Former Celtic defender Mark Wilson admits he was surprised to see Ange Postecoglou bring on Josip Juranovic against Rangers - claiming the full-back was struggling with illness.
The Scottish Premiership leaders were dominating at Ibrox and held a 1-0 advantage thanks to Daizen Maeda's early goal inside the Ibrox cauldron, but Postecoglou was forced into an early change when Greg Taylor limped off after just 20 minutes. That allowed the Croat to make his first appearance since returning from the World Cup, but he endured a tough derby day as he struggled to cope with Fashion Sakala.
The pacy winger caught Juranovic out of position to launch the sweeping counter attack that saw Ryan Kent level the game. The 27-year-old would then lose the Zambia international in the box forcing Carl Starfelt to close the attacker down, leading to a foul which saw referee John Beaton point to the spot.
James Tavernier stepped up to score, before Kyogo Furuhashi levelled late in the game to keep Celtic's nine point advantage at the top of the table intact. However, there was severe criticism of Juranovic and his performance in the left-back role at the full-time whistle.
Responding to a caller on Clyde 1 Superscoreboard who claimed the transfer speculation around Juranovic had impact on his performance, Wilson disagreed before admitting he expected Alexadro Bernabei to come off the bench. He said: "It was surprising that he chose to bring on Juranovic when the reason partly for not playing him at right-back was that he was under the weather.
"So then I can excuse Juranovic for his performance because he obviously was not 100 per cent. I could understand it if there was no other left-back there, but (Postecoglou) brought in another left-back in the summer to challenge Greg Taylor.
"If Greg Taylor gets injured, why would you not pick Bernabei to go in? It’s not as if when Bernabei has pulled on a Celtic shirt he has looked miles off it.”
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