A late St. Johnstone consolation goal put somewhat of a dent in Celtic’s dominant 3-1 Saturday win.
Goals from Kyogo Furuhashi, Nicolas Kuhn, and James Forrest had The Bhoys 3-0 up within the first 70 minutes but into the last 10, Connor Smith got one back for Craig Levein’s team.
Coincidently or not, the away side’s goal came at a time when Brendan Rodgers changed things up at the back.
Odin Holm replaced Cameron Carter-Vickers with 15 to go. Tomoki Iwata resultantly moved back to the heart of the defence.
Many have criticised the manager’s decision to not just bring a natural central defender in Gustaf Lagerbielke on for Carter-Vickers in the first place.
After the game, though, Rodgers took responsibility for his changes, admitting that they altered how proceedings went: “Only downside was when I made all the changes we, just in our pressing, we went a little bit passive and that gave them a little bit more time on the ball than we would have wanted”, he said (Clyde 1 Superscoreboard).
“But overall, we scored three goals.”
The importance of Carter-Vickers to the Celtic team was no more coherent than when he was subbed off yesterday.
The Hoops looked ropey at the back without the American colossus and as we enter a pivotal title run-in, keeping the 26-year-old fit and healthy should rank top of the gaffer’s priority list.
