However, former Celtic midfielder John Collins believes an experienced striker could change everything.<\/p>\n
“It’s hard playing football without a natural centre forward,” he said on BBC Scotland’s Sportsound. “Someone you can hit and you know it’ll stick.<\/p>\n
“If you’re a midfielder you can play one-twos, knowing they can bounce it off you. You can’t do that with Maeda, he likes to run in behind. You can’t link with him.<\/p>\n
“He’s up there doing his best, but he’s not a real centre forward for me. A good centre forward can change everything. <\/p>\n
“You’re getting half chances, next thing you’re 3-0 up. The chances Celtic do create, if you’ve got a good striker you’re winning comfortably.”<\/p>\n
Right-back Julian Araujo has arrived on loan from Bournemouth this month, as Celtic also look to address weaknesses in other areas, amid injuries to some key players too.<\/p>\n
Becuase while profligacy has been costly at times this season – especially in the ill-fated Wilfried Nancy eta – it was not their major problem against Falkirk.<\/p>\n
They only managed two shots on target and were outplayed in spells by John McGlynn’s side, who hassled in midfield and worked incredibly hard.<\/p>\n
As a result, the hosts created the better chances and played some slick football.<\/p>\n
Callum McGregor was isolated on the ball in midfield, despite Nygren and Arne Engels starting alongside him.<\/p>\n
Collins believes the team also needs another athletic midfielder and a winger too.<\/p>\n
“Engels has good games and very average games. Nygren comes in and out of games, and lacks consistency,” the former Celtic assistant said. <\/p>\n
“One player who always wants the ball is Callum McGregor. Week in, week out he’s at a level. They’ve got to get more quality in the central area.”<\/p>\n
Celtic’s next league game is a critical one away to Hearts, a match that will help define the destiny of the title.<\/p>\n
If there are no new faces ready to go by then fans will be furious, never mind the much-loved O’Neill’s call for patience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, former Celtic midfielder John Collins believes an experienced striker could change everything. “It’s hard playing football without…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-697136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115897864327143776","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697136","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=697136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}