Brendan Rodgers has been speaking about Luis Palma since our UEFA Champions League loss to Lazio.
The Honduran winger, signed from Aris Thessaloniki at the end of August, has burst onto the scene in recent matches. Palma netted a vital goal against Motherwell last weekend and then seemed to have scored an even more important strike against Lazio, only for VAR to intervene.
The attacker has looked decent at points but has a huge task to live up to former Hoops winger Jota. He joined the club as the obvious left-wing replacement for the Portuguese star, yet hasn’t featured quite as often as supporters may have expected.
Palma has been around for six Celtic matches now but has started just once, away to Feyenoord. He has appeared in three other games off the bench, including Wednesday’s meeting with the Italians.
Hyunjun Yang was chosen ahead of him, as he was against Motherwell. The South Korean appears to be ahead of Palma in Rodgers’ pecking order at present despite not really lighting things up yet.
Rodgers has explained his thinking for the Lazio game with The Herald running the quotes.
“[Yang brings] a bit more physicality,” the Hoops boss said. “I thought Luis did well when he came into the game. He is still getting up to speed with the intensity and the tempo of it all. So that was the reason for the decision.
“We have obviously moved the wingers around to look at the best possibilities for us in the games. But I thought Luis looked good when he came on and had some really good moments.
“He was unfortunate with the goal. The ball hits Daizen. If it doesn’t touch him it would have run through to Luis. He finishes it really, really well. But I expect him to get better and better.
“Until that moment, we have to look at them both and look at them all. Hopefully, they can contribute well for us. I just think [Luis] will get better and better with the experiences, demands and expectations of playing for a club like this.
“He has got the technical quality. You could see from the disallowed goal that he has shifted it and finished it really well. He played a couple of nice cross-field passes and secured the ball. The young players will improve.”
Palma is an intriguing one. On the face of it, he’s done alright so far. He did take his disallowed goal excellently against Lazio. It was a real bit of quality that showed he could contribute on that stage.
At Motherwell, he netted the opener and should have had a brilliant assist for James Forrest ten minutes prior.
Yet, despite those good moments, there is a growing sense that he may be a little one-dimensional. It’s very early days, and he may have a lot of growth in him, but he does seem to want to cut inside onto his right foot virtually every time.
That’s great when it works like against Lazio and Motherwell, but it will become very easy to defend against. Jota always had the option to go either way, which made him such a threat.
Those are just some of my early thoughts on Palma. I’m not writing him off by any means, but I hope there’s something else in his game we’re not quite seeing yet.
In other news, Alistair Johnston knows what Celtic must do to succeed in Europe
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