PERTH, SCOTLAND - SEPTEMBER 09: Celtic's Kasper Hogh during a William Hill Premiership match between St Johnstone and Celtic at McDiarmid Park, on September 09, 2026, in Perth, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
As I said in the previous piece, tonight’s game is going to be won in midfield. But the news that Duran is fit creates another conundrum, at least temporarily. Martin O’Neill obviously doesn’t want to play him out wide, so the options are to use a formation that accommodates both strikers or go with one man up front and leave the other on the bench.
We have already discussed the first option at length, and I don’t know how that is going to work without major changes elsewhere in the team. The consensus among most fans would be that if one of them has to sit on the bench, it should be Kasper Høgh. I agree with that, but only very reluctantly.
A couple of questions have to be answered tonight.
If we are going to persist with the same system and playing style, I don’t want Kasper getting blamed for its failures any longer. The deficiencies at the top of the pitch are connected to those further back. We are underperforming across the board, and changing the striker will not, in itself, resolve that.
I don’t have to tell anybody how I feel about Camilo Duran. I am a huge fan. He has been the best of the signings so far, has looked head and shoulders above everybody else, and I want to see him play and succeed at this club. I want us to get the very best out of him.
But I also think Høgh is a superb striker.
If we can get the two of them playing in unison, in a system that suits them, I think we will see the best of both. As long as Kasper is playing up front on his own in this system, however, he is not going to get enough goals to satisfy people.
We need to recognise where the system is failing the player. I am 100 per cent convinced that had we played Duran through the middle at the weekend, it would have made no difference whatsoever. The fault wasn’t with the personnel. It was with the whole style of play, and we are not going to fix the performances until we fix that.
I know a lot of people have reduced this to a simple question about who the better player is. But that does not properly explain what we are watching. Duran’s quality does not make the problems around him disappear, and even if he produces something special tonight, it will not mean Høgh was responsible for what happened on Sunday.
I want Duran to start, and I want him to succeed.
But if we struggle again, the reasons have to be properly examined. As long as individual players such as Tounekti and Kasper are taking the blame for failures that run through the team, we are not analysing the problem properly.
That is part of why I would go with Camilo tonight if we are playing one up front. If he is left isolated and starved of service, he will not be blamed in the same way Kasper would be. Perhaps then the discussion will turn to what the team is providing for its striker, rather than simply what the striker is failing to provide for the team.
We have real problems and need real solutions. Scapegoating a player misidentifies the issue and leaves us trying to fix something other than the thing that is actually going wrong.
Duran and Høgh are different types of players, and there will be a system that accommodates them both. But if we insist on playing a style of football that is itself broken, we are not going to solve our problems simply by swapping one for the other.
One of the clearest deficiencies at the weekend was the lack of supply to the forward players. That is why like-for-like substitutions were not going to fundamentally alter our situation. It is also why taking one player out and putting another in tonight will not fundamentally change it if that is the only adjustment we make.
There is nothing wrong with putting an £11 million player on the bench. It is much worse to have an £11 million player on the pitch in the wrong role, being asked to do things he is not capable of doing. That is what makes you wonder whether you have wasted the money. It is what makes supporters conclude that you have.
So, until we have a style that accommodates both players and suits their respective skill sets, one of them has to drop out. And as long as we have a style that starves the forward line, we are probably better off sparing the guy who is going to cop the most flak.
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Hogh is not in the team tonight, and purely based on his performance in the Huns game, I suppose he deserves to be on the bench. Personally though, because he has previously scored goals in Europe, I would have prioritised that experience and played him up front this evening. Sorenson in midfield will also have to show more than he has been doing so far, hopefully tonight will be the making of him and he can go on from there. I am predicting a narrow victory for the Hoops, we surely cannot be as bad as we were against the Huns and I am looking for vengeance against them come the weekend in front of 60,000 fervent Tims.
We are pish
Sorenson hooked, I wasn’t even sure he was still on.
Why is this team so poor
Fuck me. Can our keeper not save any shots from outside the box?
Absolute, pure, unadulterated horseshit. And that’s being generous considering you can grow great crops with the stuff. Martin Oneill is begging, literally on his knees begging, to be sent out to pasture. James “I care more about the direction my hair is flowing” Forrest in the starting lineup? If I didn’t know it was a farce from the get go I certainly did when Tounetki and Mcowan were brought in as subs later on. I don’t know what you guys heard in the Rangers game broadcast, but the CBS Sports annnoncer called Tounetki out for “jogging” when he should have been going all out. I’ve cancelled my Celtic Player subscription and removed the away kit I was eyeballing from my Celtic Cart after this tonight. This team is a massive container ship that has last its rudder. It’s spinning in circles with no clue of the direction it’s facing. The entire attack is centered around dribbling the ball up the left or right side and then just lobbing hopes and prayers into the box after the defense has regained position. I didn’t see a single player giving 110%. CCV looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, Camilo Duran stopped trying once Ecuador gave him an international spot, Hogh and Nygren were having a blast on the bench together getting their post game plans aligned, and Martin Oneill seems to be thinking about vanilla wafers and pudding before being tucked into bed by Mommy.