With the greatest of respect, it perhaps sums up where Young Boys are right now when you learn their top scorer is Cedric Itten, whose Rangers career never really took off, with just eight goals in his 48 appearances, though he can point to two victories over Celtic in the pair of brief appearances he made against them in Rangers’ title-winning campaign of 2020-21.
One of the issues for Itten and his team-mates looks to be the lack of a settled team as each manager has searched for a winning formula. Injuries have also not helped their cause.
So for Saturday’s game, Contini opted to play 22-year-old Marvin Keller in goal instead of stalwart David von Ballmoos, young French defender Tanguy Zoukrou returned from three months out injured to partner captain Loris Benito, who himself is not long back from a lengthy spell out while neither fullback – Jaouen Hadjam or Lewin Blum – has been a mainstay in the team.
To be fair, Filip Ugrinic in central midfield has started all but one this season and Lukasz Lakomy alongside him has been a regular since recovering from injury at the end of October.
Behind Itten, Darian Males and Joel Monteiro do offer a scoring threat as well as creativity while Ebrima Colley, who also got the nod at the weekend, is still to find a first goal since making last season’s loan move from Atalanta permanent.
As Contini tries to mould a team to stop the rot, a trip to Celtic Park where the hosts are unbeaten in five in the Champions League and 29 in all competitions is probably not top of his wish list.
