Celtic midfielder Reo Hatate has been criticised after an under-par display in the side’s Champions League defeat at the hands of RB Leipzig.
Journalist Aidan Macdonald gave the one-time Japan international a 6/10 rating for his performance on Wednesday evening.
Celtic were desperate to gain all three points in the fixture, having only picked up one point so far in their Champions League group, but they were left to rue missed chances after suffering a 2-0 defeat to the Bundesliga side.
Hatate was substituted in the 66th minute after providing an ineffective display in the middle of the park against Leipzig.
And MacDonald felt that the 24-year-old’s poor passing quality put his teammates under unnecessary pressure at times throughout the fixture.
He wrote: “Had some slack passes at times, which almost put his teammates under severe pressure.”
TIF Thoughts on Macdonald’s comments…
We agree with Macdonald and believe that throughout the fixture, Hatate was often wasteful in possession and didn’t keep the ball well enough, meaning that it was a struggle to breakthrough Leipzig’s midfield at times.
Indeed, the midfielder lost possession 14 times, lost eight duels, had a 74% passing accuracy and just 43 touches (SofaScore).
Hatate will be hoping that he can improve on this performance when Celtic welcome Hibernian to Parkhead on Saturday afternoon in a Scottish Premiership clash.
And after having earned an average SofaScore match rating of 7.27 for his performances in the league this season, we believe that the midfielder will no doubt regain his form and maintain his high standards across the next few weeks.