Martin O'Neill explains Cameron Carter-Vickers decision as defender has rare off-day
Celtic boss Martin O'Neill has explained his decision to bring in Cameron Carter-Vickers for Sunday's defeat to Falkirk. The Bhoys came up short away from home, losing for only the second time in the league this season.
Carter-Vickers started for the first time since returning from injury, coming in for Dane Murray, and he made a critical error for the opening goal. In fact, he made two errors in the lead up to the goal, first giving away the ball and then taking a touch into the path of the goalscorer.
It can also be argued that he should have blocked the run of Scott Tanser for the second goal, but the Falkirk forward already had momentum on the defender due to Callum McGregor failing to track from midfield.
Carter-Vickers has been very consistent this season, and the Falkirk game was clearly his worst performance of the season, leading to questions about why Murray didn't keep his place, not that the youngster has been immune to a mistake during his decent run at the back.
"Yeah, Dane, who's done wonderfully well for us, the big fella's played a number of games at this minute," explained O'Neill after the game.
"Obviously the reason for us to have a squad is the number of games that we're playing in relatively quick succession. So we've gone weekends, midweeks, weekends, midweeks for some quite considerable time.
"We've had a couple of boys who are away, Auston Trusty is away at this minute. I think with his father dying and Oliver Sorensen had a family bereavement as well too.
"So, yeah, those things are happening. But players need to play at some stage or another. And he has been a big player for Celtic in the past, Carter-Vickers."
These games happen
Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. Carter-Vickers has barely made a mistake all season, so there was no reason not to put him in for this game.
Murray has played a lot of football and has had major injury issues in the past, so it's a standard rotation involving a reliable player.
As it turned out, Carter-Vickers had a nightmare, and you can rarely predict when such an off-day is going to arrive. We haven't seen that often from CCV, and so it's not one worth over analysing. Now it's over to Carter-Vickers to bounce back from the performance and get back to his consistent form.
