Pundit slams ‘shocking’ Josip Juranovic as Celtic footage emerges – ‘I hope other teams weren’t watching’
Alan Hutton has said it was a “big call” from Celtic to start Alistair Johnston over Josip Juranovic against Rangers on Monday (2 January).
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, the former Gers right-back said he hopes no interested teams were watching Juranovic’s lacklustre cameo at left-back.
The 27-year-old is yet to start a match since his return from Qatar late last month and the game against Rangers was no exception.
But the Croatian was subbed on in the first half in place of the injured left-back Greg Taylor, despite Ange Postecoglou having natural left-back Alexandro Bernabei on the bench.
As shown on Sky Sports (2 January), the makeshift left-back was largely at fault for Ryan Kent’s equaliser at Ibrox as Fashion Sakala was able to exploit Juranovic’s poor positioning to set up his teammate.
Sakala managed to get past Juranovic one again and forced Carl Starfelt into a needless challenge in the penalty area to give away a spot kick.
The Hoops managed to scrape a point from the game thanks to Kyogo Furuhashi’s late equaliser secured a 2-2 draw.
Juranovic has been subject of numerous transfer rumours after impressive performances at the World Cup and could quit Parkhead this month.
Top European teams such as Barcelona, Man United and Chelsea are all believed to be interested.
Hutton couldn’t believed Juranovic’s poor performance on Monday (2 January).
“I was surprised that he did not start, unless the injury was worse than what we thought,” he told Football Insider.
“I thought it was a big call to fling in a player who has never played before.
“When he came on I was really shocked. He was so good at the World Cup to then put in that sort of performance. I was just hoping there were not many teams watching him who were going to take an opportunity on him.“
In other news, a Celtic expert has been impressed by what he’s seen from Aaron Mooy as footage re-analysed.