Adam Idah

Nineteen goals. Goals to minutes ratio is fantastic for this season.
Big game player, a lot of his work goes unnoticed and unappreciated by the Celtic fans.
Takes other defenders out of the play and position, creating goalscoring chances for his team mates.
Has the height, physicality and deceptive bursts of speed to rattle opposing CB's.
He is a major reason for our success this year.

 

Thought he was a real handful today, wish his finishing was better and not just because i had him to score 2+ on my bet builder.

 

To be fair the 2 crosses Maeda flashed across were just a bawhair too much, can’t really put them on him. On another day it would of been a hat-trick.

Though his 2 chances 1 on 1 were very poor, narrowed his angle and rushed the strike. Then he puts his goal away like that from a tighter angle.

He has a lot of good attributes but also lacking in a lot key ones for a striker.

 

Adam Idah has hit back at his critics and insisted his goal record for the season has almost slipped under the radar.


The Celtic striker made it 19 for the term with his strike in the 3-1 victory against Hibs



Nicolas Kuhn and Reo Hatate were also on target as the Hoops roared back from going behind to Martin Boyle’s opener

Idah has notched five goals in his last four games but there were some groans from the stands at Parkhead after a couple of missed chances.

The 24-year-old is determined to ignore the doubters and said: “There’s going to be pressure. But I can deal with that. No matter where you’re at there’s always going to be pressure


Being at such a big club there’s such a big expectation. It can be tough at times. But I think this is my fifth or sixth season and I’ve been through a lot.


“For me, it’s just about staying consistent and scoring goals. 19 goals this season has gone a bit unnoticed.

“But for me it’s just about keep going and trying to finish the season on a high.

“I’m on 19 goals now, which is really good. I’ve said it before, for the minutes I’ve played to get 19 goals is unbelievable



“A lot of people forget that I’m confident in myself.

“There’s a lot of things I feel that I do for the team that helps a lot.

“So I’m really pleased with how my season’s going.”


Idah insisted some of his hard graft goes unseen by supporters and he said: “Yes, 100-percent. I work with the analyst and a lot of the staff, and there’s a lot of things I feel I can bring to the game.

“Some unselfish runs that I make that will create space for other players.

“A lot of that does go unnoticed, and I get it. Fans aren’t going to be looking at that, they want to see goals



“But I’m here to help the team and at the end of the day it’s a big bonus when I do score.

“I’m confident in myself, I know that I will score if I get the opportunities.

“Like I touched on before, I will get chances and I’m going to miss chances. But it’s that one you get



“It’s obviously a good thing to be known as a big game player. But it’s about me staying focused and just doing the best I can.”

Idah is determined to maintain the end of season form and he’s got his sights set on being a Hampden hero again this term after grabbing the winner in last season’s Old Firm Final.



And he insisted he has the full backing of boss Brendan Rodgers as he gears up for Aberdeen in the big showpiece


He said: “He’s been unbelievable. I’ve had it before when it’s been the opposite way and it can affect you.

“But training every week and having the backing of not just the manager, everyone else and the players have been fantastic for me.

“It’s so good for me


“I’m not really focused on what anyone on the outside is saying. But I know I can go into the games and be myself.”

 

Be good if he didn't have to hit back at critics.

Dunno what some folk are expecting form folk sometimes.

On yerself Adam

 

People talking about him becoming this and that are dreaming. He was starting behind Kyogo and then Maeda when there was still something to play for. He doesn't have the attributes required to be on a par with the average quality of our starting strikers over the years.

The best you can hope for is to play him in low-stakes games like today, boost up his numbers, and minimise the loss when it comes to moving him on. That needs to be sooner rather than later. At 24 you can just about call him a prospect. Get the money back, invest it in a player that has been properly scouted rather than buying a player simply because he's the #9 in the Irish national team.

 

Don't mind him backing himself but he needs to realise that him scoring goals isn't a "bonus". It's what he's been signed to do.

 

I'd be happy if he would sqaure the ball a bit more instead of trying to force a shot.

 

I thought he played well yesterday from what i seen. Struggled at times timing his runs but they were very tight offside calls and his movement was better.
Just consistency is needed

 

He wasted very decent chances yesterday. The one he actually took seeing it back was by far hardest.

Sometimes strikers are like that.

 

People say that but he's scored plenty of big goals, last season the doubles against Hibs and Motherwell in vital games we had to win. The goal at Ibrox that could have won us the game and secured the draw which meant the League was in our own hands, coming off the bench to score the winner in the Cup final. This season scored the goals that tuned the Cup game against Falkirk, vital goals away to Hearts, was deflected and an OG but massive goal against Young Boys to get us through in the CL, scored his penalty in the shootout in the Cup final again.

All those goals above also in his first year at the club despite him only starting about 15 games in that time.

Recently when starting more scoring regularly although the season has been done. But we wouldn't say the same of Maeda and Hatate who have also been scoring more recently that they never scored like that 6+ months ago.

You have to take into account also that he's under extreme pressure with his lack of game time. Like people would be surprised but he has never started for us against Aberdeen and has only started 1 game against the huns even though he's score 3 goals against them. He has had very limited game time.

12 goals in 8 starts against the Huns, Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen and Dundee Utd. Some record and shows how little he plays also given we'll play those teams 25 times alone this season if you add last season we've probably played these teams about 30+ times since he joined and he only started 8 of them.

I'd also say he's never let us down, we've won every trophy since he signed and he played a huge part in 3 of them and we done well in the CL again a big part him. Theres not really a game we could look back and think "if he took that chance we'd have won that game and wouldnt have lost the Cup/final/lost the League/got knocked out the CL" etc if anything it's the opposite, if he had missed in the final, missed his penalty in the other final, not got the goal against Young Boys, not scored the goals last season against Hibs and Motherwell etc

 

Think some of our fans are a bit too quick to moan about him. Yes, the two chances first half against hibs were ones he should be snapping up but Kyogo also missed sitters in the league and Europe. Idah for me has a good instinctive finish in him and has chipped in goals in big games as ILTC has highlighted above.

Similar to Engles I think his fee will be used as a stick to beat him with due to unrealistic expectations like he should automatically be better than X Y Z players as he cost more. Let these lads get a full pre-season under their belts and see what they can do next season as they're both early-mid twenties and have plenty of room for improvement given they're always gaining experience of the standards here.

 

Well, yes and no... Just like keepers no longer just make saves, defenders no longer just clear the ball out... Strikers no longer just score goals, but I agree with you that it is/should be the core of the job, and their primary concern... Thinks it's a mentality of the modern players to look towards multitasking everything together as your role.

 

I think the argument about the fee is a fair point.

If Idah came in for anything less than £3mill we'd be screaming it's a bargain after the season hes had in a supporting role but anything over that I feel there is a dormant subconscious expectation we set on a player that they must come in and immediately reach 30+ goal involvements

 

Think hes shown enough during his time here that he can contribute as a squad player. Dont think he showed enough that he can be that top starting striker to lead the line for us though. For 9m expenditure we probably were striving for the latter.

Dont see a reason to look to move him on yet and would still aim to develop him further and play a squad role. But I think we still need to go out and buy a striker that is more of the finished article and an extra level of quality.

 

The thing about stats is that playing up front for Celtic will flatter any striker in that regard. There were similar discussions about Oh if you remember, and people would trot out his goals per 90 minutes played as evidence that he was actually a quality striker in the making. And you know, he wasn't, you could watch him for 10 minutes and see that.

I think the argument that we've won every competition he's been present for is not a good one. We win everything anyway and arguably could have performed better in a few European games. I'm not pinning that on him, I'm just saying, it's not a good argument, especially when he was kind of a bit-part player behind Kyogo and Maeda for most of the season when there was still something to play for. Don't want to minimise his contributions - he's had a couple goals that have swung important games - but he's far from an irreplaceable member of the squad.

I think people do judge him more harshly because of the fee paid but that's the reality of being at a club where we buy to sell. He is effectively £9m in human form, which means he has to at some point be sold for £9m+. Objectively speaking, he looks like money thrown away and obviously that concerns people.

But as a player irrespective of price tag, I think he is also a level below what we'd hoped for. People are going to look at players holistically and judge them based on their performance in key areas. When you look at his attributes as a whole, or even in part, I don't think he looks to be of a quality where we'd be happy with him as a starting striker. You could pick three past strikers and say, x, y and z were faster, more agile, stronger, better passers, better headers, better finishers, etc. You could play the same game with current strikers at other clubs with a similar stature.

You can't ask people to disbelieve their lying eyes and just look at this spreadsheet of stats. They know there's better out there we can realistically bring in ahead of him.

The caveat to that is that he cost £9m. Can you bring in another striker and play him ahead of your £9m signing? That'll only degrade the market value of the player even further. So realistically you play him til he hits a run of form and sell on that high. I would be shocked if that is not already the plan behind the scenes at Celtic Park.

 

I don’t actually think he’s that confident a guy.