Celtic can regain continuity by changing the team less dramatically each week

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Brendan Rodgers has chopped and changed his Celtic starting XI week after week this season, albeit often due the club’s injury woes.

Celtic have endured a much tougher second campaign under Brendan Rodgers this season, having failed to reach the heights set by the treble-winning side in 2016/2017.

This year has been extremely disjointed due to extensive injury problems, with players from all areas of the pitch picking up knocks and missing long periods.

Last season, Rodgers’ consistency in his selection was massively beneficial to the success of the team. The players got into a terrific rhythm of dominating and winning games through week after week of playing together.

There were still individuals competing for places but generally speaking the starting XI was rather set.

This season, not only has Rodgers been forced to change his starting XI almost every week, Celtic’s formation has also been tampered with, which has led the players to struggle in terms of building on strong results.

In Celtic’s defence, they have still only lost two domestic games since Rodgers’ arrival in Glasgow and remain heads and shoulders above the rest of the SPFL, but regardless, the club should still be looking to progress in terms of results and quality.

Former Celtic and Scotland goalkeeper Alan Rough spelt it out loud and clear when speaking on PLZ’s Soccer Show on 5 February 2018.

Speaking about Celtic’s loss to Kilmarnock, Rough explained that the injuries to Dederyk Boyata and Kristoffer Ajer were legitimate reasons to have to re-jig the team and formation. However, this has become too common an occurrence for the Hoops this season and they must regain some sort of continuity when it comes to team selection.

“This isn’t the Celtic team of old,” Rough said. “I think obviously there are a lot of players missing.

“They look a lot disjointed, I think even defence, Lustig being out without a ready made replacement for him, people are patching in there.

“Centre-half are chopped and changed every week. Midfield just doesn’t look like the midfield with the strength of Armstrong in there and Roberts on the other side. Sinclair isn’t even starting the games.”

With Armstrong reportedly on track to return to fitness ahead of the Europa League tie against Zenit St Petersburg next week, this could hopefully see Rodgers return to his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation.

The midfield trio of Kouassi, Brown and Ntcham has proved solid enough, however, it lacks creativity, which Stuart Armstrong will undoubtedly bring.

On top of this, young right-back Anthony Ralston has returned to fitness and is in contention for the Zenit tie, meaning a back four of reasonable quality can now be selected.

It will be interesting to see who Rodgers opts for when next Thursday comes around.

One thing is for certain, however: that he will be looking to re-discover a starting XI to stick with for the coming season run-in if they are to have a strong chance of completing a second domestic treble in a row.