da bet esporte： This article is part of Football FanCast’s Pundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers…
da luck： Chris Sutton is right to slate Neil Lennon’s decision to play Callum McGregor at left-back in the embarrassing loss to Cluj on Tuesday night, but the boss isn’t the only one at fault.
What’s he said?
Lennon’s Celtic side suffered a humiliating 4-3 defeat to the Romanian champions, knocking them out of the Champions League, and Sutton believes the Celts boss made many mistakes on the night. Of the six errors he pinpointed, the issue of having McGregor at left-back was a big reason for the defeat at Parkhead on Tuesday night.
With the club cashing in on Kieran Tierney and Emilio Izaguirre leaving, the Celts are short on the left-hand side of the defence.
£3m signing Boli Bolingoli-Mbombo is the only natural left-back at Parkhead but hasn’t impressed the fans so far. Despite the lack of options though, the decision to stick McGregor in the defence has got the former Celtic striker annoyed.
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Speaking in his Daily Record column, the pundit said: “The decision to play Callum McGregor at left-back was a mistake. That’s not hindsight. The evidence was already there. The rest of the players weren’t at it at all, as if bewildered as to why the manager would take their best midfielder out of the engine room and stick him at full-back.”
Baffling from top to bottom
Sutton calling McGregor the club’s best midfielder is no passing remark, he’s shown in the past two seasons how important he is to the club. Taking him out of the heart of the side meant the drive that he brings to the team was gone, with Olivier Ntcham and Scott Brown struggling to assert themselves on the game.
Check out Keith from C’mon the Hoops’ fascinating video on the origins of the Old Firm derby below…
Not only is he too good to be moved out of position, Celtic shouldn’t have to be moving him about in the first place. It’s mid-August, and to only have one left-back at the club, who the manager doesn’t seem to trust, doesn’t show a well-run transfer team.
Their inability to sign a capable left-back adds to the problems they’ve had on the other side of the defence, repeatedly missing out on right-backs this summer too.
The club should have the majority of their business done, and not be looking at adding five players so late into the window, particularly with August being such a pivotal month with the European qualifiers.
Lennon got it badly wrong, but the problems started above him and long before the line-up was announced at seven o’clock on Tuesday evening.
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