Celtic have a glaring defensive issue that requires immediate attention whenever Brendan Rodgers is without Cameron Carter-Vickers.
The US defender is currently injured at the moment and the Celtic manager has been forced to reshuffle his back four once more.
But what is abundantly clear is that when Carter-Vickers doesn’t play, the Celtic back four are left woefully exposed for pace.
The high line that Rodgers adapts just does not work. In the Livingston win yesterday, the centreback pairing of Stephen Welsh and Liam Scales were caught out as the Livingston attackers exposed their lack of pace on the counterattack.
Daniel McKay’s goal was a long ball over the top which caught out Welsh and Alistair Johnston but it was the central defender’s inability to catch the Livingston striker that was our undoing.
And whilst Livingston’s second was largely down to an error by Matt O’Riley, Scales and Welsh took an age to track back and get themselves back into position.
The lack of pace was also exposed against Motherwell as Stuart Kettlewell’s side’s counterattacking style caught out the Celtic backline time and again. That was until Cameron Carter-Vickers entered the fray.
As soon as Carter-Vickers came on as a second-half substitute against The Steelmen the Motherwell attack was snuffed out.
So how do we solve this? I would say Rodgers needs to allow his backline to drop a little deeper to stop the opposition from trying to break the offside trap. But that’s not what the Celtic manager thinks.
Brendan Rodgers wants the Celtic defence to play a higher line
Rodgers seems to be in no doubt where the problems lay defensively yesterday. And even though it is clear that the high line is causing us issues, the Celtic manager wants his back four to play even higher to support the attack.
Speaking post-match after the Livingston win, Rodgers said of the defence, “I wasn’t comfortable. We gave them too many possibilities in the game. The two centre-halves needed to be higher up the pitch and just more aggressive to sustain the attacks.
“It was too easy. We gave away so much space, so that was the downside to the performance. In fairness to Livingston, they exploited it. We weren’t good enough in those moments.”
That’s all well and good if you have the personnel to do that. We don’t unless Carter-Vickers is in the side.
Maybe Rodgers is hoping that he can outscore the opposition by using his defenders to support the attack. Recent history, the Dundee game aside, has shown that we have struggled to do even that.
I hope the Celtic manager is correct. I hope that urging his defenders to press further forward to help the attack works. Because if his tactic doesn’t work, then we could find ourselves in trouble for the remaining fixtures of this season.
In other news, PFA Scotland CEO shares opinion on how Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers handled John Beaton situation
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