the training pitch with the current schedule. We had no cutting edge, our wingers were useless, no decent deliveries into the box and the goal they scored was a really good take, turn and shot. We’re getting there but need our big hitters back. Forrest, Kyogo to name them.”

Gary67 questioned why the Australian head coach is yet to bring in his own backroom team.

He said: “Why has Ange not brought in any of his own coaches? He never communicates with (John) Kennedy, (Gordon) Strachan and (Stephen) McManus on the bench, why? Has he been told to work with who is already there?”

Espiritosanto admits he saw the Livingston loss coming but is backing Postecoglou to turn their fortunes around.

He admitted: “Can’t say I’m shocked after the game, went there with far better teams than yesterday and came unstuck. I’m baffled why we constantly go to that stadium and play two wingers? Why should the onus be on us to do all the attacking? Do something different, then with half an hour to go it’s goalless bring wingers on… we are so predictable, but big Ange will get it right. I have faith.”