“Picking the best out of a bad lot.”
Chris Sutton is not the kind of football pundit that’s ever had a problem with speaking his mind. Over the last year or so, we’ve seen numerous examples of this.
As a former Celtic player, it wasn’t too much of a surprise to hear his blunt assessment of Rangers’ embarrassing defeat to Luxembourg’s Progrès Niederkorn in their Europa League qualifier a couple of months ago.
In the time since, Sutton has witnessed his old club progress through the Champions League qualifying rounds and into its group stage. On Tuesday, they played their first match, welcoming Paris Saint-Germain to Parkhead.
Although not quite as humiliating as the European defeat suffered by their Old Firm rivals over summer, being rolled over 5-0 on their own patch was difficult to stomach for many a Celtic supporter – even if they were up against the likes of Neymar, Kylian Mbappé and Edinson Cavani.
Speaking ahead of the game between Partick Thistle and Rangers on BT Sport on Friday night, Sutton made clear that a lack of options in defence contributed to PSG’s victory.
Describing Celtic’s defenders as a “bad lot”, Sutton appeared to question Celtic’s head of recruitment, Lee Congerton, for not bringing in more reinforcements over the summer.
😒 Jørgensen?
😖 Tomori?@chris_sutton73 can't believe the lack of options at centre-back for Celtic and their recruitment. pic.twitter.com/U9xyqyVMfQ— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) September 15, 2017