Six Goals, Lots Of Fouls And A Few Celtic Players With Questions To Answer.

Let’s not get carried away here, but some of our fringe players have real questions to answer, both to the Celtic boss and to the wider game as they try to move forward with their career.

They will have to seize that initiative in the remainder of our pre-season games.

That was a different sort of pre-season game, and I personally think we’d have won that comfortably had it been a competitive match. That it wasn’t allowed some of our players to be far more slack on the ball than they otherwise would have. That we didn’t win anyway was a result of us shooting ourselves in the foot.

Pre-season is about fitness, so I wouldn’t have taken this game too seriously even if we’d lost it by a couple, by still …

The big lad at right back, I thought he struggled a bit.

If we’re going to do something in the transfer market this week it might well be at central defence. Ange will know this. He will know that something needs to happen in that position.

I thought the best man in the Celtic team, when he came on, was Kyogo.

Much as I do love big Giakoumakis and think he’s a formidable striker, the best footballer at the club is the Japanese bhoy and he is always going to terrorise defenders.

He showed us, again, what he will do for us with his sharpness and eye for goal. He was always waiting to exploit every mistake.

The other two standout moments were the goals from the midfield players. Turnbull and O’Riley are set to battle it out for the attacking midfield position, and right now I could honestly not tell you which of the two I prefer. I think both are absolute quality.

That was a proper ding-dong battle, and even those who I thought struggled a bit have plenty of time to get up to speed. We’re only in the second game. For some of these guys it was the first, so let’s not be too harsh on anybody.

A few errors aside, that was a pretty decent performance in a lot of ways against a good side who were not taking the game easily or lightly, but gave us a right few digs along the way.

Nevertheless, I thought we deserved the win and but for some sloppy passing and defending, I would have given most of the lads pass marks for how they played.

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