Celtic suffered their first defeat in any competition during the 2024/25 campaign on Tuesday night with a 7-1 loss to Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League.
It was a dismal evening for Brendan Rodgers’ side in Europe, as they found themselves 5-1 down at half-time, but they did show early signs of promise with an equaliser at 1-1 through Daizen Maeda.
Any optimism after the Japanese forward’s goal evaporated quickly, however, as Dortmund ran riot and went on to score another six goals after it went to 1-1.
Numerous players struggled, hence why Celtic conceded seven goals, and one dud who should be ruthlessly ditched from the starting XI is left-back Greg Taylor.
Greg Taylor's struggles against Dortmund
The Scotland international looked out of his depth on the left side of the defence as the home side popped the ball around him with ease throughout the match.
He recorded the lowest Sofascore rating (5.6) on the pitch and the Daily Record handed him the joint-worst player rating of the game at 3/10, alongside Paulo Bernardo and Nicolas Kuhn.
Minutes played
45
Possession lost
10x
Tackles + interceptions
0
Blocks
0
Clearances
0
Ground duels won
0/1
As you can see in the table above, Taylor did not complete a single defensive action in his 45 minutes on the pitch, as Dortmund scored five goals in that time.
Those statistics show that the Scottish dud could not get anywhere near the German side’s players to make interventions to win possession back for his side, whilst he also gave the ball away ten times and only completed 74% of his passes on the ball.
Rodgers must now ruthlessly ditch Taylor from the starting XI and unleash Barcelona loanee Alex Valle, who replaced him at half-time, from the start.
Why Alex Valle should start
The Spaniard came on at the break and produced a respectable second half display that could earn him a place in the line-up for the game at the weekend.
Valle put himself about defensive to win an impressive five of his seven duels, along with two tackles and one interception, in 45 minutes, after Taylor struggled to get near Dortmund players in the first half.
He also completed 82% of his attempted passes down the left flank, which shows that he was more reliable than the Hoops number three in possession.
The 20-year-old starlet, who was hailed as “tremendous” by Rodgers when he signed, was also brought on at half-time against St Johnstone at the weekend and caught the eye with his performance at left-back.
After Taylor lost three of his four duels in the first half, Valle came on and won five of his six ground duels before providing a sensational assist for Adam Idah, as shown in the clip above.
The Spanish full-back has recorded two assists in his last three matches in all competitions for Celtic and his performances in the last two games, in comparison to Taylor’s, suggest that now is the time for Rodgers to unleash him from the start.
6 passes all game: 3/10 Celtic star was even worse than McGregor v Dortmund
The Hoops central midfielder endured a difficult night against Borussia Dortmund.
ByDan EmeryOct 2, 2024