Going into tonight’s Champions League play-off round second leg tie, Brendan Rodgers has a dilemma on his hands. Albeit, it’s exactly the kind of problem most football managers would love to have.
A Tale of Two Celtic Strikers
Rodgers has two very different, but equally hungry strikers to choose from, as he plots the downfall of Bayern Munich.
The loss of Kyogo Furuhashi during the January transfer window was a shock to almost all Celtic supporters. However, if the loss of our best striker was unexpected, then the lack of an immediate replacement coming in was, at the time, absolutely astounding. On the ACSOM bulletin, I, along with many of my fellow contributors, was vocal in my criticism of the Celtic board for failing to replace our talismanic man from Japan.
The emergence of both Adam Idah and Daizen Maeda in this time of potential turmoil has left me looking a bit daft for getting as worked up as I did.
A Surprise to be Sure, But a Welcome One
Whilst Daizen Maeda’s prolific scoring record as of late comes as no surprise to me, I understand that not every Celtic fan has the luxury of living in a country where the J-League is televised every weekend!
I had what you may call “the inside track” on that one.
However, what has genuinely surprised me is the way Adam Idah has sought to embrace the challenge of becoming Celtic’s new main man in attack. I’ve always been positive in my assessment of the big Irishman, but at the end of the day an 8 million price tag is a heavy burden to bear. This burden was only heightened further by the fact he wasn’t starting most games while Kyogo was still around.
I wanted him to succeed, but I had my doubts.
Then came the crucial showdown with Young Boys, where Idah was instrumental in getting the goal that, ultimately, took us into tonight’s match. He’s followed that up with goals at Aston Villa, and solid performances domestically too. It seems the big man is finally finding his feet at Celtic.
Probably not since Liam Scales, have I been so delighted to see a player prove I was wrong to doubt them.
There Can be Only One
And therein lies the problem, we have two in-form strikers, but as someone from the Highlands once said “In the end, there can be only one”.
Wing play is crucial to Celtic’s current strategy on the park. This means we can only play one striker. So, how do we accommodate two players in one position?
Well, the simple answer would be to play Daizen out on the left flank. It is, after all where he has played for almost the entirety of his Celtic career to date. It is not however, where he made his name before heading to Scotland.
Where does this leave Jota though? With Kyogo gone, the Portuguese winger is almost certainly our most creative player, in a game where one momentary spark of genius could make all the difference. Most would agree that Jota still isn’t 100% match fit. Few would argue though, that he needs to play at least some part in Munich tonight if Celtic are to have any chance of progress.
A Tactical Switcheroo
Boxing fans will tell you that a change in stance can often throw an opponent off their guard. There are numerous cases where a sudden switch to southpaw led to swift knockdown. Celtic should do the footballing equivalent tonight. It worked to some degree last week, it can work again.
Start with Idah up front, Kuhn on the right and Maeda on the left. What happens next, depends on how the game is going.
If, at the hour mark, we are level, or ahead, that is the time to bring on Jota, withdraw Idah and play Daizen through the middle.
Celtic's Final Haymaker
On the other hand, if we find ourselves behind and chasing the game, then we bring on Jota, move Daizen to centre forward, but also leave Idah on. We would then, of course, need to sacrifice someone from the midfield to maintain a four man frontline. However, this is a knock-out tie, and whether we lose 1-0 or 8-0 doesn’t really matter one way or the other.
To use another boxing analogy, at that point, our aim would be to “go down swinging”.
I hope it doesn’t come to that. As I’ve already said earlier today, I hope and I believe Celtic can do this.
Time will tell.