Celtic Needs To Score Goals To Ease Pressure

They may be sitting on top of the SPL, but Celtic are by no means reaching their potential.

The Bhoys have only found themselves leading the league because Rangers are having just as bad a start to the season.  After nine games, Celtic have gained 20 points, only dropping seven points so far.  This sounds like a good start to the season, but by this time in the last two seasons, they had gained 25 points.  Three seasons ago, they had 31 points by this time.

Celtic can manage with their current league form, especially if Rangers cannot capitalize.  But it is their cup form which has drawn most of the criticism.  Last night, they were dumped out of the League Cup by Hearts in a 1-0 win at Celtic Park.

Hearts weren't necessarily the better team but grabbed the only goal from the penalty spot.  Celtic wasted a whole host of second half chances.  Georgios Samaras should have scored a hat-trick including a free header he put wide, and when through on goal he tried chipping the helpless Hearts goalkeeper, only for the ball to come back off the post.

Celtic's problems are quite obvious.  They cannot score.  Last week, they dominated large parts of their Europa League match against Hamburg, but found themselves losing 1-0 after they failed to take several good chances.

Hamburg are a good side by anyone's standards, but Celtic should have won the game.  Since Henrik Larsson (who played his last ever game this week) left the club in 2007, the scoring responsibility has fallen on Australian striker Scott McDonald.  The Aussie has done well and consistently scores goals, but he is no Larsson.

As well as scoring a flurry of goals, Larsson created many.  The Celtic midfield is, on paper, much better than Rangers and several top European teams.  Aiden McGeady was a one-time target of Tottenham, and others such as Scott Brown and Shaun Maloney have been linked with moves south of the border.

McDonald has usually relied on good service from Celtic's quality midfield for him to get good scoring chances.  However, this season the Celtic midfield has struggled.  This could simply be the lack of Shunsuke Nakamura or Gordon Strachan.  But the players are good enough to adapt to their new situation and need to overcome their problems sooner rather than later.

Up front, McDonald needs someone to feed off.  Samaras seems the ideal candidate.  He is stronger in the air than most players in the SPL and can be very skillful on the ball.  However, he does not score enough goals to merit a consistent start for the Boys.

Tony Mowbray signed John-Antione Fortune during the summer, but he has not been good enough.  He cost the club £3.8 million but has not re-payed this so far, only starting two games.

Mowbray has said that every Celtic player must prove they are good enough to play. This is what needs to be done, but he runs the risk of lowering morale, with the big players possibly wanting out of Celtic Park.

The silver lining for Celtic is that they have a brilliant youth system.  However, this season twenty-five-year-old Paddy McCourt has been the star and is someone they will want to keep hold of for a long time.

Celtic need to be competing in the Europa League.  Without European football, they cannot attract good players.  They need to buy a goal-scorer, but with little money available and no European football, it looks like it will be a long wait.