Celtic boss Martin O'Neill has hinted that he is seeing the full picture with Kasper Hogh, who continues to struggle in front of goal.
Hogh was a big-money signing in the summer, and fans instantly took to him after a bright start, and pehaps, in part, due to his outgoing personality.
Hogh scored an early hat-trick and looked really good within O'Neill's system, holding up the ball well and bringing wingers into play. But the Dane has not scored since his hat-trick, and his conversion rate has been particularly poor, with regular missed chances.
During Hogh's recent absence with injury, Camilo Duran played in a central role and found goals regularly, but Hogh came back on Wednesday night and once again drew a blank despite having a couple of good chances.
As ever, the Dane did do well in holding the ball up and laying off teammates, but he looked even less confident in front of goal, often defaulting to laying off the ball, rather than taking a situation by the horns and trying to get a shot off.
Up to now, we have heard a lot about what Hogh offers Celtic even when he is not scoring goals, but on Wednesday night, O'Neill hinted at frustration over his side's output up top.
"I thought we started off with a lot of possession," he began. "I thought we started to create a few things. When we were doing that, it looked as if there was nobody in the penalty box for us.
"We got a bit more tempo into the game in the second half, got the goal and saw it through. We could have scored a number of goals, but we made that look very, very difficult indeed."
Those comments suggest that what O'Neill wants is a real centre-forward who is going to be a threat in the box, rather than almost a defensive forward who is regularly dropping deep to get on the ball and exclusively bringing others into the game.
Until now, it has looked as though O'Neill is set on playing Hogh, even leading to playing Duran out of position, but those comments point to a potential switch in mentality, even if it doesn't lead to immediate change.
O'Neill said of Duran on Wednesday night: "He’s second only to Daizen Maeda in terms of closing players down. So, I wanted to try and see if we could do without him, and the answer is probably not!"
That points to Duran getting a lot more game time in that central role, and he has earned it.
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