Carl Starfelt is one of those players that has been, at times, unfairly criticised during his time at Celtic.
On the left side of Celtic’s central defence, the big Swede has been excellent in our pursuit of domestic dominance. Indeed, he is partial to the odd error but at times it seems as though his mistakes are given more publicity than any other Celtic players.
But John Hartson launched a defence of the defender. In fact, the former Celtic striker was praising Starfelt for his contribution over the last two seasons and said there is only one thing he needs to do to prove the doubters wrong.
Speaking on The Go Radio Football Show, Hartson said, “I think he’s twice the player now than what he was when he first came in. That is my sort of assessment of Carl Starfelt. And as I said, he’s been excellent. Celtic have won two league titles and a treble, potentially.
“And he’s been pivotal in that. It’s just, I wouldn’t say it’s a question mark, but I want to be talking about how good he was against the Juventus’ or against the higher-class centre-forwards.
“The Champions League will test you on every level because you can’t go higher than that.”
To be fair, it’s not only Starfelt that needs to show improvement in the Champions League next season. There were a few Celtic players that fell short in that competition this year.
But we all know why. Playing our type of football leaves the team exposed at the back and where we wouldn’t normally be punished domestically, we were in Europe.
The positive thing is we have another full season under our belts playing Ange’s system. We have six Champions League game experiences to draw from.
That will stand us in good stead for the next campaign and I am confident that we will see a better Celtic for it.
In other news, John Hartson delivers a dose of reality to rivals as he explains away poor Ibrox performance
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