How Celtic’s unfashionable players keep Rodgers’ machine purring

Three men who seemingly always deliver for Celtic against Rangers did so once again in Sunday’s routine 3-0 win. Daizen Maeda, Kyogo Furuhashi and Callum McGregor not only scored the champions’ goals but owned their individual area of the field, allowing a now familiar story to build and play out around them.
The contribution of another trio was, however, just as significant and potentially more intriguing when it comes to assessing what might happen next.
The late window transfer splurge which brought Arne Engels, Auston Trusty, Alex Valle and Luke McCowan to Glasgow’s east end had many wondering — perhaps even making certain assumptions — about what it meant for Liam Scales, Greg Taylor and Paulo Bernardo.
Even as they consistently excel domestically, this first pair have long been held up as examples of where Celtic must improve to have any hope of recovering even a shred of respect in Europe, while Bernardo’s return on a permanent deal from Benfica received nothing like the same attention as the pursuit of Engels. Brendan Rodgers himself said he wanted two more midfielders as and when Matt O’Riley was sold.
It turns out the £30million man’s replacement might have been in the building all along. Indeed, on derby-day Bernardo looked distinctly O’Riley-like as the Portuguese combined an eye for a perceptive pass and ability to burst beyond his striker with more prosaic traits such as a knack for being in the right place at the right time to break up play and spark transitions.
His delightful combination with Alistair Johnston for the Maeda goal was also wholly reminiscent of how the Denmark midfielder used to dovetail with the Canada full back — and before him Josip Juranovic — on Celtic’s right.
Having previously scored a thunderbolt on his Old Firm debut and come up with the driving run and shot that Jack Butland spilled into the path of Adam Idah for a last-minute winner in the Scottish Cup final, Bernardo has shown an ability to rise to the big occasion, something which bodes well given just how many of those Celtic have on the home and continental front between now and the end of January.
The reality is, of course, that Rodgers will need more than one man to replace O’Riley as well as giving McGregor and Reo Hatate sufficient opportunity to rest and recover.
This is where rotating the likes of Bernardo, Engels, McCowan and perhaps even Odin Thiago Holm ought to come into its own, with fewer concerns about the potential drop-off than was the case 12 months ago, when the young Norwegian was sent off within 10 minutes of his Champions League debut away to Feyenoord as a second-half substitute for Hatate.
Taylor, meanwhile, appears to have reacted to Valle’s arrival in the exact same way he treated those of Alexandro Bernabei, Boli Bolingoli and Diego Laxalt. The 26-year-old was close to faultless against Rangers, neutering Vaclav Cerny and giving Maeda the usual back-up in his relentless badgering of James Tavernier.
Technically, Taylor remains underrated and if he cannot do anything about his lack of height, the upper-body bulk he appears to have added over the summer ought to help make him less of a target for more physical players at the back post.
Although Valle looks exactly the sort of rangy, dynamic, forward-thinking full back which Rodgers has prized over the years, the manager is a big fan of Taylor’s ability to step into midfield and land a telling ball, just as he did for the Furuhashi goal at the weekend. The former Kilmarnock man will not be dislodged without some considerable fight.
The same goes for Scales, another whose influence will never win awards for artistic merit but who continues to defy assumptions. After a shaky first dozen minutes, he and Cameron Carter-Vickers tag-teamed Cyriel Dessers with something approaching contempt, while Scales also looked much more comfortable bringing the ball out than has tended to be the case since he first became a mainstay of the team this time last year.
Rodgers spent £6m on Trusty, the joint second-highest ever fee the club has paid for a defender, but Scales can still expect plenty of action. Once more, it is a matter of the manager now having options, and Rodgers will not forget how manfully Scales stepped up when alternatives were non-existent.
On the same weekend last year, Scales started alongside Gustaf Lagerbielke (remember him?) at Ibrox amid an injury crisis and mere days after the end of a transfer window during which he had seemed a near-certainty to leave.
Scales quickly established himself as being worthy not just of a place in the squad but of Rodgers’ complete trust. He made close to 50 appearances last season and showed admirable consistency, rarely looking out of place even in the rarefied air of the Champions League.
“I don’t know where we would have been without Liam last year,” Rodgers acknowledged. “He’s such an important member of this squad. But to go deep in competitions and challenge, and be able to recover players, we knew we had to get that quality into the building. So thankfully, we’ve been able to do that.
“I asked for that with the club, and the club has been first-class in that, bringing players in, bringing the level that we want. That will hopefully serve us well going forward.”
Celtic will always be on the lookout for upgrades, but as a reminder of what they already have, the weekend delivered in spades.
● Rangers midfielder Connor Barron and Dundee goalkeeper Jon McCracken have been called up to the Scotland squad for the first time for the Nations League double-header against Poland and Portugal.
In an update from the Scottish Football Association on Tuesday, it was revealed that Barron and Sassuolo left back Josh Doig have both been promoted from the under-21 squad following a spate of withdrawals.
Kilmarnock goalkeeper Robby McCrorie, Torino striker Che Adams and Celtic pair James Forrest and Greg Taylor have all left the squad.