For many of the loan players, their clubs had a double match week. The peculiar pattern seemed to be that many didn’t get a go during midweek and then didn’t play at the weekend.
For many of the loan players, their clubs had a double match week. The peculiar pattern seemed to be that many players didn’t get a go at the action during the midweek matches and they then didn’t play at the weekend – which is somewhat puzzling. I will conduct my report this week by beginning with the midweek games and ending with the latter matches of the week’s schedule: as opposed to giving each player their own paragraph.
| “Paul had 1 main involvement. This came on the stroke of the half hour, when he rifled a ferocious shot, which crashed off the inside of the upright and somehow reached the safe grasp of the Hearts keeper” |
Commencing on a negative note for the previous midweek’s meetings; no less than 3 loaned players, whom had a game taking place, did not take part in any of the 90 minute proceedings. These unhappy players that had their progression driven to an unexpected and unwanted halt were: Darren O’Dea, Jos Hooiveld and Josh Thompson. Both Jos and Darren may well feel hard done by as clearly both their managers have their favourite 11 and neither are fortuitous enough to be included in that select 11. Josh Thompson, however, endured what he has now come to expect since his painstaking and eventless time with Rochdale.
On the brighter side, the remaining loanee that had a game pencilled in the calender for midweek, received playing time. Ben Hutchinson again demonstrated great passion and leaked emotion but similarly to last time out; he gained little reward. Ben received a soft and hotly contested booking for a, many would say, timid challenge. Then in the 60th minute, he suffered the same fate after a poor and careless tackle, which left Lincoln with no complaints: the result of course a red card for a 2nd bookable offence. So he left the field unhappy, with a guilty look about him, having done next to nothing in a positive manner.
I will now move on to the normally prime football fixture days. Again a disappointing number of loaned professionals did not play. This time the figure rose to 6, although Richie Towell did not have a game, which means you can exclude him. The 3 players mentioned earlier who did not feature during midweek, were again sat on the bench. In addition was Morten Rasmussen, who was on the bench as he took a sore knock whilst training on Wednesday afternoon. The other player, who must be an exclusion from the list of 6, is Ben Hutchinson as he was paying the price for his rash challenge earlier in the week, onward looking in anguish from the sidelines due to the fact he had to serve his suspension.
Just 2 loan players did get a game at the weekend. Both of these 2 appear to be players that Celtic have fading hopes for. Nevertheless, both have an outside chance of proving themselves worthy of a green and white hooped jersey – and there was no finer time to make an impression on their parent club than this weekend, as the season soon draws to a close and so many loaned men were not on show. Firstly, Jason Marr reached new high levels to begin with. He was exquisite in the tackle and started brightly. As time wore on though, he lost his way. Simple passes you would expect Jason to complete on a normal day, were going astray and with each tick of the clock he seemed to have less and less affect on the game than in his first exceptional 15 minutes. His Ross County side lost 2-1. It was not the result he was after and it was a less than inspiring performance by the young man.
Secondly and bizarrely – my final loan update of this week is Paul McGowan. Paul seems to be knuckling down well. He is racking up the experience and game time with the Buddies. That followed suit on Saturday, when he was granted a start and he didn’t leave the field of play until the final whistle. Despite his long amount of time on the pitch; Paul had 1 main involvement. This came on the stroke of the half hour, when he rifled a ferocious shot, which crashed off the inside of the upright and somehow reached the safe grasp of the Hearts keeper upon the rebound. After this moment of sheer finesse and harsh luck – Paul did very little and was poor. His day was scrappy and below the mark.
In a brief summary – the loan players had a very unhappy week. Perhaps one of Celtic’s highest hopes and brightest loan sparks is Richie Towell – he was the only player to have an intermediate week as his Hibs side were gameless over the previous 7 days – so he didn’t play and wasn’t given the denial of a match opportunity.
Written by afcbliamk
* More expanded details of each players progress and their season’s statistics can be found under the thread with their name on in Liam’s Loan Reports section.
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