James Forrest has been a big miss for Celtic for a variety of reasons. The goals he scores, the experience he brings to the side as a ‘treble treble’ winner, but most importantly this season the assists he brings to the team are being badly missed.
Before he suffered his ankle injury, Forrest only had one assist this season. That is an anomaly though. In the four seasons before that Forrest provided double figures in assists. When you add that to his goal scoring ability, Forrest has been a big miss over the last few months.
Out for at least eight weeks
However, he isn’t coming back anytime soon. Neil Lennon said a few weeks ago as reported by BBC Sport that Forrest is going to be out for at least eight weeks.
Now it is up to other players to step up in Forrest’s absence to provide the assists that Celtic need. Unfortunately, too few are doing that at the moment.
By far the Celtic player with the most assists this season is Ryan Christie, who has eight. Then comes a group of players with four. That really is not enough for Celtic. Some players haven’t provided anywhere near enough assists. Odsonne Edouard, for example, has provided only two.
However, one player could be stepping up to fill the void. That man is Tom Rogic, who has provided four assists – three against Aberdeen, and one against Motherwell, in the last few weeks.
Hoops have looked better since midfielder returned
Those games saw Celtic score nine goals, it is no coincidence that the Hoops have looked better since Rogic returned to the side.
Hopefully Rogic can add more assists to the side over the next few weeks, and by the time Forrest comes back his absence won’t be felt as keenly as it seems to be at the moment.
Celtic can cope without Forrest, even though he is a great player. However, others need to step up.
In other news, the SFA have blundered with their choice of the Scottish Cup Final time and date.
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