Celtic failed to take the chance to move 19 points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership table when they welcome their city rivals to Parkhead on Sunday.
The Hoops were beaten 3-2 by their rivals Rangers at Paradise, closing the gap between the two sides to 13 points, thanks to an 88th-minute thunderbolt from Hamza Igamane.
Rangers needed that late winning strike after Brendan Rodgers’ side brilliantly battled back from 2-0 down to make it 2-2 with goals from Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate.
Ultimately, though, it was a poor performance by the Hoops in front of their home supporters, and one player who had a difficult afternoon was Crystal Palace loanee Jeffrey Schlupp.
Celtic were let down by their full-backs
The Ghana international was selected to start ahead of Scottish defender Greg Taylor, who was an unused substitute, but did not reward Rodgers for his faith in him.
Schlupp let himself down inside the opening four minutes when he allowed Nicolas Raskin to get the run on him from James Tavernier’s corner to make it 1-0 to the away side.
The left-footed defender went on to lose four of his seven duels in total, being dribbled past once without making a single tackle, but did make three interceptions.
Schlupp was far from the worst player on the pitch, despite his mistake for the opening goal, though, as Alistair Johnston put in his worst performance in a Celtic shirt this season.
Celtic’s worst performer in the Old Firm derby
The Canada international was even worse than the Palace loanee and let himself down with an uncharacteristically bad showing at right-back on Sunday.
Johnston is usually a reliable operator for Celtic, completing 86% of his passes and winning 56% of his duels in the Premiership this season, yet he was anything but reliable against Rangers.
It was the most goals the defender has been to blame, even in part, for in a single match this season as he left a lot to be desired for two of the three Rangers goals.
Johnston, who was handed a player rating of 4/10 by Glasgow World for his slow efforts to defend the goals, did not track the run of Diomande into the box and was then far too slow to close the midfielder down before his strike found the bottom corner.
The 26-year-old flop then slipped at the vital moment from Jack Butland’s punt forward to gift Igamane the ball, before missing his attempted challenge to recover the situation and inadvertently setting the ball up for the attacker to hit it on the half-volley.
As you can see in the table above, Johnston was even worse than Schlupp with his play both in and out of possession, as he lost the ball a staggering 27 times.
It was the most times he has lost possession in a single Premiership match this season, and it was also the first time that he has missed a ‘big chance’ whilst failing to create any chances for his teammates at the same time this term.
He had a huge chance to equalise with one of the final kicks of the match as he came crashing in at the far post from a cross, only to mishit his effort high and wide instead of claiming a point for his team.
These statistics, alongside his mistakes for two of the three Rangers goals, suggest that it was his worst showing in a Hoops jersey in the current campaign, due to how sloppy he was with the ball as well as how slack his defensive work was.
Rodgers must hope that Johnston uses the international break to get this performance out of his system, so that he has his usually dependable star back at his best against Hearts at the end of this month.
