Interim boss John Kennedy has confirmed that Odsonne Edouard will continue to take Celtic’s penalties moving forward despite his Ibrox miss.
Edouard produced a dreadful display during Sunday’s Scottish Cup fourth-round defeat in Govan. The 2-0 loss largely came down to both errors from the full-backs combined with profligacy up top. The Frenchman was mainly at fault for the latter, spurning two great opportunities and generally failing to hold the ball up well enough.
His biggest chance to get on the scoresheet came in the final 10 minutes when Leigh Griffiths won Celtic a penalty. However, a casual run-up led to an unusually poor penalty being saved by Allan McGregor. At that moment, Celtic fans will have known for sure it wasn’t going to be their day.
Yet Kennedy isn’t of a mind to change our spot-kick taker after Sunday. Instead, he’ll keep Edouard on them as he provided the strongest hint yet that the Frenchman won’t be dropped.
As quoted by the Scotsman, Kennedy said when asked whether Edouard will remain on penalties: “He will be, yes. I spoke to him after the game [on Sunday] but [that was] in terms of support, nothing else. He’s scored big goals in massive games for us and he’s a top, top player.
“The very best players miss penalties, unfortunately. At the weekend he didn’t hit his well but that’s part of football, and you can’t criticise the guy just for that.”
Celtic’s penalties this season have been few and far between
In the past Celtic have at times taken the policy of changing penalty taker after a miss. This was particularly common under both Gordon Strachan, Tony Mowbray, and Neil Lennon in particular.
However, Edouard is going to get the opportunity to stay on them for now. His overall penalty statistics remain impressive. He’s netted 16 and only missed three throughout his entire career.
Then again, it’s been a mixed bag for him this term. Celtic haven’t had a plethora of penalties in our pursuit of 10-in-a-row. Edouard has only been given the opportunity to take five of them – scoring three. His miss at Ibrox followed another saved spot-kick at St Mirren back in September [Transfermarkt].
So you can understand why Kennedy is going to keep his trust in him when looking at his overall figures. Edouard is clearly going through something of a confidence crisis, and it’s having a big effect on our ruthlessness in the final third.
What’s perhaps even more interesting about Kennedy’s remark, however, is the fact that Edouard looks likely to start more games moving forward. There had been question marks over whether Kennedy would make major changes to his squad. Especially given there’s nothing to play for in the final four matches. Interestingly, it doesn’t sound as though Edouard comes into the discussion when it comes to players dropped.
We’ll see what happens tonight at Pittodrie, but by all accounts, Edouard will be stepping up again if we bag a spot-kick.
In other news, Stephen Glass has explained why he doesn’t want Scott Brown to play for Celtic tonight.
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