Kris Boyd is right about Kasper Høgh, but in order for us to see his true potential, Celtic need to kick 4-3-3 into touch – It doesn’t work

Yesterday evening, after we had ground out a 1-0 win at McDiarmid Park, Kris Boyd said something on Sky that I agreed with.

I’ll give you all a minute to take that in.

Martin O’Neill had been asked whether Kasper Høgh was involved enough in the first half, and the manager was not for letting his striker off the hook.

Here is what the Celtic boss had to say:

You can’t just put the ball on a plate for people. They have to make room for themselves to try and score a goal.

At the end of it all, you know, I said to the boys in the dressing room that I’m 74 years of age and I think I could have scored a goal at some stage or another. That’s a major exaggeration.

Now, I love Martin O’Neill.

But he was harsh on Høgh there, and I suspect he’ll see it differently once he sits down and watches it back.

And why was that?

Because the boy was starved.

It’s rare that Kris Boyd is right about anything, but I can’t argue with a word of this

The ex Ibrox frontman was asked directly whether it was a lack of movement or a lack of service, and he went straight to the wingers:

When you look at Kasper Høgh there’s one thing about him and that’s that he never stops moving, he’s always on the go. Until he’s maybe done it two or three times.

Because as soon as a winger goes touch, touch, touch… as a striker you know the space is getting tighter and tighter.

You want that ball early so as soon as you have wingers who are touch, touch, touch then as a striker you go ‘Do you know what? I’m not moving any more’.

And that’s what Martin O’Neill is talking about there – you had to put it on a sixpence for him.

James McFadden sat beside him and said the same thing about getting height on the cross and taking out the first man.

Two pundits, neither of them Celtic minded, both watching the same thing we all watched.

A striker stops making runs when he’s watched the ball die at a winger’s feet ten times

I wrote about this yesterday morning, before Boyd had opened his mouth.

Høgh was left feeding off scraps in Perth.

The deliveries were either blocked at the first man or dragged along the deck to nobody.

And Sebastian Tounekti was, once again, hard to watch.

I’ve been patient with him.

I’m not being patient any longer, because there is no end product there at all.

How many more chances does a winger get before somebody says it out loud?

Haissem Hassan is a different case, and I’ll cut him some slack.

He is still finding his feet in Scottish football and I do think there’s a player in there.

But he isn’t the answer this Sunday, and we haven’t got until Christmas to wait on him.

Our shape is the problem here, not our £11 million striker, and it has been since day one

This is where I part company with the people currently sharpening their knives for Høgh.

4-3-3 does not suit him.

It never has.

It asks a centre forward to survive on the scraps that two inconsistent wide men decide to give him, and when they give him nothing, he gets the blame for it.

Why are we still persisting with a system that our best attacking players cannot function in?

We all know the answer.

Because we’ve always done it that way.

Tierney and Donovan as wing backs, with Høgh and Duran in front of them, would terrify defences

Go to a 3-5-2 and look at what falls into place.

Kieran Tierney’s crossing is as good as anything at this football club.

Colby Donovan loves getting forward and has the legs to do it for ninety minutes.

Give those two the whole flank, with no winger in front of them holding the ball up, and the ball arrives in that box early.

That is the service Kris Boyd is talking about.

Is that not exactly what we paid £11 million for?

Then put two men in there to attack it.

Høgh and Camilo Duran, together, with wing backs feeding them – that could be lethal.

Boyd himself said he expects Duran through the middle on Sunday and that we’re “in a far better place” with Camilo.

He’s right about that too, which is twice in one night, and I’m starting to worry about myself.

The point is that we’ve spent big money on two forwards and then set up a team that can only ever use one of them properly.

We play the Ibrox side on Sunday.

They will sit in, they will clog the middle, and they will dare us to beat them from wide areas.

So what do we fancy?

We can send Tounekti out there to take another three touches.

Or we can put Tierney and Donovan on those flanks and get the ball into the box.

Kris Boyd worked it out from a Sky studio.

Surely we can work it out too…

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