{"id":459617,"date":"2025-09-29T05:21:28","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T05:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/459617\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T05:21:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T05:21:28","slug":"two-celtic-shining-lights-emerge-from-hibs-stalemate-as-fatal-daizen-maeda-flaw-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/459617\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Celtic shining lights emerge from Hibs stalemate as fatal Daizen Maeda flaw identified"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hoops slipped two points behind table-topping Hearts after another goalless draw\"MarceloMarcelo Saracchi of Celtic bites his jersey in frustration at full-time(Image: Stuart Wallace\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

Celtic may have relinquished top spot to Hearts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But James McFadden reckons there were plenty of positives to take away from Saturday’s goalless stalemate with Hibs.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Hoops slipped two points behind the in-form Jambos after failing to take their chances – registering a whopping 26 shots on target.<\/p>\n

Brendan Rodgers’<\/a> men bossed the game but resilient Hibs managed to walk away with a point to maintain their unbeaten start to the Premiership campaign.<\/p>\n

Blunt Celts now find themselves in the rare position of playing catch-up to Derek McInnes’ table-toppers.<\/p>\n

And despite falling to a fourth 0-0 draw of the campaign – with Kelechi Iheanacho passing up a flurry of opportunities – McFadden believes it was one of the Parkhead side’s better performances.<\/p>\n

Asked Rodgers tinkered his midfield and attacking line, McFadden told Sky Sports: “Did it look a bit more balanced? Yeah, I think it did. As much as Celtic<\/a> didn’t score any goals, I think it was a much better performance.<\/p>\n

“Iheanacho should’ve scored. Could you put it down to the fact he’s not played a lot of football? Potentially.<\/p>\n

\"Celtic'sCeltic’s Kelechi Iheanacho misses a chance from Marcelo Saracchi(Image: SNS Group)<\/p>\n

“When you’ve got Maeda through the middle, he doesn’t link the game as well as Iheanacho does.<\/p>\n

“He doesn’t have the striker’s instinct. When you look at Iheanacho, his hold-up play is good. He brings others into play. His movement’s really good. He always seems to be in the right position at the right time.<\/p>\n

“Even when you get in there and miss your chances, as a striker, it’s important you keep going and I think he does that.<\/p>\n

“There’s one he scored and he was offside but he’s in the position. So that if that cross is right, then he is going to score goals.<\/p>\n

“They did freshen the team up and I think there was a bit more of a spark.<\/p>\n

“Saracchi I think did really well yesterday as well. There was a bit more energy and an intent to go forward.<\/p>\n

“But having said all of that, you have to credit Hibs as well. Defensively, they’ve not been great this season. They’ve conceded a lot of goals but it was about being solid defensively and giving yourself a base to try and catch Celtic on the counter-attack.<\/p>\n

“They were putting blocks in, getting in the way of crosses and shots. As much as Celtic probably should’ve scored, I think you need to credit Hibs for the performance they put in.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hoops slipped two points behind table-topping Hearts after another goalless drawMarcelo Saracchi of Celtic bites his jersey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,2628,10110,1102,4884,21843,136282,132277,712,1638,7081,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-459617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-celtic-fc","10":"tag-daizen-maeda","11":"tag-edinburgh","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-hibernian-fc","14":"tag-kelechi-iheanacho","15":"tag-marcelo-saracchi","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-scottish-premiership","18":"tag-scottish-professional-football-league","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115285910478209192","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}