Well that was stressful to watch, and I have to admit it took a while for me to come up with 3 things we’ve learned from tonight’s game against Ross County.
Celtic leave Dingwall with staring at another brutal result and performance after County shocked us with a 1-0 success. The goal came courtesy of yet another set-piece effort – something that’s been Celtic’s achilles heel all season.
For the full 90, it was yet more painful viewing for the Celtic supporters. A lot of passing and a lot of switching around the County penalty area reaped no rewards.
Here, we take a look at the 3 takeaways from this evenings:
1. Ryan Christie experiment isn’t working
No, this isn’t just reactionary to Christie’s absolutely shocking miss in the first half. Although, how he managed to blaze over from four yards or so is anybody’s guess.
Nope, this is to do with Christie’s lack of influence alongside Odsonne Edouard in the final third. Don’t get me wrong, they show flashes. They managed to latch onto some defensive lapses this afternoon and set each other up for opportunities. Both should’ve scored from them.
But that’s the only way they were combining to good effect, if there was a clear error from the back-line. Outside of that, neither man truly impressed. Too often Christie is looking to take the shot on himself or finds himself being far too cute with the ball at his feet.
This was a game in which two out-and-out strikers were needed. Yet we had Leigh Griffiths, Patryk Klimala, and Albian Ajeti sitting on the bench. Christie’s runs don’t match that of an out-and-out front-man, and that was a problem this evening. He didn’t look to get in behind and that suited County.
Outside of his performance in Perth against St Johnstone, Christie has been struggling. With only three direct goal contributions in his last 10 league games [Transfermarkt], this is clearly something that isn’t reaping rewards.
2. Rotation for the sake of rotation
Can someone tell me why Lennon made the changes he made for tonight?
Tom Rogic came in whilst Albian Ajeti dropped to the bench. Ismaila Soro did the exact same to make way for Scott Brown. Yes, the obvious answer will be squad rotation. But there has to be a genuine reason to carry out that rotation.
Ajeti scored on his last visit to the Global Energy Stadium. The game was also suited for Soro to push higher up and put a more energetic press on County. Yet both men were dropped to the bench.
Don’t tell me that Soro is tired again after playing for 72 minutes on Wednesday night. Especially considering he was dropped for the two games previous for Brown.
Sure, you could say that Soro was dispossessed too easily by Aberdeen at Parkhead. But County were never going to flood the midfield and push as high up as the Dons did at the weekend. This would’ve been a comfortable game for Soro and one he likely would’ve bossed.
Tonight simply felt like rotation for the sake of rotation.
3. Stephen Welsh easing in nicely; but passing needs to improve
Stephen Welsh let nobody down this evening once again. He wasn’t to blame for this.
Welsh was partnered alongside Kristoffer Ajer and appeared to enjoy the responsibility. He didn’t have a lot to do defensively outside of mopping up the occasional long ball.
Most of his duties tonight involved getting the ball to his feet and giving it to either the wing-backs or midfielders. Relatively simple stuff. But there were more than a few occasions when his passes failed to hit the target.
Stat experts WhoScored clocked Welsh as having made 84 passes with a percentage rate of 79.8% being deemed successful. This was recorded after 80 minutes. Too often were they going out of play or just beyond their man at times.
Again, he wasn’t to blame for this shambles. He’ll feel he actually performed to a capable standard. And he did. But his passing needs to be one of his main areas of improvement ahead of next season.
In other news, Neil Lennon was fired an impossible Rangers question this evening.
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