Celtic striker Kasper Hogh faces a fight to keep his place in Martin O'Neill's starting line-up over the coming week, which includes a Premier Sports Cup tie away to Rangers, a Europa League opener at home to Ferencvaros and a league meeting with Rangers at Parkhead the following weekend.
The scrutiny has intensified after O'Neill's remarks following a 1-0 win away to St Johnstone in midweek, which were widely read as a pointed comment on his Danish centre-forward. Rangers manager Derek McInnes is under similar strain heading into the same double-header, needing at least one big result to ease the pressure after Champions League qualifying defeats to Jablonec and Jagiellonia Bialystok.
Hogh has not been doing badly since arriving at Celtic in the summer. Team-mates describe him as a big character with a good attitude in the dressing room, and on the pitch he gives Celtic a different attacking option, holding up possession and bringing others into play.
But he has not been scoring regularly enough, and it was hard not to read O'Neill's post-match comments as aimed at his forward. "It looked as if there was nobody in the penalty box for us," O'Neill said, reflecting on a spell when his side had created real chances. He went on to say that leaving Camilo Duran on the bench had shown the team could not function properly without him.
Duran's case for a start
O'Neill's admiration for Duran is easy to understand given how the Colombian forward has started his career in Scotland. Duran, who joined from Qarabag of Azerbaijan, does not just score goals from centre-forward, he creates them too, a pattern that also showed up in his statistics at his previous club.
In eight starts for Celtic, Duran has scored six goals and provided three assists, mostly while playing on the right flank, though his preferred position is through the middle. O'Neill played him there recently while Hogh was out with an adductor injury picked up in the Champions League qualifying defeat to LASK in Austria. Duran scored one and set up another in a 3-0 win over Aberdeen, had a further effort ruled out, and then set up Yang Hyun-jun's winner at St Mirren.
With Yang away at the Asian Games with South Korea, O'Neill's selection for Ibrox is unclear. Haissem Hassan looks set to keep his place on the right, having little history of playing on the opposite flank. Duran could instead play on the left in Yang's absence, or O'Neill could pair Duran and Hogh together, a switch that would raise questions over where Benjamin Nygren fits in. Hogh's lingering groin problem could also make it easier to leave him out and manage his fitness.
A mixed record so far
Whatever O'Neill decides, the timing is awkward for a forward signed for a club-record fee. Hogh scored a hat-trick against bottom-of-the-table Kilmarnock but has failed to score in five other appearances, missing big chances against Dundee and Dundee United.
In the first leg against LASK he provided a lay-off that led to Duran's second goal, but struggled, like the rest of the team, in the second leg in Austria. Against St Johnstone on Wednesday he played a part in Mika Baur's winning goal and appeared to have set up a second for Hassan with a downward header, though it was ruled out after officials decided the ball had gone out of play. He also missed two clear chances and was bailed out by goalkeeper Sam Johnstone after being caught out as Joel Cotterill ran through into a strong close-range position.
Pressure of an £11million price tag
The 25-year-old was signed on the back of scoring five goals for Bodo/Glimt in last season's Champions League against Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan and Sporting Lisbon. He had already become a sought-after talent after helping the Norwegian club reach the Europa League semi-finals the season before, scoring seven goals in that competition against opponents including Porto, Olympiakos, Maccabi Tel-Aviv and FC Twente.
That pedigree persuaded Celtic to pay a club-record fee reported at £11million plus add-ons, but reputation alone will not be enough over the coming week. Former Rangers striker Tore Andre Flo is among those who discovered that a large price tag demands regular goals rather than occasional ones against lesser opposition.
For both Hogh and McInnes, the next eight days of fixtures look set to either offer a platform to confirm their credentials in Glasgow or fuel further debate over their place at their respective clubs.
