Rodgers must instantly drop “very clumsy” Celtic star

Celtic suffered their first defeat of the Scottish Premiership season and their first defeat of 2025 with a 3-0 loss to Rangers at Ibrox on Thursday.

The team’s only other loss in all competitions in the 2024/25 campaign came at the hands of Borussia Dortmund, a 7-1 defeat, in the Champions League in Germany.

It was a game that the Hoops never really got going in and they never seemed to recover from the early setback they faced when Ianis Hagi planted a shot into the bottom corner from 20 yards in the seventh minute.

There was never a sustained spell of pressure from the away side to get an equaliser, with Celtic having one shot on target in the 90 minutes, before they allowed Robin Propper to score, unmarked, in the 66th minute after a scramble from a corner.

The match was all but over at that point and Danilo wrapped up the win for the hosts by sliding the ball past Kasper Schmeichel for the third in the 81st minute.

It was a disastrous performance from the Hoops and one that included a number of players not living up to their usual high standards for the Hoops.

Celtic’s worst performers against Rangers

Firstly, there is no getting away from the error that Liam Scales made in the build-up to the opening goal from Hagi, with a stray pass into midfield that was jumped on by the Gers – directly leading to the opening goal.

The Ireland international was selected on the left side of the defence, next to Cameron Carter-Vickers, ahead of Auston Trusty and let his manager down with that mistake.

Scales was far from the only Celtic player to make an error on the pitch at Ibrox, though, as central midfielder Reo Hatate also endured a frustrating afternoon on the other side of Glasgow.

The Japan international ended the match with zero chances created, zero ground duels won, zero tackles, zero interceptions, and two errors that directly led to shots for the opposition.

Right-back Alistair Johnston had similar issues to Hatate in the game, winning two of his nine duels and failing to make a single tackle or interception, whilst also giving the ball away a whopping 20 times.

Another player who struggled at Ibrox was centre-forward Kyogo Furuhashi, as the Japan international failed to get involved in the match for most of his performance.

As you can see in the table above, the Celtic forward carried little threat, with his only shot in the match ultimately ruled out for offside, and did not compete with Dujon Sterling or Robin Propper in physical battles to hold the ball up.

Another player the Scottish giants must ditch from the starting XI for the clash with St Mirren at Parkhead on Sunday is left winger Daizen Maeda.

Daizen Maeda’s performance against Rangers

The Japan international started on the left flank for the Hoops and failed to make the desired impact in or out of possession, despite playing against a player out of position.

With James Tavernier injured and Sterling required at centre-back for Rangers, left-back Ridvan Yilmaz, who started for just the fourth time this season in the Premiership, started on the right side of the backline for Philippe Clement.

This meant that Maeda was directly up against a left-footed right-back who was not fully match sharp, yet failed to get the better of him physically or technically.

The Japanese lightweight lost 83% (5/6) of his duels and 100% (5/5) of his ground duels in the match, which shows that Yilmaz dominated him from a physical perspective.

He also lost possession of the ball 12 times in total, without scoring or assisting a goal, as the forward was wasteful with his use of the ball on the flank.

As you can see in the table above, Maeda offered virtually nothing at the top end of the pitch for Celtic, with zero shots on target and zero chances created.

His performance was summed up by him missing a good chance to get a headed shot on goal at the back post, heading the ball down onto his own foot and out of play. During Sky Sports’ live coverage of the match, pundit Chris Sutton described his display as “very clumsy” after that incident.

Why Daizen Maeda should be dropped

Brendan Rodgers must, now, ruthlessly ditch the Japanese winger from the starting XI after his disappointing performance against Rangers, that lacked physicality and technical quality.

A lack of quality in the final third has been a consistent issue for Maeda throughout the Premiership season, although he had scored in successive matches in the two games before the trip to Ibrox.

The 27-year-old has only produced four goals and three assists in 18 appearances in the Scottish top-flight, less than one goal contribution every other game on average.

Maeda has failed to provide regular contributions as a scorer or a creator of goals down the left flank, despite starting 15 of those games, and has struggled in other areas of the game.

As you can see in the table above, the Celtic attacker has been incredibly poor at taking on opposition full-backs this season, completing just 28% of his attempted dribbles.

His lack of quality in that respect was on show at Ibrox on Thursday as the rarely-seen Yilmaz, playing out of position, had an easy afternoon against the Hoops wide man, who offered very little at the top end of the pitch.

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Celtic were brought crashing back down to earth on Thursday afternoon

Therefore, Rodgers, particularly with the game coming just a few days later, should drop Maeda from the starting XI and hand an opportunity to another player to shine, whether that is James Forrest, Luis Palma, or Hyun-jun Yang.