Mark Wilson and Andy Halliday shocked by Celtic’s defence and Maik Nawrocki after Rangers loss

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The fallout continues from Celtic’s derby day loss.

Thankfully, Celtic have the title all but wrapped up because the last two Glasgow derbies have been pretty unacceptable.

Celtic’s 3-2 defeat to Rangers on Sunday stung, but the players and all involved have to take it chin on because it was deserved.

The issue here is that the same problems from the Ibrox horror show reared its ugly head again, and it’s an issue.

Back then, it was Cameron Carter-Vickers and Liam Scales at the heart of the defence, with Alistair Johnston at right-back and Greg Taylor on the left side.

Given Celtic’s injuries before the Rangers game, it meant that Brendan Rodgers was forced to make a few changes, including handing Maik Nawrocki a rare start.

• READ MORE: Three losers and one winner from Celtic’s defeat to Rangers, including Nicolas Kuhn and Maik Nawrocki

Celtic’s defence criticised but Maik Nawrocki praised after Rangers defeat

Given that Nawrocki had only played 23 minutes before the derby, then he performed pretty well and wasn’t at fault for the goals conceded.

Andy Halliday shared how his fellow pundit, Mark Wilson, was worried about Nawrocki and how they felt he was going to be targeted.

But the duo shared that was far from the case because the players who struggled, instead, were Carter-Vickers and Johnston, as they told Clyde 1 Superscoreboard.

“Barry Ferguson and his team took a direct approach,” said Halliday. “It seems that was a way to try and unsettle Celtic. I think it did. I think it unsettled them from the first whistle.

“Mark (Wilson) speculated before the game that Maik Nawrocki was going to come into the team, are they going to go that direct route and try to unsettle him? Try to bully him. 

“But it was actually the other three Celtic defenders, I thought that struggled with the physicality the most.”

Wilson responded: “Nawrocki was the least of Celtic’s worries. I thought Carter-Vickers was poor. I know we are highlighting Alistair Johnston and how poor he was.

“That full right-hand side of the Celtic defence, Carter-Vickers, Johnston and if you include Engels in that triangle as well, really poor and Rangers exploited that.”

Carter-Vickers and Johnston’s rating for Celtic performance against Rangers

Celtic’s backline is a worry because several different faces have played in that defence, yet for three games in a row against Rangers, that’s three goals conceded from each match.

Thankfully, one of those matches was Celtic’s League Cup final win over Rangers at Hampden, so that is a massive plus.

But whilst Nawrocki got a rating of 7.05 by WhoScored, the men to his right were lucky to get six.