Neil Lennon gets a lot of things right as manager of Celtic, however, one thing he doesn’t do well is rotation of his squad, I’m all for giving certain players game time but there is a time and a place.
Last night, Patryk Klimala started ahead of Albian Ajeti, he would be confident after scoring at the weekend but when there is a budding partnership between the Swiss international and Odsonne Edouard, it is counter productive to break it up so early in it’s development.
Ajeti hasn’t been playing a lot of games recently either so wouldn’t need time on the bench to recover from a packed fixture schedule, however, the gaffer appears to be following a trend of the last couple of seasons.
With Ryan Christie, Olivier Ntcham, Callum McGregor and David Turnbull all fit and available, there is no need for Scott Brown to be starting against St Mirren, let him sit it out, he shouldn’t be playing over 50 games by the time spring time rolls around, just because he is capable of it – doesn’t mean he should be doing it.
Did Lennon get the team selection right against St Mirren?
Yes
No
Similarly, if Brown is starting, let McGregor sit one out, he can’t keep playing every game, eventually something will give, either his form or his body, there is no point spending millions on players like Turnbull and Ismaila Soro if they cannot even be trusted to produce against the likes of – no offence – St Mirren.
Every Celtic fan knows what players are the gaffer’s favourite, and that’s fine, every manager is like that, however, when there are players of similar or even better quality sitting on the bench, he needs to rotate in the correct way, not just with the players who are easy to drop.