Livingston boss David Martindale says Aberdeen fans should cut Jim Goodwin some slack because even Real Madrid were on the back foot against Celtic.
Ahead of the Lions’ trip to Parkhead tomorrow night, the Livi gaffer insisted the Celts are the best team in the country and can force teams to adopt defensive tactics even if they don’t go into the clash with that mindset.
Goodwin copped a fair bit of heat from the Dons faithful with club legend Willie Miller being critical on BBC Radio Scotland as Aberdeen fell to a 1-0 home loss against Ange Postecoglou’s side at the weekend.
But Martindale insists his Aberdeen counterpart was just minutes away from being hailed a hero with Callum McGregor’s late 20-yard strike being all that separated the sides.
He commented: “Folk need to give Jim a wee bit of a break here. He played two strikers and you’ve got to give Celtic a wee bit more kudos.
“Sometimes you approach the game in a certain style with a shape and they force you into a low block.
“For 60 minutes against Real Madrid, Celtic were very good and if Callum McGregor’s shot goes in you’re looking at a different game. Did Celtic force Real Madrid into a kind of mid-to-low block? I think they did.
“They did it to Aberdeen and they’ll do it to countless more teams.”
He added: “Probably the disappointing aspect was Jim was at home and the Aberdeen fans maybe saw it as a wee bit negative.
“But I would counteract that with if they had managed to get a 0-0 draw or nick that game 1-0 at the end, would the narrative have been different? He would have been a genius. That’s the fine lines.
“Jim could have played a 4-3-3 and been beat 4-0 and would have been lambasted for that too.”
Livi were the last team to keep a clean sheet at Parkhead in the league when the two sides played out a 0-0 draw in October last year.
And while the gaffer insists he has no intention of being overly defensive against the Hoops, he’s also wise enough to know that may well end up being the outcome.
He said: “I am not going there to park the bus but the probability of us being forced into a low block is very high.
“That’s what will probably happen. It’s my job to find a way not to concede a goal and pose some kind of threat at the other end.
“Do I think I’ve got a squad capable of doing that? Yes I do but I also think it’s going to be a formidable task and I go back again to Real and what Celtic did to them for an hour.
“Real knew they were in a game and that shows you where Ange has Celtic as a team.”
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