K-Park to Paradise – What’s required for Shin Yamada’s Celtic breakthrough

I thought of this when reading Peter Grant’s views on Shin Yamada playing for Celtic B team at K Park last night, as reported by Glasgow Times.

Peter Grant was in my year at school and is absolutely steeped in Celtic. With plenty of coaching experience to boot he knows how tough it is to make it in the game and he’s a player who absolutely maximised what he could achieve in the game though commitment, hard graft and his force of character. Never as good as Paul McStay (who was?) or Tommy Burns, he still did his job and always gave 100% for Celtic.

That’s the very least he’d expect watching any set of players perform in a Celtic jersey.

Here’s what Grant had to say last night about Shin Yamada, like Nick a young player from Asia travelling to the other side of the world hoping to play for Celtic.

“Listen, he showed good movement,” Peter Grant said. “I was disappointed for him on the night, because I think this way of playing out, East Kilbride were very aware of it. So, East Kilbride pushed straight up the pitch. Celtic continued to play out, lose possession, lose possession, get through a couple of times, but not very often.

“So, the difficulty for Shin was that he was making the movements up front. A couple of times, he played it quicker and behind. All of a sudden, he ran away from them. Two fantastic chances.

“And I would put it down to good defending more than bad misses. So two opportunities, I would say, out of the game. He was really fast. He left the boy for dead a couple of times.”

Celtic B team lost the match 2-0 but despite that, Grant was impressed by the Japanese striker, who is very much on the fringes of things at Lennoxtown. “But again, he showed a fantastic attitude. And it’s unusual to see a 25-year-old playing in the B team, but he showed a fantastic attitude.

“He’s even arguing with the referee going off a half-time because of the boy. To be fair, the boy could have been put off. He’d actually done him after being booked. You know, and he wasn’t happy right at half-time. He was still talking to him.

“I’m thinking, ‘he’s learned some Scottish!'”

Yamada joined Celtic from J1 League side Kawasaki Frontale in the summer transfer window, as a so-called club signing. He’s made six appearances for the first team, most recently from the bench in the 3-1 defeat at Tynecastle which turned out to be Brendan Rodgers last game in change.

I couldn’t help thinking about Nick coming from the other end of the world hoping to play for Celtic and wondering what Shin Yamada might have made of K Park himself. He’s going to need that Peter Grant drive, determination  and self-believe if he’s going to go from there to making a name for himself at Paradise.

Let’s hope he can do it.

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