'A ridiculous array of match-winners': Three takeaways from Motherwell 1-4 Celtic

Analysis of Celtic’s victory at Fir Park on Sunday

Olivier Ntcham scores to make it 4-1 to Celtic in the closing stages of their Scottish Premiership match with Motherwell. Picture: SNS

Celtic have a ridiculous number of match-winners

Celtic fans are understandably concerned about their ten-in-a-row chances. Their team haven't been as consistently good as Rangers this season and they trail their rivals by nine points (albeit with two games in hand they'll likely win). They're not happy with Neil Lennon and his failure to build on the significant gap he inherited from Brendan Rodgers.

This is all fair, but the champions are not going away any time soon. There's just too many match-winners in their team. Odsonne Edouard has been off it, Callum McGregor and Ryan Christie have been subpar by their usual standards, and James Forrest has been absent for most of the season. But even if you take them all out of the equation, there's still Mohamed Elyounoussi, Tom Rogic, Albian Ajeti and Leigh Griffiths - the latter of whom, along with another proven Scottish Premiership match-winner in David Turnbull, didn't even get on the park yesterday. These guys can all win points in an instant. Opposing teams can fight, scrap and even outplay the champions. But they cannot get anywhere near them in terms of sheer talent and Celtic, regardless of performance, will still win the vast majority of matches. There's just one caveat...

Celtic's defence still needs sorted

It could fix itself when both Christopher Jullien and Krisoffer Ajer return to full fitness. The pair showed last campaign they are more than good enough to be the bedrock of a title-winning side. Bring they two back in, rotate Hatem Elhamed with Jeremie Frimpong on the right, bank on Diego Laxalt continuing to impress at left-back and the unit looks very healthy.

The problem is the lack of dependable reserve at centre-back. Nir Bitton has shown in the last couple of games that he's fine for matches where Celtic are dominating, but his defensive fortitude doesn't stand up to pressure, while Shane Duffy continues to look like an accident waiting to happen.

They're also experiencing a severe downgrade at goalkeeper, whether it's Scott Bain or Vasilis Barkas compared with Fraser Forster's output last term.

If Lennon doesn't get it right in defence this is what could properly derail their chances. Because, as the recent league match with Aberdeen showed, you can have all the match-winners you want, but if you allow your opponents to score three it's going to be very hard to win.

Motherwell are still on the right path

It's not great to lose 4-1 at home, but Motherwell boss Stephen Robinson can still feel satisfied with where his squad are at the moment.

Up until Elyounoussi's third, the hosts were very much in this game and were a couple of unlucky breaks in the box from scoring one or two more than the solitary goal they managed through Declan Gallagher. They asked questions of Celtic and, this is going to sound strange, didn't allow the visitors too much joy other than the four goals.

The fact the majority of those goals were conceded with startling ease was the significant downside to their performance, but the type of defensive mistakes they made won't be punished so ruthlessly by the majority of the league.

A tough loss, but not too much to be overly concerned about.

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