Celtic failed to hit a single shot on target in the weekend’s one-sided Old Firm victory and much of it was down to how the individual players carried out their instructions to perfection.
One player who has been singled out for praise is one-time Premier league target Glen Kamara with Alan Hutton gushing over the midfielder’s performance in an interview with Football Insider.
So what has Hutton said?
When asked to analyse the Finland international’s performance, he said:
“Absolutely outstanding.
“This is a guy who’s kind of flew under the radar for a little while and I think his recent performances at international level and then bringing that into the Rangers team, he was actually pivotal to what Rangers were doing.
“He was stopping the flying wing-backs of Celtic going forward. He nullified Frimpong, he hardly touched the ball and it was all to do with Kamara spotting the danger, he could see what was happening, what was building up and he’s got the energy to get all over the pitch.
“He was the one that would go out and stop Frimpong attacking. He did his job absolutely unbelievable – Frimpong is the danger man for them and he did basically nothing in the game.
“It was really a bit of tactical genius from Gerrard to use Kamara’s energy up and down the pitch to stop one of their main threats on the day.”
So is Hutton correct?
If Brian Laudrup says that Glen Kamara was “crucial” to Rangers success against Celtic, who are we to disagree? That Hutton also feels that his performance was pivotal in nullifying their biggest threat is not a coincidence.
As soon as Jeremie Frimpong crossed the half-way line, Kamara was on him – if Borna Barisic hadn’t already engaged him – the saying “men against boys” was never more appropriate as Rangers systematically dismantled the home side’s attack, often at source.
Is Kamara one of the first names on the team-sheet just now?
Yes
No
Kamara was outstanding, and in partnership with Barisic, they reminded the Celtic wing-back that he is far from the £25million player that his skipper claims he has the potential to be, barely managing to get a single hopeful ball into the box in 90 minutes.
As with many of the players in Neil Lennon’s much vaunted side, Frimpong’s true value is only realised when he comes up against good players and against Rangers he barely reached the level of a player worth half of the £50k that Steven Gerrard paid for the Finnish maestro’s services, if you had to place a £25m price tag on one of them, it certainly wouldn’t have been the Dutchman.