Alan Hutton’s Celtic Comments Are Absolutely Ludicrous – And The Form Table Says Otherwise

There are some takes in football that you can disagree with.

Then there are takes that make you wonder whether someone has actually watched Scottish football at all in the last 10 years. 

Alan Hutton claiming “not one Celtic player would get into Derek McInnes’ Sevco team” falls firmly into the latter category.

To be fair to Hutton, his comments were specifically based on form at the time, rather than him claiming that every Celtic player is individually worse.

But even with that caveat, come on.

Not one?

That is an extraordinary statement.

And it becomes even more difficult to take seriously when you look at what has actually happened between the two sides.

Celtic have undoubtedly hit a horrible patch. We have lost three consecutive matches, including two against Castle Greyskull and a European defeat to Ferencváros. The 3-0 defeat at Ibrox was particularly poor, and the subsequent 1-0 defeat at Celtic Park has allowed the gap at the top to close to just two points. 

Nobody should be pretending Celtic are playing well.

But football doesn’t suddenly become a game where every player in one squad is better than every player in another because one team has won a couple of games. 

If Hutton genuinely believes there isn’t a single Celtic player who would improve McInnes’ starting XI, then I’d love to know where exactly he draws the line.

Would Cameron Carter-Vickers not get into that defence?

Would Kieran Tierney not get into it?

Would Callum McGregor, despite his age, really have no place in that midfield?

Would Kasper Høgh, when fit and firing, not offer something?

Would Yang Hyun-jun not be capable of competing for a wide position in front of Gassama?

And then there’s the ridiculousness of judging two squads entirely on a snapshot of form.

Hutton himself effectively admits that his opinion would have been different a month earlier because Celtic started strongly while Castle Greyskull struggled to get their new squad functioning. 

That’s precisely the point.

Form changes. Players improve. Players decline. Managers change systems. New signings take time.

So why make such an absolute statement?

The irony is that Hutton’s own comments acknowledge that Castle Greyskull have needed time to integrate a huge number of new players. He said there had been a major transition and that some players were still adapting to the culture, environment and expectations.

That’s fair.

But if that is the case, then why are we suddenly treating their current form as proof that every single player is better than every single Celtic player?

It doesn’t add up.

The problem is that Celtic have made the squad harder to judge because of the way it has been constructed. We’ve lost established quality, replaced some of it with younger or less experienced players and then expected everything to click immediately.

That is where the real criticism should be directed.

Not towards whether Alan Hutton thinks one player would get into another team.

The question Celtic supporters should be asking is why we’ve allowed the squad to become so vulnerable that a run of poor performances suddenly creates the perception that none of our players are good enough.

Because that isn’t reality.

It’s football punditry based on the latest result.

And frankly, if we’re going to start handing out ludicrous statements, I’ll happily wait until the next game against those lot before we revisit this one.

Not one Celtic player?

Behave yourself, Alan.