Another perfectly good goal disallowed for Celtic, as 4-3-3 shows it’s deficiencies once again on a testing night in Perth

This season is really starting to have a sense of deja vu about it, isn’t it?

For two reasons, referees and poor finishing.

Now the refereeing aspect of it I’ll get on to soon enough, but the other aspect of it?

4-3-3 is a lame duck, everybody can see it, except for the coaching team, it seems.

The most glaring thing from last night was the loss of Hyun-Jun Yang.

Now, did anyone ever imagine we’d be saying something like that?

Such is Yang’s ability to penetrate a defence now, he is a critical member of our squad.

His absence proved acute last night because Sebastian Tounekti just does not seem to have that final ball in him.

Yang might send one in five into the box, but I cannot argue that one is better than none.

Tounekti was hard to watch last night, and if Celtic are going to have to rely on him for the two upcoming derby games, then we’re in trouble on the left, that’s for sure.

It seems that Tounekti has very little end product once he gets into the opposition box.

That is, if he decides that he actually wants to cut inside into the box, and not pass the ball back to one of our midfielders or the left back.

On the right hand side, Haissem Hassan’s pace and runs were also a source of frustration, but the difference in Hassan is that you can see he’s still bedding into his new surroundings.

I can see he’ll come good in time.

Tounekti, on the other hand, has had a year to come good.

If he hasn’t by now….

In the midst of all of this Kasper Høgh cut a dejected figure.

Crying out for a decent cross all night, he was left to feed off scraps most of the time.

With the money we have spent on our front line at Celtic, we should never be struggling up front.

Once again, I’ll reiterate what John Hughes said on Acsom, we bought a lethal weapon, we just don’t have the ammunition for it.

Last night was proof positive of that.

It was also proof positive that stubborn adherence to 4-3-3 is going to result in turgid and frustrating performances like last night’s throughout this season.

In midfield, I’m yet to be convinced of what Oliver Sørensen brings to the team.

While he hasn’t done a whole pile wrong since his arrival, he hasn’t done much to impress either.

I’ll reserve judgement for now, as it’s still early days.

Mika Baur, on the other hand, is really starting to show what he can do, and he topped it off last night with his first goal for the club.

Overall though, this performance once again showed us that 4-3-3 just isn’t suited to the players we have.

Just imagine the damage that Kasper Høgh and Camilo Duran could wreak on defences if they were partnered as a front two for Celtic?

A man can dream.

Look, in the end, we got the most important thing, the win.

It may have been very different if it hadn’t been for the quickfire reactions of Sam Johnstone, a surprise inclusion in goal last night.

Stepping into the starting lineup ahead of Viljami Sinisalo, the 33-year-old loanee from Wolves was called into crucial action midway through the first half.

St Johnstone midfielder Joel Cotterill met a low cross from Enes Alić and struck it cleanly from close range.

Despite the pace and suddenness of the shot, Johnstone showcased remarkable footwork and razor-sharp instincts to tip the ball over the crossbar, preventing a certain goal.

The monumental save proved to be the turning point, keeping the game scoreless before Mika Baur fired home the winner early in the second half.

In the end, a win is a win.

But no game involving Celtic, or the Ibrox side for that matter, which I’ll get to later, can pass without a refereeing controversy.

Haissem Hassan was disallowed his first Celtic goal due a highly unusual and controversial technological limitiation.

In the second half, Sebastian Tounekti floated a cross toward the back post, ironically, his first dangerous one of the game.

Kasper Høgh tracked it down right at the goal line and managed to head the ball back across the face of the goal, setting up Hassan to lash it into the back of the net.

However, the assistant referee raised his flag, indicating that Tounekti’s cross had traveled out of play over the goal line before Høgh made contact.

It certainly did not look as if it had traveled out of play.

And the linesman seemed very eager to raise his flag to say that it did.

While subsequent replays and social media footage strongly indicated that Høgh had actually kept the ball in play, VAR could not overturn the on-field decision.

Apparently, this is because the ball temporarily left the camera frame at the top right of the broadcast screen while in mid-air.

Because the ball was out of shot for that crucial second, the VAR officials had no definitive visual angle to prove a clear and obvious error.

By protocol, they were forced to stick with the linesman’s original decision.

This marks the second time in fours days that Celtic have had a goal ruled out due to technical limitations.

I don’t need to go back over what happened in Paisley last Saturday night.

Once again, poor and uncertain decision making from the officials has cost us.

There will come a time when this happens when we are losing.

The way things are going, the law of averages dictates it will happen.

We have to hope it doesn’t happen over the next two weekends.

Which, if last night’s showing was anything to go by, could prove to be two very tight games.

Time to deploy a 3-5-2 Martin?

It would be the perfect time for it…

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