Kasper is getting plenty of stick. He only needs to score and it’ll pass.

Kasper Høgh needs to start scoring goals again.

There, I have said it.

I am not going to sit here and pretend that everything has been perfect for the Celtic striker. It hasn’t. Football is about goals, and when you arrive at Celtic for a huge fee, expectations are inevitably going to be high.

But can we stop judging Kasper Høgh for a minute and actually give the man a chance?

Because sometimes I genuinely wonder whether Celtic supporters are far too quick to forget what a player has already shown us.

In Høgh’s case, we do not have to go back years looking for evidence.

We have already seen it.

We have seen him score three goals in one game. A hat-trick.

Remember that?

Or has the criticism become so loud that we have somehow forgotten the very thing which made us excited about him in the first place?

I certainly have not forgotten it, and I refuse to believe that the best of Kasper Høgh in green and white has already been seen.

Having said that, I am also going to be brutally honest, because I cannot resist giving a verdict. .

Høgh needs fresh goals. Soon.

Preferably immediately after the international break.

Football does not wait forever for players to find themselves. You can talk about systems, movement, pressing, service, confidence and tactical instructions, and all of those things matter, but ultimately a Celtic striker is going to be judged by what happens when the ball arrives in the box.

Does it end up in the net?

That is where Høgh finds himself now.

I think some of the criticism has been much harsher than he deserves, but the easiest way to stop it is brutally simple.

Score goals again.

One goal can change everything. Two can change the whole conversation.

A run of goals can suddenly remind everybody why Celtic paid so much money for him in the first place.

That is the reality of playing up front for Celtic. You can be criticised on Saturday and become a hero a few days later. That is the pressure of Paradise, but it is also part of the beauty of playing for this club.

There is another question, though, and I think it matters just as much.

Are Celtic actually giving us the best version of Kasper Høgh?

I am not convinced.

A striker is not a computer-game character whom you drop onto a pitch and expect to produce the same numbers regardless of the circumstances around him.

Players need the right conditions. They need movement around them. They need service. They need teammates who understand their runs. They need space, confidence and, most importantly, a system which allows them to use their strengths.

That is not making excuses for Høgh.

It is understanding football.

If you put somebody into a system which does not suit his qualities and then complain that he is not performing at his highest level, perhaps the first thing you should examine is the system.

And this is what bothers me when people act as if Høgh has suddenly become a bad player.

We have already seen what he can do.

That hat-trick against Kilmarnock was not a fantasy or a fucking fable. He did not score one lucky goal and have two more deflected in off somebody’s backside.

He showed movement.

He showed finishing.

He showed confidence.

He showed Celtic supporters exactly why the club believed he was worth a significant investment.

So why should I suddenly believe that player has vanished into some dense fog over Loch Ness?

He hasn’t.

He is still there.

The challenge for Celtic is bringing him back to the surface rather than standing around waiting for the man to drown.

I do not think we should write Høgh off because he has hit a difficult spell. If anything, this should be the moment when Celtic ask themselves how to get the best out of him.

The international break may even have helped.

It has given him some distance from the noise and some time to reset. When Celtic return, I do not necessarily want to see a completely different player. I want to see a more confident version of the one we already know exists.

I want to see him demanding the ball again. I want to see those runs. I want to see Celtic’s midfielders recognising them. I want to see dangerous service coming into the box and players around him creating the space in which he can attack.

And yes, I want to see the ball hitting the back of the net.

Because I believe there is a genuine goalscorer inside Kasper Høgh who is capable of giving Celtic supporters an enormous amount of joy.

But Celtic have to help him find that player again.

Football supporters can be incredibly impatient. One poor performance becomes three, three become five, and suddenly somebody who was being celebrated weeks earlier is being questioned every time he touches the ball.

That cycle is particularly brutal at Celtic.

I understand criticism. I am not against it. Far from it. I have criticised plenty of Celtic players myself, and I will continue doing so when I think it is justified and based on something more substantial than madness or illusion.

But criticism needs context.

Høgh is still learning the demands of Celtic and developing relationships with teammates. More importantly, Celtic themselves are still trying to discover what kind of football team they actually are.

That cannot be ignored.

If the team is disconnected, if the midfield is struggling and if the attacking structure is not creating enough quality opportunities, it becomes far too easy to look at the striker and ask why he is not scoring.

Perhaps we should also ask whether we are giving him enough opportunities to score.

So here is my teacher verdict.

**Kasper Høgh: incomplete, not failed.**

There is a massive difference.

I have seen enough already to believe that this story is nowhere near finished. I have seen the movement, the finishing and, yes, the hat-trick.

But now he has to show us those things again.

He needs to start scoring after the international break, not because Celtic supporters should turn against him if he does not immediately find the net, and not because a dry spell suddenly makes him a bad footballer.

He needs goals because goals are the language every Celtic striker eventually has to speak.

And I believe Kasper Høgh is capable of speaking it very loudly.

So perhaps we should stop treating every missed opportunity as evidence that the transfer has failed. Stop pretending the good performances never happened. Stop forgetting why we were excited about him.

Give him the right system.

Give him the right service.

Give him the chance to use the qualities Celtic supposedly bought him for.

And then let us see what happens.

Because my Ginger Witch instincts are usually pretty stubborn about these things, and I do not believe we have seen the best of Kasper Høgh.

Not even close.

The best days of Høgh in the green and white are still to come.

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