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ATTACKING QUALITY BUT DEFENSIVE STRUGGLES AS CELTIC SEE OFF LIVINGSTON


Celtic secured their inaugural visit to Hampden Park this season, propelled by Daizen Maeda's hat-trick heroics against Livingston in the Scottish Cup quarter-final.


The Hoops grabbed an early lead courtesy of Maeda, only to see Livingston equalise shortly after through Dan McKay. Maeda capitalised on defensive lapses from the visitors to notch a second goal, sending Celtic into halftime with a 2-1 advantage.


Despite Teden Yengi exploiting a rare Matt O'Riley mistake to draw Livingston level once more, late strikes from Maeda and substitute Kyogo Furuhashi ensured Celtic's berth in the Scottish Cup semi-final.


Brendan Rodgers will be delighted with the first visit the the national stadium, but the performance on the afternoon had the fans agitated, Defensive lapses were a consistent feature on the day, and it has been a consistent feature all season, and the team will have to rectify those mistakes


After an action-packed afternoon with plenty of talking points to take from the game, here are A Celtic State of Mind's three takeaways from Celtic's Scottish Cup quarter-final victory over Livingston.


Clinical Daizen

Daizen Maeda is a player who often frustrates Celtic supporters. His energy and pressing are so important to this Celtic team, but for all of his physical prowess, his technical aspect of his game has been severely lacking in his time at the club.


However, today we saw a completely new Daizen Maeda, and that's not just referring to the hair that he has grown. The Japanese international was extremely clinical in front of goal, taking the chances that came his way, with his first goal in particular being a very well taken strike.


A hat-trick for the club on his 100th appearance in green and white, it will be interesting to see if Maeda can remain clinical in front of goal as we continue into the cliche 'business end of the season'.


Kuhn stars

The aforementioned Daizen Maeda has been a polarising player amongst Celtic supporters, but the verdict on the quality of Nicolas Kuhn since his arrival from Rapid Vienna in January has been fairly unanimous.


He hasn't really impressed the Celtic support, but Kuhn showed some of the qualities of a £3.5million player against Livingston today.


The German was constantly beating his man and whilst on some occasions his final ball may have been lacking, he did provide a brilliant assist for Maeda's opener.


Whilst his early stages have seen him struggle, hopefully today's performance can see Nicolas Kuhn's Celtic career really kick on.


Centre-back Struggles

For all of the attacking quality that Celtic showed in the quarter-final clash, the defensive capabilities of the team were severely lacking, especially with the centre-back pairing of Liam Scales and Stephen Welsh.


Cameron Carter-Vickers missed today's game through injury and his absence was felt at the back, with Welsh struggling to really get to grips with the game and being caught out for Dan McKay's equaliser and Liam Scales' passing being all over the place as well as being caused problem after problem by Teden Yengi.

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