11 hours ago
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It hardly requires the eye of the clairvoyant to see that this is a monster week ahead for Rangers manager Derek McInnes.
In the suffocating business of trying to stay afloat in the great Glasgow goldfish bowl, though, the same can be argued of Celtic’s club-record signing Kasper Hogh.
McInnes’ situation, of course, is dead clear. He needs at least one big result in this upcoming Old Firm double-header to give himself a bit of breathing space. If he can manage two, he might even be able to turn the page on the horrors of Jablonec and Jagiellonia Bialystok and plot a way forward at Ibrox that doesn’t involve operating in permanent survival mode.
Find himself knocked out of the Premier Sports Cup and eight points behind Celtic in the league by the end of hostilities a week on Sunday, however, and he’s slap-bang in Russell Martin territory.
Hogh’s situation across the city of Glasgow is less high-drama, less black-and-white. Yet, thanks in no small part to a manager in Martin O’Neill who seems to let off mini-explosions almost every time he speaks these days, the focus is surely turning to his overall contribution and whether he even merits a spot in the starting line-up for Ibrox tomorrow lunchtime, Parkhead next weekend or the Europa League curtain-raiser at home to Ferencvaros that’s sandwiched in-between.
Hogh hasn’t been doing badly, as such, since arriving in the summer. Players already talk about him being a big character behind the scenes, a good guy with a good attitude.
Kasper Hogh has endured some frustrations at Celtic of late after enjoying a blistering start
On-field, he offers different options in attack and gives Celtic an outball thanks to his ability to hold up possession and bring others into the game.
The primary problem is that he isn’t scoring regularly enough. Plus, it was hard not to listen to O’Neill’s remarks after the 1-0 win away to St Johnstone in midweek and feel they were aimed at the Danish centre-forward.
‘It looked as if there was nobody in the penalty box for us,’ he said, when reflecting upon a period in which his side had started to create real opportunities.
If that isn’t a criticism of your No9, what is? When O’Neill then went on to state that leaving Camilo Duran on the bench simply proved that the team can’t function properly without him, the alarm bells started ringing even louder.
O’Neill evidently loves Duran. And why wouldn’t you, given the way the Colombian has started his career in Scotland?
He gives the impression he’d like to have pictures of him on his bedside table beside the ones of the missus and the kids. The greater issue for Hogh, though, is whether he’d like to have Duran playing more regularly through the middle as well.
O’Neill put him there recently while Hogh was out with the adductor injury picked up near the end of the Champions League qualifying meltdown against LASK in Austria. He scored one and provided one in a 3-0 win over Aberdeen and then had one effort chalked off before setting up Yang Hyun-jun for the winner at St Mirren with some excellent play.
Camilo Duran has become a favourite of manager Martin O'Neill, who hinted he's undroppable
The thing with Duran is that he doesn’t just score goals at centre-forward, he sets them up too. And his stats show he did the same with previous club Qarabag in Azerbaijan.
In eight starts so far, he has delivered six goals and three assists. Most of that has come from playing on the right flank, but his preferred position is through the middle and, with the manager still appearing not to know his strongest XI, it feels like there’s a growing sense O’Neill might just go with him there at Ibrox tomorrow.
Haissem Hassan will almost certainly start on the right. Going through his figures, he has no real history of playing on the other flank and is growing nicely into things where he is.
Of course, Hogh could start in the centre with Duran on the left in place of the absent Yang, away at the Asian Games with South Korea. Duran has played there occasionally in the past and looks like he could perform anywhere along the frontline.
Does it make sense, though, to shunt your most effective, confident player at the moment into an unfamiliar position in an Old Firm cup tie? Does it give *him* the right kind of messaging?
Of course, O’Neill may also opt, somewhere down the line, to try Duran and Hogh as a front two. He used a 3-5-2 as his go-to set-up back in the day, although it’s doubtful whether Hassan is a natural wing-back. A 4-4-2 would also make you wonder where Benjamin Nygren fits in.
What’s more, dropping Hogh for Sunday’s cup quarter-final in Govan is made easier by the fact he has been carrying that groin problem. Keeping him on the bench could be explained away as part of managing his condition.
Hogh huffed and puffed in Perth against St Johnstone but failed to blow their house down
The difficulty here, though, is that these are the weeks, the games, Hogh was bought for. You don’t spend £11million plus add-ons on a guy – a small fortune for a Scottish club – and expect to be chewing over whether he should be included in the team at all.
Old Firm derbies speak for themselves, but Celtic should be aiming to go deep into the knockouts in the Europa League and getting off to a winning start against Ferencvaros is hugely important.
This is when big players need to step up to the plate and, in Hogh’s case, he could really do with laying down a serious marker.
Yes, he did score a hat-trick against bottom-of-the-table Kilmarnock, but he has drawn a blank in the five other games he’s been involved in.
He missed big chances against Dundee and Dundee United. In the first leg against LASK, he became drawn into a war of attrition, but did deliver an important lay-off in the lead-up to Duran’s second that night.
Like everyone else, he disappeared into a black hole away to the Austrians and, even against St Johnstone on Wednesday, delivered a really mixed performance.
Yes, he played a part in Mika Baur’s winner with some delicate play in the box. He also looked like he’d set up a goal for Hassan with a downward header before it was somehow decided the ball had gone out of play.
By the same token, he missed two great chances and saw goalkeeper Sam Johnstone get him out of jail in the first-half when he was caught sleeping as Joel Cotterill breezed past him into a fantastic close-range position.
Hogh proved himself in the Champions League with Bodo/Glimt but must do so again at Celtic
O’Neill’s comments in the aftermath simply highlighted the fact Hogh finds himself living very much in Duran’s shadow right now.
He needs to start scoring goals – and not just any old goals against the Killies and Falkirks of this world. That won’t get you very far when you’ve got a whopping price tag round your neck, as a certain Tore Andre Flo can testify.
The 25-year-old was signed on the back of scoring five goals in the Champions League for Bodo/Glimt last term against Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan and Sporting Lisbon.
He became a hot property when the Norwegians made it to the last four of the Europa League the season before, netting seven times in the tournament against the likes of Porto, Olympiakos, Maccabi Tel-Aviv and FC Twente.
He has clear pedigree. He’s a good player. He should also be built for these three approaching fixtures, but reputation only takes you so far. And like it or lump it, that £11million fee just makes it all the more important you make it clear you’re a main character rather than a useful support act.
Like McInnes, the events of the next eight days will either offer Hogh a real platform from which to confirm his credentials or kick off serious debate over whether he’s landed in the wrong movie.
It’s brutal, of course. But it’s Glasgow. And a handful of games into your new life here or not, that’s what you have to live with.
