Above and beyond – Kuhn’s unreported mitigating factor for ’25 drop-off

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The Celtic Star

·8 June 2025

Above and beyond – Kuhn’s unreported mitigating factor for ’25 drop-off

If you asked Celtic fans their opinion on Nicolas Kühn, right after his goal in Munich, it’s likely there would have been the width a cigarette paper between the German winger and Daizen Maeda for Celtic’s player of the year…

Nicolas Kuhn, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Paulo Bernardo of Celtic celebrate their teams first goal, an own goal scored by Alfie Dorrington of Aberdeen (not pictured) during the Scottish Cup Final match between Aberdeen and Celtic at Hampden Park on May 24, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Since then, it’s very unlikely many would plump for Celtic’s number 10 over Daizen, particularly after Maeda’s performances as a striker replacement for Kyogo proved so successful. Kühn, however, may be getting a bit of undeserved stick.

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In a previous article on The Celtic Star, I mentioned there could be a multitude of reasons for the drop off in form for Kühn. He may be a streaky player, as we saw in his first season at Celtic compared to how he started the second.

He could have been hankering after a January transfer window move and been told to hang on until the summer, or it could simply be he was confused at Celtic selling their top striker in the January window and not replacing him. After all, if you think that sort of thing annoys fans imagine the message it sends out to the dressing room and players with ambition.

Nicolas Kuhn. Aberdeen 1-5 Celtic. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

I also mentioned recently that Kühn may have played himself out of a move this summer given his huge drop-off in form, but yesterday a Celtic fan reached out and offered an alternative opinion, which amounted to the belief he had not downed tools. Instead by January this season, the Celtic winger had reached the number of minutes played at any of his previous clubs in any season.

So, is it possible instead of Kühn downing tools, the winger has just hit a brick wall physically?

Well, I’m not one to stick to my guns when an alternative viewpoint is offered, just for the sake of it, so let’s have a look at Kühn’s gametime prior to joining Celtic and this season.

Nicolas Kuhn of Celtic celebrates with Adam Idah of Celtic after scoring to tie the game 1-1. Celtic v Hibernian, Scottish Premiership, 10 May 2025 Photo Stuart Wallace/Shutterstock

In the 2021/22 season across all competitions Kühn played 1752 minutes across all competitions. In the 22/23 season this figure was 1816 minutes, and for 23/24 season this was 2578.

Indeed, by the time he joined Celtic in January 2024 Kühn had already played 1229 minutes for Rapid Vienna, before doubling that to 2578 minutes by the close of the 24/25 season.

Now this campaign is where the figures to get a bit more interesting.

Nicolas Kuhn celebrates. Celtic Champions 2025. Dundee United v Celtic, 26 April 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star).

This season Nicolas Kühn has 3286 minutes of football for Celtic Indeed it was in January this season that Kühn hit the 1816-minute mark as a Celtic player and that was more minutes than any other FULL season Nicolas had played at any of his previous clubs.

Now January is an interesting cut-off for those who believe our mercurial winger simply stopped fancying it at Celtic, because it is not just the date Kühn started exceeding any game-time from any other season, it was also the close of the last transfer window.

So it remains difficult to say what came first, the chicken or the egg…or something like that!

Nicolas Kuhn of Celtic vies with Harry Milne of Hearts during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Hearts at Celtic Park, on Saturday 29th March 2025. Photo Andy Buchanan/Shutterstock

What the numbers certainly do indicate is there could be some genuine mitigation for Nicolas Kühn having a drop off in form, and it may just mean that the player would have benefited from some greater rotation. That said, there is little point in rotating a player if you are trying to build up his physical resilience and that may be exactly what Brendan Rodgers has been trying to do.

After all this season Reo Hatate was involved in every single Celtic game this season, prior to his injury.

When Rodgers arrived at Celtic it was common knowledge Reo would be blowing out his backside by around the hour mark of any given game. However, it was perhaps the fact Rodgers pushed the physical boundaries for Hatate which made him more resilient this season, and it may be possible Rodgers is doing the same with Nicolas Kühn now.

Nicolas Kuhn of Celtic and Jack Iredale of Hibernian challenge for the ball Celtic v Hibernian, Scottish Gas Scottish Cup, Quarter Final, Celtic Park, – 09 March 2025 Photo Stuart Wallace/Shutterstock

Now I’m not giving a definitive opinion one way or the other, after all there could be many reasons for Nicolas drop off in form, but there is certainly something in the amount of minutes played this season, compared to previous campaigns, that at least allows for Kühn to be cut some slack.

Niall J