4/10 Celtic man should fear for his future after pre-season howler

Celtic continued their impressive pre-season preparations for the new campaign with an excellent 4-3 win over Premier League giants Manchester City in the USA.

The Hoops have now scored 15 goals in their four pre-season matches, winning three and drawing one, ahead of their opening day clash with Kilmarnock at Parkhead next month.

Brendan Rodgers will be delighted with the result against Pep Guardiola’s side and take plenty of positives from it, including two goals from Nicolas Kuhn and strikes from Kyogo Furuhashi and Luis Palma.

However, one player who let himself down in America and should now fear about his future as a starter for the Bhoys is central defender Liam Scales.

The Irish dud was caught out for City’s first goal as he found himself too far away from Nico O’Reilly in the box and then failed to sort his feet out to clear Oscar Bobb’s deflected effort, from O’Reilly’s pass, off the line.

Maximo Perrone’s goal for the Cityzens, their second of the night, also came from Scales failing to be close enough to his man as the defender gave the Argentine ace far too much time inside the box to pick out the bottom corner.

The former Aberdeen loanee was yet again at fault for the Premier League champions’ third and final goal of the night as he allowed Erling Haaland to get the run on him for a header at the back post.

Scales, who was handed a match rating of 4/10 by CelticWay writer Ryan McGinlay, lost 100% (4/4) of his duels as he found the physicality of the game too much to handle.

The Ireland international should now fear for the future of his position in the starting XI as Celtic have been linked with multiple centre-backs this summer.

Bournemouth’s Chris Mepham and Burnley’s Dara O’Shea are both reported to be transfer targets for the Scottish giants, with former.