Celtic have made fun of the increasingly archaic player ratings format with a brilliant Twitter thread on the club’s official account today.
Many newspapers and online outlets still choose to score an individual’s match performance out of ten each matchday, with often redundant and arbritrary scores given.
Celtic have sent that up after today’s 5-0 win at Kilmarnock, posting a thread with a rating for every player on the pitch at Rugby Park – all of them being ten out of ten, with a description of ‘Pler’.
Attributing a score to players may have once made sense, but in modern football it’s less about individuals and more about a whole team’s effort, system and application – that is what drives results and displays such as the one we witnessed today.
That’s especially true with this Celtic team that the manager has forged into one, focused unit. They all benefit from the hard work of one another, so if someone stands out, it only means a teammate has held them on their shoulders.
It’s something Ange Postecoglou stressed to 67 Hail Hail on Friday when we asked him how much individual, headline-grabbing moments influence his team selections.
The Celtic boss told us: “In terms of individual moments, they don’t really play a part in my thinking because sometimes when you focus on individual moments you disregard the collective.
“A lot of players have good individual moments on the back of other people doing hard work so you have got to factor it all in. What I look at is the performance as a whole, and within that, if players have done well through their individual work, then that is great for us. They’ll be the first to acknowledge that it only happens because of the collective work of everyone.
“I get that people are really fascinated by team selection and the eleven that starts. I just think football is more and more a game about the collective.
“I really look beyond just saying these are the guys I am starting with, because just as important are the guys we are going to finish with in any game.”
Opinions are always going to be given on individual players. That’s a natural thing. Players can shine in a system or catch the eye. But assigning a value to this on a week to week basis is pretty silly.
It’s great to see Celtic having a bit of fun with the social media accounts, in a way that also stresses the message coming from the manager.
In other news, The new Celtic song that got an airing at Rugby Park on Sunday; class Joe Hart moment.
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