It does not take a fortune teller to realise that Rangers manager Derek McInnes is facing a season-defining week.
But in the relentless Glasgow spotlight, Celtic’s record signing Kasper Hogh could also be approaching an important crossroads.
McInnes knows exactly what is at stake. Rangers need at least one major result from the upcoming Old Firm double-header to ease the pressure on their manager. Two victories could allow him to finally move beyond the setbacks against Jablonec and Jagiellonia Bialystok and begin shaping a future at Ibrox that is not defined by constant crisis management.
However, if Rangers are eliminated from the Premier Sports Cup and finish the week eight points behind Celtic in the league, McInnes could quickly find himself facing the same scrutiny that engulfed Russell Martin.
Hogh’s position on the other side of Glasgow is not quite so dramatic or straightforward. Even so, with Celtic boss Martin O’Neill seemingly capable of creating a fresh talking point every time he addresses the media, questions are beginning to surface about the striker’s overall impact and whether he should start at Ibrox tomorrow lunchtime, against Rangers at Parkhead next weekend or in the Europa League opener against Ferencvaros between those fixtures.
Hogh has hardly been a failure since joining Celtic in the summer. Behind the scenes, teammates already regard him as a strong personality, a popular figure and someone who brings an excellent attitude to the squad.
Kasper Hogh has faced frustration at Celtic recently after making a spectacular start
In attack, he offers Celtic a different dimension. His strength in holding up the ball gives the team a valuable outlet and allows him to bring supporting players into the game.
The main concern is his lack of consistent goals. O’Neill’s comments after Celtic’s 1-0 midweek victory at St Johnstone were also difficult to hear without wondering whether they were aimed directly at the Danish forward.
“It looked as if there was nobody in the penalty box for us,” O’Neill said while discussing a spell in which Celtic had begun creating a series of promising chances.
If that was not a pointed criticism of the team’s No 9, it is hard to know what would be. O’Neill then added that leaving Camilo Duran on the bench had shown Celtic could not operate properly without him, making Hogh’s situation appear even more uncertain.
O’Neill is clearly a huge admirer of Duran. Given the Colombian’s impressive start to life in Scottish football, that affection is entirely understandable.
At times, O’Neill speaks as though he might keep Duran’s picture beside those of his wife and children. For Hogh, the more important question is whether the Celtic manager also wants the Colombian operating regularly through the centre of the attack.
O’Neill used Duran in that position while Hogh was sidelined by an adductor injury suffered late in Celtic’s Champions League qualifying collapse against LASK in Austria. Duran scored once and supplied an assist in the 3-0 victory over Aberdeen, then saw another effort ruled out before producing an excellent piece of play to set up Yang Hyun-jun for the winner against St Mirren.
Camilo Duran has become a favourite of Martin O’Neill, who has suggested the forward is almost impossible to leave out
The thing with Duran is that he doesn’t just score goals at centre-forward, he sets them up too. And his stats show he did the same with previous club Qarabag in Azerbaijan.
In eight starts so far, he has delivered six goals and three assists. Most of that has come from playing on the right flank, but his preferred position is through the middle and, with the manager still appearing not to know his strongest XI, it feels like there’s a growing sense O’Neill might just go with him there at Ibrox tomorrow.
Haissem Hassan will almost certainly start on the right. Going through his figures, he has no real history of playing on the other flank and is growing nicely into things where he is.
Of course, Hogh could start in the centre with Duran on the left in place of the absent Yang, away at the Asian Games with South Korea. Duran has played there occasionally in the past and looks like he could perform anywhere along the frontline.
Does it make sense, though, to shunt your most effective, confident player at the moment into an unfamiliar position in an Old Firm cup tie? Does it give *him* the right kind of messaging?
Of course, O’Neill may also opt, somewhere down the line, to try Duran and Hogh as a front two. He used a 3-5-2 as his go-to set-up back in the day, although it’s doubtful whether Hassan is a natural wing-back. A 4-4-2 would also make you wonder where Benjamin Nygren fits in.
What’s more, dropping Hogh for Sunday’s cup quarter-final in Govan is made easier by the fact he has been carrying that groin problem. Keeping him on the bench could be explained away as part of managing his condition.
Hogh huffed and puffed in Perth against St Johnstone but failed to blow their house down
The difficulty here, though, is that these are the weeks, the games, Hogh was bought for. You don’t spend £11million plus add-ons on a guy – a small fortune for a Scottish club – and expect to be chewing over whether he should be included in the team at all.
Old Firm derbies speak for themselves, but Celtic should be aiming to go deep into the knockouts in the Europa League and getting off to a winning start against Ferencvaros is hugely important.
This is when big players need to step up to the plate and, in Hogh’s case, he could really do with laying down a serious marker.
Yes, he did score a hat-trick against bottom-of-the-table Kilmarnock, but he has drawn a blank in the five other games he’s been involved in.
He missed big chances against Dundee and Dundee United. In the first leg against LASK, he became drawn into a war of attrition, but did deliver an important lay-off in the lead-up to Duran’s second that night.
Like everyone else, he disappeared into a black hole away to the Austrians and, even against St Johnstone on Wednesday, delivered a really mixed performance.
Yes, he played a part in Mika Baur’s winner with some delicate play in the box. He also looked like he’d set up a goal for Hassan with a downward header before it was somehow decided the ball had gone out of play.
By the same token, he missed two great chances and saw goalkeeper Sam Johnstone get him out of jail in the first-half when he was caught sleeping as Joel Cotterill breezed past him into a fantastic close-range position.
Hogh proved himself in the Champions League with Bodo/Glimt but must do so again at Celtic
O’Neill’s comments in the aftermath simply highlighted the fact Hogh finds himself living very much in Duran’s shadow right now.
He needs to start scoring goals – and not just any old goals against the Killies and Falkirks of this world. That won’t get you very far when you’ve got a whopping price tag round your neck, as a certain Tore Andre Flo can testify.
The 25-year-old was signed on the back of scoring five goals in the Champions League for Bodo/Glimt last term against Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan and Sporting Lisbon.
He became a hot property when the Norwegians made it to the last four of the Europa League the season before, netting seven times in the tournament against the likes of Porto, Olympiakos, Maccabi Tel-Aviv and FC Twente.
He has clear pedigree. He’s a good player. He should also be built for these three approaching fixtures, but reputation only takes you so far. And like it or lump it, that £11million fee just makes it all the more important you make it clear you’re a main character rather than a useful support act.
Like McInnes, the events of the next eight days will either offer Hogh a real platform from which to confirm his credentials or kick off serious debate over whether he’s landed in the wrong movie.
It’s brutal, of course. But it’s Glasgow. And a handful of games into your new life here or not, that’s what you have to live with.
