It’s hard to think of a worse 7 days in recent memory for Celtic Football Club. Back to back losses against Rangers either side of an opening Europa League defeat to Hungarian side Ferencváros have left a bad taste in the mouth heading into the 3 week international break. Many fans are now left thinking it’s time for a change in the dugout after the awful home display to Rangers in the 1-0 defeat.
In terms of Sunday, several things didn’t seem right from the moment the teams were announced. There are two players I can comfortably say should not have been involved in that game and did us no favours whatsoever.
The first is Luke McCowan. I cannot understand the logic of starting the former Dundee man in another Glasgow Derby. Yes, the midfield has lacked legs in recent weeks and been extremely exposed. However, we’ve seen countless times that Luke McCowan doesn’t have the mental strength required to make it at Celtic. His performance in LASK and his performance on Sunday show that. When the going gets tough, Celtic Park is a difficult environment to play your football. Especially as a life long fan which Luke McCowan clearly is. He’s a nice lad and everyone ideally wants Celtic fans in the team. However he just doesn’t have what it takes to play in these big games. If Celtic want to win pressure games like this then Luke McCowan just cannot start in midfield. It’s as basic as that. How the manager hasn’t come to that conclusion yet I do not know. Baffling management in such a crucial game. You couldn point to the fact that the midfield is weaker and the manager does not have the tools at his disposal. You would be correct. The manager has been badly let down again in another summer transfer window. Celtic have not replaced the quality that left the club in the summer.
The second player in question is Sebastian Tounekti. Similarly to Luke McCowan, we didn’t need yesterday’s performance to identify that he isn’t the answer for Celtic. The Tunisian midfielder has shown time and time again that he hasn’t got the attributes needed to play for Celtic. I thought the Tounekti experiment was already over but it 100% should be now after both games against Rangers. Always passing backwards instead of attacking his man, it appears he too lacks the minerals to succeed at Celtic. I couldn’t actually believe the answer from the dugout was to play James Forrest out of position to bring on the Tunisian winger. That made zero sense to me in a crucial time of the match. The club should actively look to recoup what they can in the upcoming January window. Like Balikwisha, it just isn’t going to happen for Tounekti at Celtic.
The experiment of these two players playing for Celtic should be finally over. For their sake as well as ours. We cannot keep fielding players of this quality and expecting positive results. Both should be allowed to seek moves in January as neither seem to have the right mentality to thrive for Celtic. It’s a tough environment to do well in at Celtic Park. Fans are unforgiving when things aren’t going well. Time to acknowledge that we need better and move them on as we try to rebuild the squad in January.
All views expressed on Celtic DNA are personal opinions and are for commentary and discussion purposes only