Outplayed, outfought, outrun- Chris Sutton doesn’t hold back as Celtic crumble to defeat

Chris Sutton has delivered a stinging criticism on the Celtic side that lost 2-1 to Kilmarnock at Rugby Park.

A week ago Brendan Rodgers was being praised for his half-time team talk at St Johnstone that spurred the players to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 victory fired by an urgency to get things done, to put pressure on opponents, to put the ball into dangerous areas.

The reverse seemed to happen at Kilmarnock. After the break there seemed to be nothing in the tank of the Celtic players. Being outplayed is one issue but there were others issues highlighted by Sutton on BBC 5 Live with Robbie Savage as the Daily Record picked up on:

It was one of the worst performances I’ve seen from a Celtic team in a number of years. They started the game well Rob but second half they were hopeless. You’ve played Rob, it’s okay losing when you’re outplayed.

They were outrun, outfought, Kilmarnock were hungrier than Celtic. So where are you heading Celtic fans under Brendan Rodgers?

The truth is that there has been several similar performances from Celtic this season, the better performances have been the exception such as winning 4-1 at Tynecastle and 6-0 at home to Aberdeen.

At home to Motherwell last month Celtic had 80% possession but managed only four shots on target, two of them from penalties before losing a late equaliser from a poorly defended corner.

Yesterday four key players were missing through injury but just as worrying is that only Matt O’Riley is recognisable from last season’s squad. Joe Hart, Alistair Johnston, Greg Taylor and Callum McGregor are all fit and available but turning in performances nowhere near the levels of last season’s Treble Winners.