Celtic 18-touch miss must be abandoned by Rodgers

Celtic’s miserable season continues. Brendan Rodgers’ side suffered their first defeat of the Premiership campaign on Sunday, losing 2-0 at Dens Park against Dundee, with both goals coming in the first half, the second being an unfortunate own goal from Cameron Carter-Vickers.

It was the Hoops’ first defeat at Dens since 1988, leaving them five points behind league leaders Hearts, who they face at Tynecastle in a mouth-watering match next Sunday.

Until then, the Celts are also under pressure to move ahead in the Europa League, having given up just one point from their opening two matches, welcoming Austrian champions Sturm Graz to Parkhead on Thursday.

Ahead of these two massive fixtures, which Celtic summer signing should fear losing their place in the starting line-up? Well, Yang is definitely one of them.

Why Yang was hooked at half-time at Dundee

Among the many players who offered very little on Sunday was Yang Hyun-Jun.

With Daizen Maeda sidelined with a hamstring injury, Yang came into attack, chosen over James Forrest and summer signing Michel-Ange Balikwisha.

Well, the Republic of Korea international touched the ball 25 times in the first half, without attempting to dribble, so Chris Sutton, speaking during Sky Sports’ half-time coverage, claimed “just bring it down”, adding that he offered absolutely nothing.

Well, Rodgers must have listened, because Forrest replaced Yang during the break, ending his first Premiership start since August 23.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the pitch, Liam Scales endured a nightmare afternoon, turned inside and out by Dundee forwards Simon Murray, Cameron Congreve and Joe Westley, who caused problems for the Celtic backline all afternoon.

However, it is neither Scales nor Yang who should be most worried about their starting place after this catastrophic defeat to Steven Pressley’s side who, let’s not forget, were pre-season favorites for relegation.

Celtic star Rodgers must drop out

As has been well documented, at the time the transfer window closed, Celtic did not have a senior centre-forward in their squad, following the sale of Adam Idah to Swansea City.

So, Kelechi Iheanacho arrived as a free agent, making a decent start to life in Glasgow, in fairness to him, converting penalties against Kilmarnock and Motherwell, as well as against Red Star in the Europa League.

However, as the table below shows, the Nigerian was completely anonymous in Dundee on Sunday.

Iheanacho ranked highly for shots, mustering four in total, the most of any player, but it came to nothing, hitting the woodwork once and missing a big chance set by Opta.

He also only won 50% of his duels while, more worryingly, he only touched the ball 20 times, the same number as Balikwisha, introduced in the 64th minute and 15 fewer than goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.

Given that Iheanacho only played around 1,300 minutes last season for Middlesbrough and Sevilla, he would always need time to get up to speed, and that was certainly evident this weekend.

Had Maeda been fit he would surely have dropped out of the team on Thursday, although young Johnny Kenny, who came on at half-time, is talented enough to replace Iheanacho and may therefore feel he deserves an opportunity.

So, with huge matches against Sturm Graz, Hearts, Midtjylland and Rangers coming up in the next fortnight, the Celts could have a better chance of winning those matches with the Nigerian in reserve, used as an option off the bench.