As Celtic prepare to face Atletico Madrid in tonight’s crunch Champions League tie, all eyes will be on Brendan Rodgers and who he will select for his starting lineup.
Against Ross County, the Celtic manager rested a number of players with the game against the La Liga giants in mind. I’ll get to my predicted XI later but I believe that James Forrest has a genuine chance of starting in Madrid tonight. And I’ll tell you why.
Why James Forrest could be important for Celtic tonight
Cast your mind back to the 2-2 draw at Celtic Park. Celtic were dominant in the first 60 minutes of the match. The energy and dynamism that was expelled to take the lead twice against the La Liga giants was evident in the middle of the second half as a tired Celtic couldn’t get out from under the cosh for around 20 minutes.
Brendan Rodgers saw this and decided to bring on the ‘brilliant‘ Forrest on in place of Kyogo Furuhashi and he left Hyeongyu Oh on the bench.
That substitute created a lot of waves at the time with many pundits believing by doing that, Rodgers sent a message to Oh that he doesn’t trust him in the Champions League.
But at the time Rodgers said that he wanted more width to the team as Celtic were struggling to get out of their own half.
Tonight is going to be more of the same, if not worse. Diego Simeone‘s men will look to attack Celtic right from the off and the counter-attack will be important.
That’s where the speed and power of James Forrest could become important. With him and Daizen Maeda down both flanks, Celtic will have an out ball that they could use to help take the pressure off.
Now I know many will say Hyunjun Yang could do that job as well but in the big games, the Korean has failed to deliver. He is playing well at the moment but the experience of Forrest could be crucial to helping Celtic get a result tonight.
If he doesn’t start then Forrest will play some part tonight but I think that the 32-year-old does have a realistic chance of getting the nod tonight.
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