Some light will be shed on Auston Trusty’s status at Celtic when the team to face St Mirren is announced at 1.45pm on Sunday.
It is fair to say that the American has had a roller-coaster start to his Celtic career since a £6m move from Sheffield United on the final day of the summer transfer window.
Liam Scales retained his place in central defence, picked up a Man of the Match Award against Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League then found himself playing away to Borussia Dortmund and Atalanta when Cameron Carter-Vickers was out injured.
Then CCV recovered from injury Scales was the player that dropped out, Rodgers explaining that he went for the pacier option as the Irish defender was relegated to the bench.
Explaining that decision for the League Cup semi-final against Aberdeen, The National reported Rodgers saying:
It was very tough because Liam’s been absolutely brilliant for me since he came into the team.
But we try to look at each game, and I felt that with the striker that we thought Aberdeen were going to play who likes to run in behind, so we [wanted to] add that extra bit of pace into the backline. Auston’s physicality is very good, and that was the reason for that.
That seemed a fairly brutal assessment but that is what managers are paid for, at Hampden in December Rodgers made another big decision when he replaced Trusty at half-time in the League Cup Final.
Again there was no couching of words, he could have mentioned that the American had picked up a knock but it was a tactical switch with the Glasgow Times reporting Rodgers saying:
We looked so clunky and couldn’t get through the pitch. We looked a wee bit edgy. So I didn’t like that, how we cleaned the game up. Scales has been brilliant, to be fair.
He’s clean and Auston Trusty did really, really well. I just felt that he’s had the experience of playing in finals for us now, Liam. I just made that change and he came in and he was able to clean the game up.
Trusty hasn’t played a minute since.
He had a virus for the 0-0 draw away to Dundee United and remained on the bench through the home wins over Motherwell and St Johnstone as the Scales/Carter-Vickers partnership played through every minute.
He was far from alone but at Ibrox Scales had a complete nightmare, probably his worst ever performance for Celtic.
At Hampden the former Shamrock Rovers defender was brought on to ‘clean the game up’. From his misplaced sixth minute pass that led to the opening goal for Ianis Hagi at Ibrox nothing went right for Scales.
There was a case for substituting him after 15 minutes, he stayed on until half-time with no improvement in his play, in possession he was pressurised and panicked. He made his name at Ibrox in September 2023, yesterday his performance was the polar opposite.
Other factors came into play yesterday. The midfielders rarely looked for the ball, Alistair Johnston and Greg Taylor rarely pushed forward in their usual manner but that doesn’t excuse the performance of Scales at Ibrox. His previous assurance on the ball was gone, his passing became a liability.
The could easily have been three changes made to the Celtic team at half-time, very few fans expected to see Scales and Reo Hatate come out for the second half but amazingly Rodgers made no changes.
Hatate stayed on the park until the 75th minute, 11 minutes longer than Paulo Bernardo. Scales played the full match. Trusty remained on the bench.
When the summer transfer business was completed it was clear that Rodgers was in control of recruitment, the arrivals were his choice rather than the wishful punts of Mark Lawwell, the former Information and Content Manager at Manchester City.
Spending £6m is a serious amount at Celtic, clearly Rodgers wanted an upgrade on Scales on the left side of his defence.
Without question there is an important role for Scales to play but at Ibrox it was clear from early on that he was badly out of touch. Again there were others badly off form but in defence there is no hiding place.
Rodgers has shown a lethal touch with selections already this season, if Scales remains his choice in central defence against St Mirren on Sunday it is hard to see any circumstances in which Trusty returns to the side other than Scales being injured.
| Season 23/24 Celtic defender appearances | ||
| PLAYER | SPFL | CHAMPIONS LEAGUE |
| Cameron Carter-Vickers | 12 | 4 |
| Liam Scales | 16 | 3 |
| Auston Trusty | 9 | 5 |
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2 Comments
by TicToc
Great article! I was astounded when Liam Scales came back out after half time. He was shocking. He’s always prone to errors but often balances that with other aspects of his game. He badly mis-timed a header that should have been a goal, he made mistakes for 2 of ‘their’ 3 goals. I don’t think Liam is the answer and so feel Auston Trusty should be given a run. If he doesn’t take the chance if he’s given one then we need to go back into the transfer market. On the other hand CCV is the real deal and is just about irreplaceable in our defence. Reo has been so hit and miss it’s hard to make a case for him even though he’s a special talent.
Arne Engels will get better and better. Aye, the new huns game was a hard watch and our Board, once again, needs to call out Robertson. He knew what he was doing with the booking of Jefte, another hun who’s a sneaky, dirty bastard. Aye, BOTH of them!
by Tony aka...unrepentant fenian bastard
First of all,im from Dublin from a Celtic mad family and myself,2 of me brothers and me dad are season ticket holders since I was a child.Im a 44 year old tim and Celtic is in my D.N.A.
Im a Tim like all of you bhoys and ghirls and yes I was pissed right off by not just loseing to them but old see after 10 minutes we were never gonna get a result.
My point im just trying to get across to the younger fans who only know success and didn’t go over again and again throughout the 90’s is…we are human and played terrible…full stop.
We have proven over and over how good we are and how far we are ahead of the huns in every aspect of football financially and skillfully.We can’t win them all.It wouldn’t surprise one bit if at this time tomorrow we are all watching sportscene 14 points ahead again as these gobshites tend to do this…win…brag…Big phil is the awnser…and then afew days later,bang…they fook up and hand us another 3 points making their win against us meaningless…as they’ve proved over the last 12 years or so…they only beat us when it doesn’t matter.
So ill say HAIL HAIL & Tiocfàidh àr là 32 🍀🇮🇪🍀