BBC pundit and former Celtic goalkeeper Pat Bonner has criticised the decision to drop Kyogo Furuhashi for Giorgos Giakoumakis on Saturday.
Celtic offered minimal threat against Livingston yesterday as we slipped to a poor 0-0 draw at Parkhead. The stalemate meant the Bhoys spurned the opportunity to go top of the table for 24 hours and pile the pressure on Rangers. The Ibrox club would beat Motherwell 6-1 this afternoon.
But it came after late drama at Parkhead in which Giakoumakis wasted a glorious late penalty kick opportunity. He would then miss another sitter with Kyogo not coming on until the final half-hour.
And Bonner was left scratching his head at the decision to drop the Japanese international has he discussed the issue on BBC Sportsound yesterday:
“He did change the team today. He put Giakoumakis up front and Kyogo on the bench, and I know he’s looking towards the game on Thursday. But what’s the priority. Is it the league or is it European football? I think when you’re going to go to the top of the league today – Kyogo for me.
“When I watched him against Hibs in that first-half [on Wednesday], he was sensational. His movement. You don’t get that from Giakoumakis. You also don’t get it from Ajeti, and I think that was missing today. 85% possession. They had 2 shots [on target] and one was a penalty, which is quite incredible. So something was quite wrong in that situation.
“I think you’ve got to move those centre-halves somewhere. You can’t just leave them sitting round about the 6-yard box. They [Livingston] must have been doing cartwheels when the team lines came out today.”
The Scottish Premiership title has to be the Celtic priority this season
It’s not even a debate as to what should take precedence this season. Even if we managed to somehow qualify from our current Europa League group, it wouldn’t be worth it if it meant dropped points further down the line.
Given the winners of this season’s Scottish Premiership title go straight into the UEFA Champions League group stages, there’s so much up for grabs this season. Losing the league championship would be unthinkable. Giving Rangers access to UCL riches would be a massive blow in the long-term.
However, in defence of Postecoglou, you could understand his thinking yesterday. Nobody could’ve looked at that Celtic team yesterday and believed before the game they were going to drop points. It’s easy to point out the problems now that we’ve failed to snatch the 3 points.
But the truth is Giakoumakis up top with Liel Abada and Jota on the flanks should’ve had more than enough to sweep Livingston aside. Especially at Celtic Park where we should be stretching their backline and putting in dangerous crosses.
It’ll be interesting to see if Ange learns from this. Whether he’ll continue to drop key players such as Kyogo for the sake of rotation even in key league games.
It’s clear it backfired yesterday. But hey, that’s football.
In other news, Confirmed: Celtic great Peter Grant leaves Dunfermline after 12 winless league games
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