Rodgers must drop Celtic flop who “offered little”

Celtic head into the first international break of the season off the back of a disappointing performance in the Scottish Premiership against their city rivals.

The Hoops travelled away from Parkhead to take on Russell Martin’s Rangers side at Ibrox on Sunday, and were held to a drab 0-0 draw in the derby clash.

There were a number of disappointing performers across the park for Brendan Rodgers in the bore-draw, including Benjamin Nygren on the right flank.

Benjamin Nygren’s performance in numbers

The Sweden international has mainly played on the right of the midfield three for the Hoops since his move to the club in the summer, but the manager opted to play him on the right wing ahead of Hyun-jun Yang and James Forrest.

Unfortunately, Nygren failed to offer much of a threat up against the pacey Jayden Meghoma at left-back for Rangers, failing with all five of his attempted dribbles. He ended the 90 minutes with zero key passes and zero shots on target, per Sofascore, which speaks to his lack of impact on the game.

The left-footed star did, however, work his socks off out of possession to help his team out defensively, winning nine duels and making six tackles and one interception, per Sofascore.

Whilst Nygren’s performance lacked a cutting edge at the top end of the pitch, Rodgers can still be pleased with his physical and defensive contributions, which cannot be said for Arne Engels.

Why Arne Engels should be dropped

The Belgium international was brought into the midfield three for this game, thanks to Nygren’s move to the right wing, but did not do enough to suggest that he should keep his place.

Rodgers must ruthlessly ditch the former Augsburg man for the clash with Kilmarnock after the international break because he was poor in and out of possession against Rangers in midfield.

The club-record signing played alongside Reo Hatate and Callum McGregor in the middle of the park and did not offer any creativity or a goal threat on the ball.

As you can see in the table above, Engels did not create anything of note for his side and was incredibly weak out of possession, losing eight of his ten physical duels.

This shows that the Rangers midfielders, Mohamed Diomande and Connor Barron, found it far too easy to get the better of him in midfield in physical battles for the ball, and shows that he was even worse than Nygren, who found success in his defensive actions.

Sky Sports commentator Ian Crocker noted that the Belgium international “offered little” for Celtic before he was substituted by Rodgers in the 65th minute of the match, with Forrest coming on so that the Swedish ace could play in that right-sided midfield role.

This suggests that the manager felt that Nygren was better suited to seeing out the game in the position that Engels was hoping to impress in, which says a lot about who the preferred option in that role may be when they play Kilmarnock in a fortnight.

Therefore, Rodgers should be looking to ruthlessly ditch Engels from the starting XI after he flopped at Ibrox, moving Nygren back into his central midfield berth.