The dust on Celtic’s loss to Lazio and eventual elimination from the Champions League is unlikely to settle any time soon as the analysis comes in thick and fast.
As the bones are picked over why Celtic lost against Lazio, Peter Grant believes that Brendan Rodgers’ team selection for the match in Rome had a glaring error in it.
The former Celtic hero thinks that the inclusion of James Forrest was a mistake and that he should have been replaced by David Turnbull.
Grant said [The Go Radio Football Show], “Just looking at it tactically and looking at James Forrest who has not played for a while, you could have said he could have went with David Turnbull even wider and played instead of Luis Palma.
“Because David Turnbull’s got a lovely right foot so when he’s coming inside and he can have shots at goal and he can put delivery in the box.
“And it also gives you that extra body in midfield defensively with a natural midfielder.
“Going with two wingers, especially as James is not playing as many games, I’m not sure we’re going to get much threat in the box with that.
“Because I look at the two wingers and how Yang plays on the left-hand side and he comes in quite a lot.
“And James on the opposite side, he never really was one for running by people, so there’s a lot of passing inside at times.
“And my only concern is how you’re going to get the delivery into Kyogo on his own and also the fact that David Turnbull gives you a massive goal threat.”
Whether Turnbull would have made the difference, we will never know now but I did find it strange that in a game where Celtic needed to win to keep the European dream alive, our most potent goal threat from outside the box was dropped.
Forrest did show some endeavour in the Lazio final third in the first half but ultimately his job was to create chances
And aside from one opportunity in the first half, the Hoops legend never really did manage to penetrate the Lazio defence.
The surprise inclusion for me was Paulo Bernardo. The Portuguese had hardly featured for Celtic prior to the Lazio game and to see him start ahead of the goalscoring Turnbull must have raised a few eyebrows in the Celtic support.
Indeed, this is not the first time Turnbull was dropped for an important Champions League match in favour of Bernardo.
Rodgers left him on the bench claiming he needed a ‘ball-winner’ against the La Liga side. Well, against the Italians Celtic needed a goal. We failed to do that and the exclusion of the 24-year-old played a part in that.
For Rodgers, he needs to now prepare his side for the upcoming match against St Johnstone this weekend at McDiarmid Park.
As for Turnbull, he must surely now be considering his Celtic future after this latest Champions League snub.
In other news, ‘Can’t get away from it’… Chris Sutton doesn’t hold back as Celtic exit Europe before Christmas
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