Martin O'Neill's changes for Celtic's Europa League defeat to Ferencvaros were justified, but his game management is becoming a concern.
O'Neill had to change something, and he did. You cannot pretend to be a dominant team and a winning team while allowing out of form players to start games. There has to be a culture of underperforming players dropping out of the team.
That should have been the case before now, but O'Neill finally made the changes on Thursday night. Sebastian Tounekti dropped out, as did Kasper Hogh, who can't seem to hit a barn door at the moment, while his hold-up play has also gone off the boil.
O'Neill even tried to change the midfield, implementing more structure with Oliver Sorensen and taking out the more attacking Benjamin Nygren.
What were the results? James Forrest did well instead of Tounekti, who had a better game off the bench, although his final product remained questionable.
Camilo Duran had one of his quieter games up top, negating the Hogh decision, while Sorensen perhaps offered more structure but was far too negative with the ball for it to be worthwhile, and Celtic looked a better team when Nygren came on, albeit at that point, they didn't need to be so defensively aware.
We also saw Viljami Sinisalo come back in for Sam Johnstone, which was the right call. Both are capable of good saves, but Sinisalo gives Celtic the distribution and the willingness to get on the ball that they need.
So, the changes are what they are. Some worked, some didn't, but that's the nature of it. You are relyin g on players coming in to take their chance, and a number of them did not.
But whether it was to send a message on the back of the Rangers defeat or to try something different, O'Neill had to make changes and did.
What is concerning is O'Neill's inability to find tactical solutions for problems that will not be going away. This midfield problem is huge. Celtic don't have the right balance in the midfield, and that is because they failed to replace Arne Engels, so O'Neil has been hard done by, but it is still his job to find solutions.
So far, it has largely been a case of trying different players there, but it's just not working, and a change of system is almost certainly going to be required, at least in games against better teams.
But O'Neill seems too rigid to pull that off, and more concerning is his apparent inability to fix what is going wrong within games. We're not seeing tactical adjustments during games that are clearly not going well, and in the modern game, regular changes are almost always required.
Celtic have a very basic style of play, and that will get them by in the league more often than not, but against better teams in Europe, it is not going to wash. They have to adapt, even if it means playing more negatively.
There is a mentality issue, no doubt. Celtic are collapsing when they come under relentless pressure, but O'Neill has to find a way to help his players by being on top of games, of making the necessary adjustments that thwart opposing teams. Be it against LASK, Rangers or Ferencvaros, the opponents find a way to hurt Celtic and they are unable to stop it.
That's not good enough.
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