CARL STARFELT has had a shaky start to his Celtic career – we’re not going to pretend any different.

However, the defender has shown he can defend well and play intelligently to read the game. That’s gone under the radar and his high profile mistakes are being used to keep him down – even after a good performance.

After his freak own goal against Alkmaar on Thursday, I felt the defender came onto a game and shook off the early setback to help Celtic secure a place in the Europa League group stages.

On Sunday, at Ibrox, the defender put in an excellent performance. The Swede helped to really restrict the home side. A goal from a corner was Celtic’s undoing, Carl Starfelt looked to be marking Conor Goldson and Filip Helander got the goal. This somehow was made into a Starfelt mistake and John Hartson was in the Sky Sports studio sticking the boot into the defender – I have no idea why.

 

One red top gave the defender a measly 5 out of 10 for his performance too. Again why?

There are fans in our support also that see a player make some early mistakes and from then on the player is deemed less than – even when they do their job right. Carl seems to be suffering from this phenomenon.

The Swedish international had an 87% pass completion rate, winning 11 duels out of 19, making 3 clearances and won more than half of his aerial duels. [FotMob]

The defender put in a good performance – so why the negative hysteria?

Carl has played nine games for Celtic and has been playing with some really young defenders who are also trying to adapt to a new football philosophy. If you’re a Celtic fan, give the guy a break and ignore the media when they try to whip you up into their way of thinking.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Bang on the money and a hear hear from me Starfelt had a decent game and the biggest disappointment about the kickers is Hartsons part in it.Big John usually has the teams back and even defends them from the far too eager SMSM’s criticism even when some of the criticism is warranted,but Hartson seems to not fancy Starfelt and was far too critical of Starfelt today.Is Hartson about to change tact on his Celtic punditry is he going down the Nicholas,Walker,Commons and Provan route and becoming a soup taker?Maybe i’m being over critical of John?i hope so,but come on John give Starfelt a break!! HH

  2. Possibly because a lot of people like me watched it on the Ra**ers TV site where they never committed a foul, were completely in control and Starfelt was guilty of being the worse player on the pitch. I think they won 6-1. It’s a completely different game to the one seen on Earth.

  3. Starfeldt had a decent game. Should also be noted that he was the only Celtic player to attack the corner kick that led to the goal .

  4. Starfelt has improved, game by game. The AZ O.G. was a fluke. Also, I don’t think we played too badly today, given we’re about 6 games into a rebuild with a manager I have complete faith in, more so even than Rodgers who seemed to be agitating for a return to England after his first year.

    Today, we were without McCarthy, Forrest, Jullien and Taylor, Juranovic has only been in the country five minutes and was playing on the wrong side, Scales has already been signed, Giakoumakis and Jota are both 99% of the way here and there may be others to follow by Tuesday.

    Plus, I’m sure Edouard goes into every game with the determination to give his all but at 23, knowing he’s days away from signing a 4-year contract that could earn him £12 million + the urge to run himself into the ground for the club has gone. Fair enough, he’s done his bit to earn our thanks and best wishes nut once he’s gone we go from a team of 10 and-a-half to 11.

    I’m genuinely optimistic.

  5. Jock Stein always played experienced players in these games. Celtic had to play more than half a team debuting their ” old firm ” experience. They did well on spite of this and will all have gained from it.

  6. Good commentary on Starfelt. I am not concerned about him. He is a good defender. Morelos allowed to dive constantly with no comment from the ref. We need more cover at centre back. Bitton not the answer and who knows when Julien will be up to speed.
    How can we defend corners with only one guy who is over six feet?

  7. A game Celtic ought to have won. Edouard’s miss was inexplicable for a player of hiss ability and experience. But the signs are good for the future. We need the Japanese lad playing through the centre.

Leave a Reply to Martin Gordon Cancel reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.