Celtic’s Europa League meeting with Braga was an unusual night.
Initially, there was the backdrop of a fan-led silent protest, but pleas from Brendan Rodgers led to the board arranging a meeting and the protest being postponed.
It was also a rare early European game at Celtic Park, kicking off at 5:45PM. Despite concerns about the attendance, there was a strong turnout from the Hoops faithful in the end.
In the match itself, a horrendous referee error led to Kelechi Iheanacho’s equaliser being disallowed in what is being described as one of the worst VAR interventions of all time.
But for one former Hoops midfielder, another peculiarity from the game was particularly telling about Celtic boss Rodgers.
Brendan Rodgers is trying to ‘shoehorn’ players into his Celtic team
After a poor first half, Rodgers made the unusual move to switch to a back-three, despite being almost exclusively wed to a 4-3-3 in his second Celtic spell.
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The change saw Kieran Tierney move into a back three, and Daizen Maeda move to an unorthodox wing-back role.
Speaking on Clyde Superscoreboard, former Hoops man Scott Allan didn’t hold back on what the change said about Rodgers, and the team situation in general.
He said: “I think the biggest concern for Celtic fans at this moment in time will be the performances on the pitch.
“For me, the fact that Brendan Rodgers changed shape at half-time tells you that he knows the position that the team are in, in terms of creativity and the spark he needs in forward areas.
“I look at Callum McGregor, and he’s just not been the same player this season. There’s no getting away from it. Kasper Schmeichel, one of the senior boys as well, his distribution constantly put Celtic under pressure.
“They actually had a decent start to the game, then you look at Maeda, the best player in the country last season and he’s just miles off it. He’s played four different positions this season already, just trying to shoehorn him into this team, hoping that you see some of the form he produced last season.
“So first and foremost, Brendan Rodgers’ main job right now is to get this team going in the right direction, because if they continue in this form, domestically they’re going to start losing some games that they shouldn’t lose.
How will Celtic line up against Motherwell?
After a result and performance as poor as the one on Thursday, it’s easy to anticipate 11 changes to the starting XI for the next game, especially given the quick turnaround.
But Rodgers’ team to face Motherwell will reveal the level of trust he has in his faltering key players, and perhaps more interestingly, his backups.
The likes of Hayato Inamura, Shin Yamada and Jahmai Simpson-Pusey have been starved of involvement in matches, and it will be intriguing to see if a week of no goals triggers Rodgers changing his mind on this.
It probably won’t be wholesale changes, but Rodgers has a plentiful squad available to him. It’s just the extent to which he’s willing to use it.
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