Olivier Ntcham
The most frustrating player in the Celtic team, by far.
On his day Olivier Ntcham shows you why top clubs from across Europe are interested in his signature.
When he’s meandering around the pitch as if he’s on a holiday beach you wonder why we ever paid £4 million for him and whether we could ever get it back.
Sometimes you have those thoughts in the same game of football.
There is no question that Ntcham is a talented footballer, capable of greatness.
There is no question that he can also be careless and lazy. You never know which version of him you are going to get. There are games in which he has been outstanding, a player right out of the top drawer, and others where he has been absolutely anonymous.
Lately, he has been dreadful.
Part of that, as I said about Callum, is being played out of position; he is not a number 10, playing in behind the strikers, but Lennon has shoehorned him into that role.
I do get the general idea; when Ryan Christie is either unavailable for that job – because he’s out of the team or playing as a striker or out wide – Lennon has to put someone there, but the manager also has a fixation with having his best three central midfielders in the team at one time, even if utilising Olivier along with Brown and McGregor means playing out of position.
But there is no excuse for a top technical footballer failing to pass the ball well and there’s certainly no excuse for him wandering around without making the least effort.
He is too often disinterested or careless … neither endears him to the fans and especially in games where others are underperforming and the team as a whole isn’t clicking.
There are a lot of our fans who would sell Ntcham at the earliest opportunity.
For such a talented player it is a shame.
But the truth is, there are too many days on which we wouldn’t miss him if he wasn’t there.
He really has to change that, pronto.