Neil Lennon believes that the loss of James Forrest to injury has had a major impact in the collapse of Celtic’s title defence.
The winger has been undervalued over the previous nine years of success but it is stretching things towards the ridiculous to think that a fit and well Forrest would have made any noticable difference this season. Goals flying past a variety of goalkeepers has been the biggest problem since Ferencvaros celebrated in August.
With the exception of Kris Ajer almost every player from last season has been poorer and less effective this season. Leigh Griffiths and Odsonne Edouard have been the most obvious example, their return between January and March last year compared to this season tells a story in itself.
Without having a poor season neither Callum McGregor or Ryan Christie have got close to the peaks of last season where they were dominating in domestic matches and impressing in a Europa League group that was broadly similar to this season’s opponents.
There have been many reasons for Celtic being 18 points behind their city rivals at this stage of the season, almost all of them coming down to poor managerial decisions.
Rotating three goalkeepers is one of the issues, in January Conor Hazard, Vasilis Barkas and Scott Bain played in successive matches, hardly surprising that four points were shipped to Livingston during that phase.
Neil Lennon claims Celtic’s title defence would have been different if James Forrest hadn’t suffered injury nightmarehttps://t.co/mtNKdeIJKF
— Daily Record Sport (@Record_Sport) February 13, 2021
In front of whoever is in goals Celtic’s central defence has consistently lost soft goals regardless of who has been selected but the inclusion of Shane Duffy and or Nir Bitton since October has led to a flurry of goals conceded.
A three-man defence shipped in two soft goals in the first Glasgow derby during a match that Celtic failed to register a single shot on target.
AC Milan then scored three, as did Aberdeen, in Lille another two goals were lost as the season went into a tailspin that Forrest couldn’t have prevented.
During November Sparta Prague twice scored four goals despite being hit by players in self isolation, in-between in took a last minute goal from Diego Laxalt at Easter Road to salvage a draw as another two goals were lost.
November ended with Ross County scoring twice at Celtic Park with Stuart Kettlewell sacked a few weeks later.
The lack of fans, impact of self isolation and bad luck have previously been blamed by Lennon who hasn’t accepted any responsibility for this season crashing with the exception of his decision to push ahead with the Dubai trip.
Whatever process is involved in recruitment Lennon has been given the players to regularly beat Hibs, Livingston and others. Since his ill-judged trip to Dubai Celtic have lost nine points which would have halved the deficit at the top of the table, the one game in hand could have been played during that period to further cut the gap.
If the gap at the top of the table was nine points with a game in hand the return of Forrest might provide the team with a timely lift.
Almost all of last season’s players have played below their potential, Fraser Forster is no longer at the club while only David Turnbull and Moi Elyounoussi of the summer signings have made any impact.
For whatever reasons Lennon has been unable to get much out of Vasilis Barkas, Albian Ajeti, Shane Duffy and Diego Laxalt.
Rather than look around for outside factors Lennon would be best served looking at his own decisions, the failure of players to follow instructions and his inability to make changes as the reason for an 18-point deficit.
In 27 matches Celtic have lost 23 points, last season they lost 10 points over 30 fixtures. Last season Celtic lost 19 goals in 30 matches, so far they have lost 21 from 27 games.
Add in 19 goals lost in six demoralising Europa League games and it’s easy to see that problems at the back from a defence always liable to lose goals has been at the root of the problems in a season that can’t end quickly enough for most fans.