Celtic’s performances in the opening stages of this season have come under a lot of scrutiny from fans. Despite winning against Ross County and Aberdeen, performance levels from the Celtic team haven’t been anything to shout about, which could be seen as simply transitioning from Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic to Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic.
However, yesterday’s loss to Kilmarnock and subsequent exit from the Viaplay Cup has opened many eyes to see that Celtic haven’t been good enough so far this season. This hasn’t been helped by the fact that some of the club’s key players who were staples of Ange’s Celtic side haven’t been performing to their high standards.
But, who has to improve their performance levels?
Greg Taylor
The 25-year-old hasn’t had the greatest of starts to the season. His displays in pre-season weren’t up to scratch but that can be attributed to pre-season being all about getting up to speed. With nothing up for grabs you can excuse an error or two but the poor displays have continued over to the league campaign.
He was completely torn apart by James Brown for Ross County’s second on the opening day at Celtic Park and this carried over to the trip to Pittodrie the following week where Shayden Morris caused him all sorts of problems. Slack passing and poor one-on-one defending has led to him being way below par and he will need to up his game or else he could lose his place in the team.
Callum McGregor
The captain hasn’t been his usual consistent self this season. At Pittodrie he was being constantly bypassed by the Aberdeen midfielders and this continued at Rugby Park where he was targeted and pressed heavily by the Killie midfielders. His passing has been wayward and he has been pickpocketed far too often.
With his role as club captain he is guaranteed a start and with European games as well as a trip to Ibrox coming up soon, having McGregor back at his best will be vitally important for our chances of success.
Liel Abada
The Israeli hasn’t had a poor start to the season per se, but he hasn’t been great either. A goal and an assist in the opening three games looks like a decent start to the season for Abada, but the performances haven’t matched the numbers. He started the season hot on flag day but since then it has been underwhelming.
He looked greedy at times against Aberdeen, often opting to go for individual glory rather than playing the pass and ensuring a higher chance of scoring. The wide areas were one of the weakest positions on the park with Abada being noticeably quiet.
With Jota moving on, a lot more responsibility has been placed on the 21-year-old to carry on the quality that Jota brought to the team.
Abada is a man for the big moments and can pop up with a goal even when he isn’t having the greatest of games, an invaluable asset to have. However, if he is to be as effective for the team as what Jota was, then simply being decent isn’t going to cut it.
JAMES MCKENZIE
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