Celtic extended their unbeaten run in the Scottish Premiership with their 15th win in 17 matches by beating Motherwell 4-0 at Parkhead on Boxing Day.
A first-half penalty from Arne Engels gave the hosts a narrow lead, before Daizen Maeda, Nicolas Kuhn, and Reo Hatate all scored in the second 45 to secure all three points.
Brendan Rodgers will surely be delighted with yet another win and another clean sheet for Kasper Schmeichel, who did not have a save to make in the match.
However, it was not a perfect performance from the Hoops, who needed a penalty to go into the break ahead, and one player who did not take their chance to impress was Adam Idah.
Adam Idah’s performance against Motherwell
The Ireland international was named in the starting line-up for just the sixth time this season in the Premiership, with Kyogo Furuhashi dropped to the bench after the 0-0 draw at Tannadice Park against Dundee United.
Unfortunately, though, the former Norwich City centre-forward did not catch the eye in the right way, as he struggled – particularly out of possession. Idah lost 100% (4/4) of his duels and this shows that Motherwell players found it too easy to get the better of him in physical contests.
The 6 foot 3 marksman also failed to find the back of the net with any of his three shot attempts, registering one on target, and failed with his only attempted dribble.
Idah did create one ‘big chance’ for the team, to his credit, but his overall performance was not enough to put a marker down and convince Rodgers that he should be the man moving forward.
As well as the Irishman, another Celtic player who failed to make the most of their opportunity to impress from the start was central midfielder Paulo Bernardo.
Paulo Bernardo’s performance in numbers
The Portuguese maestro fluffed his chance to put a marker down, like Idah, to nail down a regular place in the starting line-up, as he has only started eight of his 16 appearances in the division.
Bernardo played the opening 63 minutes of the match and was not directly involved in any of the goals, before being taken off for Reo Hatate – who came on to score.
His midfield competitor came on to score the fourth goal and won more duels (two) than the ex-Benfica starlet managed (one) in his time on the pitch.
As you can see in the table above, Bernardo did little to help the team out of possession, losing 88% of his duels and committing four fouls, as he struggled to deal with the physicality of the match, much like Idah.
The summer signing needed to make up for that with his quality in possession, but failed to do so. Zero shots and zero ‘big chances’ created paints a picture of his performance on the day – uneventful.
Both Idah and Bernardo are now in danger of dropping back out of the starting line-up once again, as they failed to take their chance to shine.
