Celtic moved up to second in the Scottish Premiership table on Wednesday night with a hard-fought 2-1 win against Aberdeen at the Pittodrie stadium.
Kieran Tierney scored for the second game running to open the scoring early on for the Hoops, but the hosts soon found the equaliser from the penalty spot.
Liam Scales was judged to have fouled Aberdeen forward Toyosi Olusanya, as he caught the attacker as they both went for the ball, and Kevin Nisbet scored past Viljami Sinisalo from 12 yards.
The Irish defender was unfortunate in that situation because both players went for the ball at almost the exact same time and there was minimal contact, but he was a fraction later to the ball than Olusanya.
Celtic’s left-footed central defender, who partnered Benjamin Arthur at the back for Martin O’Neill‘s side, made up for that moment with the rest of his display.
Analysing Liam Scales’ performance against Aberdeen
The Ireland international earned himself some credit before giving away the penalty for Aberdeen as he assisted the opening goal for Tierney with a flick-on from a corner.
Scales, therefore, assisted a goal for each team with an assist for Celtic’s first goal and the foul for the penalty, which meant that they cancelled each other out.
The rest of the Irishman’s performance, though, was impressive. In the 90 minutes, the left-footed defender won three of his four ground duels and four of his six aerial duels, dominating the opposition forwards for the most part.
He also made five clearances, two interceptions, and one block, without being dribbled past a single time, in what was an excellent defensive display outside of the penalty concession.
Scales should be forgiven for giving away the first-half spot kick because of the rest of his performance, offensively and defensively, but there were other players on the pitch who were not so lucky and should be dropped for the clash with Rangers on Sunday.
The Celtic flop who was worse than Liam Scales
The former Aberdeen loanee was not one of the worst performers on the night for Celtic, despite giving away the penalty, and O’Neill has a few big decisions to make ahead of the weekend.
Tomas Cvancara was given the nod up top by the Northern Irish head coach and failed to make the most of his opportunity to impress in the centre-forward position, after Junior Adamu started the 2-2 draw with Rangers last weekend.
The Czechia international, who was an unused substitute in that draw, is fast becoming the new Oliver Burke at Parkhead, seven years on from when the Scotland international struggled in Glasgow.
Signed on loan from West Brom, Burke only scored four goals in 19 matches, two of which came on his league debut against St Mirren, and he was an unused substitute for four of the last nine games of the Scottish Premiership campaign before going back to England.
Cvancara may well suffer a similar fate with the way his loan from Borussia Monchengladbach. Like Burke, he had a fast start to his loan spell with a goal and an assist in his first two matches against Hearts and Falkirk.
Since his goal against Falkirk, the Hoops loanee has gone seven matches without a goal or an assist in all competitions, and failed to make it off the bench against Rangers.
In the 2-1 win over Aberdeen on Wednesday night, Cvancara was even worse than Scales because he offered so little to the team in possession throughout the match, whilst the Irishman more than made up for his error with an assist and dominant defensive work.
Vs Aberdeen
Cvancara
Minutes
61
Shots on target
0
Key passes
0
Big chances created
0
Dribbles
0
Pass accuracy
56%
Duels won
10/16
The 25-year-old striker won ten of his 16 duels, to his credit, but that was backed up by no shots, no chances created, and no dribbles attempted in just over an hour on the pitch.
In short, Cvancara did not offer any kind of threat to the opposition’s goal before he was replaced as part of a double substitution that saw Daizen Maeda and Benjamin Nygren, who scored the winning goal, come on.
Now, O’Neill should consider dropping the Czechia-born star from the starting line-up for the SFA Cup clash with Rangers on Sunday, because the loanee forward struggled badly against Aberdeen and is looking more and more likely to depart Parkhead at the end of his loan as the new Oliver Burke.
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