Michael Stewart says Greg Taylor ‘wasn’t happy’ with Liam Scales for failing to stop St Mirren from opening the scoring against Celtic on Wednesday night.
Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic recorded a valuable three points against the Scottish Premiership surprise packages, who proceeded to take the lead through Conor McMenamin after seven minutes.
Given that Nat Phillips was forced out wide, it left Liam Scales and Greg Taylor in the penalty box to deal with St Mirren’s strike force.
But as Conor McMenamin got in between Celtic’s defensive duo and headed home, replays showed Greg Taylor shouting at Liam Scales for not dealing with the cross from the left channel.
But as Michael Stewart shared ‘it’s actually Greg Taylor’s fault’ because he was supposed to come across and mark the St Mirren hitman, as he told Sportscene.
Looking back at the replays, Liam Scales did look over his shoulder and saw his Celtic teammate marking the eventual goalscorer before marking Toyosi Olusanya.
Liam Scales and Greg Taylor
“St Mirren did really, really well with the goal,” said Stewart. “A long ball up. But they are onto the second ball. They don’t panic. They keep possession and work the position really, really well.
“It comes back to go forward, then it gets switched out wide. You see Nat Phillips get dragged right out from the centre of defence. It’s a great ball in by Kiltie and it causes real problems. McMenamin is all on his own.
“You see Greg Taylor. He isn’t happy. But it’s actually his fault. You see Scales looking over his shoulders. He sees that Taylor has McMenamin.
“But, as soon as Scales turns and faces Olusanya. Taylor drifts away to the back post. The player at the back post is the least dangerous, at that point. And McMenamin is free to get the header in. Taylor has to stick with McMenamin.”
Celtic fight back
When St Mirren opened the scoring, you could have feared the worst and how a difficult evening of football was awaiting Brendan Rodgers’ side.
But pretty much straight away, the Bhoys were throwing punches back, including David Turnbull scoring a brilliant curling effort from the edge of the box.
He proceeded to miss a penalty before the first half was up, which didn’t help matters, but that proved to work for Oh Hyeon-gyu because he scored the winner from the bench and his first goal of the campaign.
That was a great moment for him and a morale-booster that Rodgers has the quality from the bench if he needs to rotate.
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