Celtic and Israel wide man Liel Abada has been criticised for his performance in the club’s 1-1 Champions League group stage draw with Shakhtar Donetsk.
That comes from journalist Aidan Macdonald, who gave the player a 6/10 mark in his player ratings piece following the game.
Celtic needed to beat the Ukrainian side to stand a chance of finishing third in their Champions League group, which would mean dropping into the Europa League knockout stages in the new year.
However, a draw meant that it was mathematically impossible for the Scottish champions to be competing in European competition after Christmas, with the side’s trip to Real Madrid proving to be a dead rubber next week.
And Macdonald was critical of the performance of Abada following the conclusion of the game, with the 21-year-old being rated as the worst-performing starter in the game.
“The Israeli struggled to make an impact during his time on the pitch,” Macdonald wrote in his piece for The Herald.
“His passing was erratic at times, and a few times, his touch let him down.”
TIF Thoughts on Macdonald’s comments…
We believe that Macdonald is being harsh in rating Abada as the lowest starter on the night, with the wide man playing an important, albeit unusual part in setting up Giorgos Giakoumakis to score Celtic’s only goal of the game.
However, a SofaScore rating of 6.1 for the fixture speaks for itself, with the Israeli being unable to attempt any crosses or dribbles during the fixture before being substituted in the 66th minute, suggesting that the eight-time Israel U21 international was particularly poor.
Therefore, despite playing a part in the goal, we would suggest that Macdonald was fair in his criticisms of Abada’s performance.