Arne Engels has called on his Celtic teammates to take responsibility and adapt quickly to Wilfried Nancy’s system following their heavy Europa League defeat to Roma at Parkhead.
The Belgian midfielder missed a penalty in first-half stoppage time as Celtic went into the break 3-0 down after a calamitous opening 45 minutes.
The result leaves the Hoops in a precarious position in the league table and raises further questions about the implementation of Nancy’s back three setup.
Speaking after the game, Engels acknowledged the tactical shift but insisted it was down to the players to make it work.
“Obviously, there is a new system, so we need to adapt to that. But we are professional football players, so we know how to do that. Everybody probably played already something like this in previous clubs or in the youth,” he said to BBC.
“So it’s up to us to just move with it and go with it. So we are trying to adapt a lot of things into training sessions. We didn’t really have a lot of training sessions yet, but it’s up to us to try to do all the things really right. And then I think we will be back again.”
Nancy has had just one week with the squad and has overseen back-to-back defeats in his first two games. Engels’ comments show that the players are aware of the scrutiny and the need to improve rapidly.
It won’t have been easy to switch from the traditional football set-up with the back four to Nancy’s challenging and demanding back three, especially with very limited time on the training pitch in between.
The schedule doesn’t slow down any time soon, either.
With a League Cup Final against St Mirren on the horizon, Celtic can’t afford another slow start or tactical uncertainty. Time is short and the demand for a response is growing.
It’s a pity that Engels was chosen to give his thoughts on the game…’Cos here’s mine…He was ,and not for the first time, dreadful last night…How he gets a game is beyond me, ‘cos he brings nothing to the team.