Analysis Corner: The reason behind Celtic's return to form
By Dougie Wright (@dougie_wright)
Celtic had a somewhat shaky start to the 2018/19 season.
An early Champions League exit, transfer rebellions and defeats to Kilmarnock and Hearts left the champions full of unrest as we entered the autumn months.
Yet back to back wins against St Johnstone and Hibs seem to have revived Brendan Rodgers’ side.
While hardly remarkable results by themselves, the ten goals scored across the two games will have been a major boost to a side who had scored just seven from their first seven.
Like anything, there are probably a few factors that have increased performance levels. The furore that the transfer window brought to Celtic Park has now died down, while the defeat to Kilmarnock was immediately followed by hard fought wins against Aberdeen and St Johnstone.
Yet, the most recent victories have been far more comprehensive than previous wins this season. There seems to be a major reason why.
Benkovic to the rescue
With Benkovic in the side, Celtic have conceded two goals in three full games of Scottish Premiership football. Boyata is a solid defender, but neither Jack Hendry nor Jozo Simunovic fully convinced as his partner.
Celtic did really well to bring the Croatian in from Leicester City. The 21-year-old was signed by the English side just a month earlier for £10m, with Chelsea and Inter Milan credited with an interest earlier in the summer.
He anticipates plays well, is fast and strong enough to compete with most opposing Premiership strikers and his distribution from the back is assured.
It’s this latter point that is probably most fundamental when it comes to understanding how Celtic have stepped up the gears over the past two games.
Celtic are at their most dangerous when Kieran Tierney, Callum McGregor and Olivier Ntcham are invading the final third.
Not being able to trust their centre backs in possession will make them reluctant to do this. Instead, they drop closer to the defensive line, offering safer, shorter options. As a consequence, the space between the midfield and the attack grows. This is why Odsonne Edouard has particularly benefitted from Benkovic’s arrival in the team.
Supporting Edouard
After the Kilmarnock game, Edouard had managed only three shots in five games of league football. This was as clear evidence as any that Celtic were struggling to get their record summer signing involved in the play.
It is a frequent criticism in football that a striker not scoring goals is a striker in poor form: this is not necessarily the case.
Football is a game of twenty-two men; a striker not scoring goals is far more likely to be emblematic of a broken attacking system than it is of the striker being poor at finishing. It’s one thing for a striker to be missing chances left, right and centre. Quite another for them to be cut off from the game completely.
This is particularly true in Edouard’s case. The Frenchman has shown some evidence at being a solid link up player, but he’s really at his best when he’s in and around the penalty area. He specialises in finding his marker’s blind spot, then fashioning a quick dart into premium penalty box space to finish.
Earlier in the season, Edouard was feeding off crumbs. Over the past two games, he’s had more chances than in every other league game this season combined.
A return of three goals from these two games show that maybe he wasn’t in that bad form after all: he was maybe just lacking good service.
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