Time Out Of The Starting Eleven Will Do Some Celtic Players Good.

Jota was back in the team today and Matt O’Riley dropped out. Taylor is injured and in case Bernabei. Mooy played. Forrest did not. Juranovic is not in the side and Johnston is.

There is a bit of rotation in this but something else too; the manager knows when it is time to drop someone from the side. He knows when someone needs taking out of the firing line.

There is a misconception about people getting “dropped.” It doesn’t always happen just because they’ve lost form. Form is transitory after all and good players do not become bad players just like that. Form comes and goes, and you don’t just drop a guy on the basis of a couple of bad games. There are other reasons why players get left out.

Imagine you’re a striker who isn’t scoring. That starts playing on your mind, and if you’re the top man in the team you start to worry you’re going to cost the side points. Fans might be getting on your back. The media might then start taking shots. Social media is obviously a no-no if you’ve got any sense. The boss might think taking you out of the team will do you good. Takes the pressure off you a bit. Let’s you get your head back in the game.

Ange rotates because he doesn’t want any player getting into a state like that, and there are a couple of these guys who have needed benched for a while. Jota needed it before he got it. Kyogo looked like he needed it and I think it would have happened had Giakoumakis not been so silly on Instagram. O’Riley has needed it for weeks.

The manager is doing it for their sake as much as that of the team, and instead of looking for fall-outs and other negative theories about what might be happening behind the scenes, such as with Giakoumakis, maybe we need to consider whether this guy, and others, are in the best place at the moment in their heads.

Big Giakoumakis looks frustrated all the time. Imagine putting the full responsibility for scoring the goals on his shoulders right now … it’s probably not a great idea.

So it’s no big thing when certain players aren’t in the side for a while. Whether they are carrying niggles or just not doing so well or whether they manager sees evidence of burn-out, there are myriad reasons why bosses take people out of the team … and it nearly always benefits the team and the player himself.

You wait and see. It won’t be long before O’Riley is back at his best and Giakoumakis is banging in the goals again.

Jota showed us how smart the strategy is.