In the first game at Celtic Park since being crowned champions, the fans were expecting a performance to bounce back from the disappointment of last weekend’s Glasgow Derby result.
Instead, the Celtic supporters left Parkhead ruing another disappointing performance from their heroes with yet another two dropped points.
In the grand scheme of things it matters not in terms of the title, we have already sewn that up, but looking ahead to the Scottish Cup Final and tieing up a potential treble, should the fans be worried at this sudden drop of form?
According to former Celtic goalkeeper, Pat Bonner, they shouldn’t. As he also believes Ange Postecoglou won’t be. But Bonner, speaking on BBC Sportsound did say that there are two key areas the Celtic manager needs to look at coming up to the summer transfer window.
Bonner said, “He won’t be concerned because he knows that he’s got the best players in Scotland in his team. He can go out in that cup final and they’ll raise their game. But I think what he will be looking at is the group of players he has got and he has got problems in the centre-half position.
“Obviously with Carter Vickers injured and gone out, it just shows such a hole that’s in that area that he’s tried to fix with Kobayashi. He hasn’t quite worked and now he’s put Iwata in there today. That didn’t really work for me either. So he will have to go to the market, I think. But how do you bring in a third-choice centre-half?
“Are you gonna bring in one that’s going to play and upset that partnership between Starfelt and Carter-Vickers? It’s very hard to attract somebody if they’re not going to be the main player that’s better than you have.
“And you’re always needing to go to a different type of market. And what kind of market does he go to now? Does he go back to that Asian market or does he pick up players from the European and the British markets? They’re all the question marks at the moment that the fans will be asking.
“He does, I think, also need a striker. Oh came on, he’s strong but he hasn’t been given a long enough run in the team for anybody to make up their mind. He had a great strike off the post today but is he going to be the player that if something happens to Kyogo, could he lead the line? But they are short on that department also.
“So they are the two key areas and I think he may actually go for a midfielder. Just to give Callum McGregor a bit of a break because I think he’s carrying them at the moment.”
There are two questions we need to ask about the players that have been given an opportunity over the last few weeks. Either they are not good enough to make the step up into the first team or they have also taken their eye off the ball since the title was wrapped up.
I strongly suspect it’s the former. It’s natural for players to take their foot off the gas whilst the title has been won. No one can blame them for that. But if any of them have designs on a first-team place for the Scottish Cup Final in June, then they had better buck up their ideas.
Because in these last three showings, not one of those fringe players are giving Ange Postecoglou a reason to reach for the paracetamol because, right now, the manager doesn’t have one single selection headache to worry about.
In other news, Chris Sutton shares ‘unbelievable’ career first experienced at Celtic during 2003 UEFA Cup run
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