Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers benched his big-money signing on the weekend.
Olivier Ntcham was conspicuous by his absence in Celtic’s 4-0 win over Ross County at the weekend.
The 21-year-old midfielder, a £4.5 million signing from Manchester City, was an unused substitution as Celtic bounced back from their 5-0 demolition at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League on the previous Tuesday.
Nobody covered themselves in glory but the Frenchman looked particularly poor and, ideally, he could have done with a morale-boosting display against a significantly lesser opponent like County in order to restore any lost confidence against the Ligue 1 giants.
By virtue of the fact he was benched by manager Brendan Rodgers and stayed there for the full 90 minutes at the weekend, the Northern Irishman has risked exacerbating Ntcham’s confidence after his showing against PSG and it will be interesting to see whether his form nosedives or improves from here.
The France Under-21 international, who had started three Premiership games for the Hoops prior to the weekend, will be desperate to face Dundee in the League Cup tomorrow.
But if he looks markedly less impressive than he did earlier in the campaign then you could wonder whether Rodgers was right to bench him for Ross County. A lot of managers would’ve let him play off the disappointing display in midweek.
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