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WHERE DID THINGS GO WRONG FOR ALEXANDRO BERNABEI AT CELTIC?


There has been very few moments since the departure of Kieran Tierney where Celtic supporters have really been comfortable with the left-back situation at the club.


The strongest the club had been in that position was with Greg Taylor playing under Ange Postecoglou, with the former Killie man even being touted with shouts for the club's player of the season last year.


This was all due to the fire lit under Taylor by the signing of Alexandro Bernabei, who was signed with the intent of providing competition for Taylor, and eventually taking his place as the starting left-back for the club.


However, less than two years after signing for the club, the Argentine now finds himself back in South America on loan at Internacional in Brazil.


Given the fee the club signed him for as well as the expectations the club had for him, how did things get to this point for Alexandro Bernabei?


Struggled to crack the first-team under Ange Postecoglou

Bernabei came into the club with a two-match ban to serve after head-butting an opponent in his final game for Lanus. Shortly after signing, he was arrested for driving under the influence in the city centre, and these issues already had the alarm bells ringing.


He grabbed his first assist for the club in the dying embers of the game at McDiarmid Park, where Giorgios Giakoumakis slotted home a last-gasp winner over St Johnstone.


His progress and development was taking far longer than supporters were willing to wait, although a cracking goal against Ross County greeted by loud chants of "ARGENTINA, ARGENTINA" from the away end had many eager to see more.


Despite some of those bright moments, he never really hit the ground running under Ange Postecoglou and the manager never seemed to trust him, with the most damning evidence of this being the fact that when Greg Taylor suffered an injury at Ibrox in January 2023, Postecoglou opted to bring on an unfit Josip Juranovic out of position rather than Bernabei.


Off-field issues cost him chance to impress under Rodgers

The appointment of Brendan Rodgers brought with it a chance to start anew, but sleeping in and missing the team meeting ahead of the first game of the season got him off to the worst possible start under his new boss.


Following this, he was left out of the squad for the Champions League Group Stage campaign, another damning indictment of how he was viewed by those in charge at the club.


He had a chance to impress when the team returned from the winter break due to an injury to Greg Taylor, and to his credit, he turned in a few decent performances, but once Taylor returned from that injury, there was no place back into the team for Bernabei.


In conclusion, off-field issues and a failure to capitalise on the chances he was given when they were presented to him is the reason that Alexandro Bernabei didn't work at Celtic, and a return back to South America could see him return to form.

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