Rodgers must drop 1-pass Celtic man who had fewer touches than Schmeichel

Celtic moved back to the top of the Scottish Premiership table on Sunday with a convincing 3-0 win over Motherwell away from Parkhead at Fir Park.

The Hoops had temporarily dropped down to second in the division after Aberdeen had won their eighth match of the season on Sunday, but they have returned to the top on goal difference.

Goals from Luke McCowan, Alistair Johnston, and Adam Idah were enough to secure all three points for the Scottish giants against Motherwell, as they kept yet another clean sheet.

Kasper Schmeichel has now kept seven clean sheets in nine Premiership games for the Hoops since his move to the club on a free transfer from Anderlecht in the summer transfer window.

He was relatively untroubled against Motherwell, making just two saves in total to keep a clean sheet, and did not have to do all that much to preserve the shut-out.

This meant that the Denmark international was not one of the top performers on the day for Brendan Rodgers, as a number of other players took centre stage for the Bhoys.

Celtic’s top performers against Motherwell

McCowan was handed a big opportunity to shine from the start after an injury to Callum McGregor opened up a space for him in the middle of the park.

The Scottish dynamo, signed from Dundee in the summer, certainly grasped his chance – scoring a brilliant goal to open the scoring for Celtic, weaving inside and out of challenges before finding the bottom corner.

He also completed 100% (2/2) of his attempted dribbles and created one chance for his teammates in the rest of his 75 minutes on the pitch.

The other star of the show for Celtic was the captain for the day – Johnston. The Canada international did score, with a header, in the second half but it was his defensive showing that really caught the eye.

As you can see in the table above, the right-back was dominant in his defensive duels, winning 80% of his physical contests, and was only dribbled past once.

The former MLS star also created one ‘big chance’ for his teammates, that they failed to take, and could have come away from the match with an assist to go along with his goal.

Whilst Johnston and McCowan were the stars of the show for Rodgers, there was at least one Celtic player who did not show the best of his abilities – Kyogo Furuhashi.

Kyogo Furuhashi’s performance against Motherwell in numbers

The Japan international was selected to lead the line on Sunday and struggled to make an impact at the top end of the pitch, whilst also offering very little in the build-up.

It is no secret that Kyogo is not a traditional centre-forward who is going to hold the ball up and win flick-ons, or battle defenders to link play for his teammates.

This means that his final actions at the top end of the pitch need to be telling when he does get involved to make up for that. Unfortunately, that was not the case against Motherwell.

As you can see in the table above, Kyogo only completed one pass in 75 minutes on the pitch, failing with his other two attempts, and took four shots without scoring.

The Japanese attacker managed one shot on target and saw the other three blocked, whilst he also had fewer touches (ten) than goalkeeper Schmeichel (37), which illustrates his lack of impact.

These statistics show that the 29-year-old striker had a difficult day at the office, as his decision-making and quality in the final third left a bit to be desired and he failed to get involved in the build-up, with his one pass.

The experienced forward was then upstaged by the man who replaced him for the final 15 minutes of the match, as Adam Idah caught the eye off the bench.

Signed from Norwich in the summer, the Irish marksman scored, with a composed close-range finish, completed all four of his attempted passes and created a ‘big chance’ in those 15 minutes.

Rodgers must now consider brutally ditching Kyogo from the starting XI after a few underwhelming displays from the attacker in recent weeks.

Why Celtic should drop Kyogo Furuhashi

The right-footed striker should be taken out of the line-up when the Hoops face Dundee at Parkhead in the Premiership on Wednesday night.

He has produced one goal and one assist, both of which came in the first half against Aberdeen, in his last five appearances in all competitions for the Hoops.

Kyogo completed 12 passes in those five outings and this shows that the attacker has not offered much outside of his work in the final third, which has also been lacking aside from the opening 45 against the Dons at Parkhead.

Therefore, Rodgers must ruthlessly ditch the striker from the starting XI and offer an opportunity to Idah to lead the line in the Premiership on Wednesday night, hopefully motivating Kyogo to fight hard to win his place back for the game against Dundee United at the weekend.

As you can see in the table above, Idah has shown promise in his limited minutes on the pitch this season, with two goals in two starts in the Premiership.

He has also averaged more passes completed per game (4.7) than Kyogo (4.4) has managed in seven starts out of nine games, which suggests that the Irishman offers more to the team in build-play play.

His aerial duel success rate also shows that Idah is a valuable asset to Celtic when they need to play longer passes under pressure, as he has the physical qualities to win headers and hold the ball up.

Therefore, Rodgers must now ditch Kyogo from the starting XI to give his number nine a chance to stake a claim for his place in the team moving forward against Dundee.