Yesterday Ange Postecoglou told his strikers to hit the back of the net after both Kyogo and then Giorgos Giakoumakis passed up numerous opportunities to get off the mark for the new season. Patience with misfiring frontmen is not a virtue that the Australian manager possesses and no-one needs to remind Kyogo of this fact.
He’s got the message loud and clear and so will the Greek striker who will be vying with the Japan international for the starting position in the team that will face Ross County this weekend.
There’s incredible interest in Celtic matches thse days in both Australia and Japan and after yesterday’s 2-0 win which took Celtic to the top of the league, looking down on the Rangers, Kyogo spoke to Japanese media outlet jiji.com about his own missed chances against Aberdeen.
“I have to be strong enough to make the decisions,” Kyogo began. “I want to score 20 or more goals (this season). Focusing on what is in front of me and continuing to produce results is an appeal to me as a forward.”
The Celtic captain Callum McGregor’s assessment mirrored that of the manager. “A lot of the play was good. We had good control and played through the lines really well and we just lacked that sharpness in front of goal.
“I know it is early on, but we want to keep drumming it into the players that when we get these types of opportunities, we need to try to put them away and be as ruthless as we can,” Calmac said to Celtic TV.
“I thought we started really well and we looked really sharp and played intense football for the first 35 minutes. We got a little bit slack towards the end of the first half, but, in the second half, we regained control and Jota scored a great goal just to seal it. We were in good control of the game at that point.”
