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Has Sutton nailed it over the Celtic defence?

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In his short time as a pundit no one has caught the attention of the Celtic support like Chris Sutton.

After a mainly silent playing career where he barely said a word out of place Sutton the pundit has no shortage of opinions once a salary and pay cheque was put in front of him.

His initial questioning of Ronny Deila was out of loyalty to Neil Lennon according to many fans, when those fans came around to Sutton’s viewpoint they enjoyed someone sharing their views in public.

With a new manager in charge Sutton is coming from a more neutral position but his views largely reflect the concerns of the supporters as he looks in matters at Celtic Park.

Consternation and concern about the defence have been the main topics of discussion looking forward to the matches with Astana with Sutton hitting the nail on the head with his opinion.

Looking at the current defensive issues in today’s Daily Record he writes: “But the bottom line is that all signs pointed to Simunovic being unavailable for the qualifiers when he got the injury in the first place, so this should have been addressed in some way because everyone knew Efe Ambrose wasn’t the answer and Dedryck Boyata, fit or not, is also not worthy of trust.

I’ve said for a long time that Mikael Lustig is more than capable of stepping infield and playing central but the failure to sign a right-back means that, if the Swede does go inside to partner Sviatchenko in Kazakhstan, there is a gaping hole there which could only really be filled by Saidy Janko or Darnell Fisher.

Janko has played for Rodgers more since he joined but surely that can’t be an acceptable solution. He has hardly played since Ronny Deila punted him into right-back for the loss in Malmo almost a year ago.

I’d fancy Celtic to score in most games and, if I could put my faith in the team getting a clean sheet in Kazakhstan, they’d have a huge opportunity to win but nothing that has happened in the past couple of years on the park or in the transfer market over the past couple of months can assure me Rodgers has enough security.”

By the time the Astana ties are over everyone will know if Sutton’s concerns have been justified.

CLICK HERE for five facts about Celtic’s Turkish target.

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