Celtic great Pat Bonner believes the Hoops aren’t getting enough advancing runs from their central midfielders.
The Hoops got back to winning ways thanks to a 3-0 win at home to Ross County at Parkhead. The first game after international breaks can generally be a slog, and given the Staggies beat the Hoops twice last season, it has to be considered a positive day.
Even so, it was noticeable that their third goal came from a midfielder advancing beyond the striker to provide a goalscoring threat. James McCarthy’s header was tipped onto the bar, allowing Albian Ajeti to bag the second of his brace.
But Bonner believes the likes of David Turnbull and Tom Rogic aren’t getting into the penalty area enough when Celtic are on the attack.
Speaking on the BBC Sportsound podcast, Bonner said: “They don’t get enough midfielders into the box. Tom Rogic is playing almost as the higher one of the three in midfield, but he likes to play around the edge. Very few times does he get in there.
“When you’re a striker and you’re up against two defenders, you can almost take defenders away from that position and have a midfielder arriving. You can see the difference with James McCarthy coming in at the back post and they end up getting a goal from it because he’s right in at the back post, in the six-yard box.
“Celtic don’t do enough of that. That’s kind of missing at the moment from the team.”
Bonner wants more Celtic midfielders advancing into the box
During the Ange Postecoglou era, we haven’t seen much of our attacking midfielders getting themselves beyond the striker.
Instead, the onus is often on the wide players to get beyond their full-backs. We talk so much about the combination play between Liel Abada and Kyogo Furuhashi in the final third. That’s because both play on the shoulder’s of their opposition. They don’t look to drag defenders away and create room for advancing midfielders.
However, with Furuhashi out, you can see why Celtic looked a touch stale for long periods yesterday. There was plenty of knocking the ball around without much end product.
Celtic could do with having Turnbull, Rogic, and to a lesser extent Callum McGregor making more forward runs when we have someone like Albian Ajeti starting. He’s a penalty box striker, and so long as we try to play in cute patterns around the penalty box, he’ll continuously be snuffed out.
It takes an attacking midfielder to try and get beyond the defence in order for Ajeti to get some room in the final third. For example, had McCarthy not made his run for goal number three, County’s backline had Ajeti well marshalled.
Having shots from outside the penalty area makes sense when there’s room ahead of you and not as many bodies in front. Yesterday didn’t seem made for that approach, so hopefully we become a touch more flexible in our game plans moving forward.
Even so, it was a 3-0 win, so we’re not complaining much!
In other news, Celtic loanee Scott Robertson has taken 1 league game to win Crewe fans over
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