Celtic were left frustrated once again as we slumped to a 1-1 draw against Dundee United at Parkhead.
The injury-stricken Hoops took the lead through Liel Abada’s fine back-post header. However, United struck back a minute later when Ian Harkes bulleted a header home.
The stalemate was probably deserved over the course of the game. United came to play and get at Celtic on the counter. It’s something they did effectively and gave them plenty of periods of possession in our own territory.
And here, we take a look at three things we learned this afternoon in what was another massively disappointing afternoon:
Celtic boss has a favoured defensive partnership as mistakes continue
The mistakes just won’t stop at the back for Celtic as they suffered another bad one this afternoon.
Ralston was done far too easily down the right side after the Hoops stormed into an early lead. However, nobody had tracked the run of Ian Harkes, who had a free header that he bulleted home seconds after we took the lead.
You can’t blame Cameron Carter-Vickers or Carl Starfelt for that one. When it comes to advancing midfielders, we needed one of our won centre-mids to track the run. However, as frustrating as that mistake was, there were others that could’ve led to even more disastrous results.
Starfelt’s distribution was poor once again today. He simply wasn’t tidy enough on the ball, and would clear it out for throw-ins or corner-kicks when it didn’t particularly feel necessary.
Even so, Postecoglou appears to have chosen his number one centre-back partnership for now. Stephen Welsh has now been benched for three of the last four matches. Starfelt and Carter-Vickers looks like the pairing Postecoglou wants to develop.
Unfortunately, there are no signs that things are going to get better defensively anytime soon.
Midfield posted missing once more
James McCarthy put in a decent shift against Raith Rovers on Thursday night. Today, however, he had a much bigger struggle as United looked to press him.
From the off-set, he was having the same issues he suffered from last week at Livingston. He could barely find a Celtic player when on the ball and took far too long to release it. Last week, we had the excuse of it being a plastic surface. Today, however, we saw the exact same display but on the immaculate Parkhead turf.
Ange Postecoglou stated a couple of weeks ago that McCarthy was “ready to go” [Scottish Sun]. But the truth is he still looks so far off the pace. It’s nothing to do with not being suited to the manager’s style of play either. McCarthy’s job is to do the basics. He was struggling to do even that as he was often dispossessed or playing a loose ball. Not to mention he had a shaky first-half header back towards his own goal that nearly led to an opener for United.
But it’s not only McCarthy. Tom Rogic was far too wasteful throughout the 90 minutes whilst David Turnbull was far too anonymous for his importance to this system. Both are supposed to be Celtic’s main creators in the middle of the pitch. But there was so much about the engine room that misfired.
Postecoglou is struggling badly without Callum McGregor, and it’s showing in the results. Had CalMac been fit, this likely would’ve been a different scoreline. The manager certainly doesn’t have his problems to seek.
Albian Ajeti is failing to reignite his Celtic career
Albian Ajeti couldn’t have wished for a bigger opportunity to reignite his Celtic career and prove himself to Ange Postecoglou.
He started the campaign as third-choice striker in a one-striker system. Odsonne Edouard and Kyogo Furuhashi were ahead of him, before Giorgos Giakoumakis replaced the former. Yet, as Furuhashi recovers from a month-long injury and Giakoumakis struggles with a new knock, Ajeti is now our only option.
This was his golden opportunity to remind everyone of his goalscoring abilities. And he started in decent fashion with three goals in two games against Ross County and Real Betis respectively. But even though he managed to find the net, his all-round performances didn’t impress.
Now, he’s goalless in his last three games. He was anonymous against Livingston and just as disappointing at home to Raith Rovers on Thursday night. Today, he managed to produce the miss of the season from a couple of yards out whilst consistently failing to provide Celtic with an effective outlet to hold the ball up.
All of a sudden, Ajeti is running out of time to impress. Furuhashi is closing in on a return whilst the Swiss striker continues to struggle with his performance levels.
This is his big chance to revive his Celtic career. The truth is it just isn’t happening so far.
In other news, Celtic kickstart contract plans; Karamoko Dembele surely a priority target
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