Martin O'Neill has been speaking about his decision to drop Viljami Sinisalo, but he has only explained why Celtic's goalkeeper competition is a farce.
Sinisalo enjoyed a fine start to the campaign after becoming number one following the retirement of Kasper Schmeichel. While no Celtic keeper is going to be overly busy week in, week out due to the nature of the Scottish Premiership and the club's dominance of it, Sinisalo has made some big saves.
The 24-year-old has also been largely proficient with his distribution, ready and willing to play the ball into tight situations in the midfield. Sure, the odd pass has gone astray, but Sinisalo has largely coped well with that demand.
What we have seen from Sam Johnstone is sloppy distribution, with misplaced passes aplenty into the midfield and rushed long balls upfield that have been intercepted.
Johnstone was thrown into the deep end against Rangers, and it showed. Despite being experienced, he looked out of his depth, and that is no slight on him, this was no situation to be dropped into.
Asked this week about the decision, Celtic boss O'Neill said: "Sinisalo has done exceptionally well for us.
"But I think I need competition for places; I need to know what somebody does. Now I've got goalkeepers wanting to fight for the position. At some stage or another, one will probably take over."
He added: "That's the problem with goalkeeping, as loads of managers have found out."When you have two, and one doesn't play, then it becomes problematic in many aspects. But we haven't reached that stage. In training, Vil wants to be it. He wants to be the man. His training has been really good."
Celtic don't have a real competition
The problem with those comments is that it is not clear where the competition actually is. How a competition works is that the goalkeeper who is playing well starts until a time when the back-up goalkeeper, who may get opportunities in the cup, proves that he is a better option.
But how this so-called competition has worked is that the goalkeeper playing better has been benched because O'Neill thinks it is only right that a more experienced goalkeeper gets an opportunity that he has only earned through reputation, and now the goalkeeper in better form somehow finds himself in a position where he has to win his position back despite doing nothing wrong in the first place.
Johnstone has been given his opportunity because of his career before Celtic, not because of his ability or form now, and that's not a good natured competition.
Add us as a preferred source on Google