Ange Postecoglou yesterday admitted that he’s frustrated at the time that it is taking to get his new signings from around the world on the ground in Scotland and ready to join his squad as the clock ticks down to the start of the Scottish Premiership season at the end of the month.
The Celtic manager was able to add Liel Abada to his squad and the Israeli forward made a decent impression in his Celtic Park debut, coming off the bench in the second half in the 1-0 defeat to Preston North End. While Abada’s arrival was swift the same cannot be said for Japanese goalscorer Kyogo Furuhashi who signed off at Vissel Kobe this weekend with a lovely goal yesterday and then a farewell ceremony earlier today attended by around 10,000 supporters, with many more watching on a Facebook live stream.
Kyogo certainly is worth the wait folks…
Before his farewell app on Saturday, Kyogo Furuhashi had the highest non-penalty xG (10.9), best non-penalty xG per shot (0.14), most shots following a carry (30) & most shot involvements following a carry (37) in the 2021 #JLeague.https://t.co/zmJKxol2SK @20MinuteTims #Celtic pic.twitter.com/BFP4X8XSjd
— Sacha Pisani (@Sachk0) July 18, 2021
“It’s not just about signing players, it’s how we can get them in,” Postecoglou said. “It’s a ten-day to two-week process so that’s the challenging part at the moment, we’re not able to get people in quick enough.”
Kyogo Furuhashi is going to have to go through the same process as the Celtic manager when he left Japan for the UK. “It’s just the world we live in. If we could get on a plane, go over there and do the signing.”We’d all be taking photos and we’d be unveiling him here today. Unfortunately nothing like that happens any more.“We are working on multiple fronts. It’s pretty clear we need to bring players in. That’s not an easy process but we are working hard, hopefully in the next week.”
“On Liel Abada’s debut, Postecoglou explained the quick turnaround from the teenager, from signing to playing at Celtic Park. “He literally just met everyone yesterday. I just put him out there to get a feel for it and get to know the players.
“It’s about letting him get to know us and vice versa. We’ve been working hard to get the team ready. We will use the next two days to finalise our plans and hopefully we can put a good performance in on Tuesday,” Ange told the media, as reported by Daily Record.
Having now completed the pre-season games that come ahead of the Champions League opener Postecoglou will be faced with his best decision yet as Celtic manager – picking the side that will face FC Midtjylland the day after tomorrow.
He’ll have to consider the below par performance against Preston but will also factor in the fatigue element that he has caused himself by working the squad so hard over the past few weeks. Ultimately it was never about beating Preston, winning in Tuesday is the target.
“It wasn’t a great game for us but the players worked hard as they have been in training,” Ange admitted. “We have deliberately put a lot of work into them. I guess there is an element of fatigue there and they are going into games not feeling 100 per cent. That’s part of the process but it wasn’t great – we didn’t get a grip on the game and struggled through.”
Team selection for Tuesday night is going to be very interesting indeed.
