Two more Celtic stars named in a national squad for Asian Cup

Celtic stars Oh and Yang have both been called up for the South Korean squad that will take part in the Asian Cup next month…

Marco Tilio has already been names in the Australia squad for the Asian Cup and today he has been joined by two of Celtic’s three South Korean stars, Oh Hyeon-Gyu and Yang Hyun-Jun, who will now join Jurgen Klinsmann’s squad for the prestigious tournament..

Countries can name 26-man squads for the event which runs from Friday 12 January 12 through to Saturday 10 February 2024. Klinsmann’s men will be hopeful of going the distance at the event, which is held in Qatar – with players also required for warm-up friendlies and maybe even a rest period afterwards.

Yang and Tilio take two wingers out of the Celtic squad and Oh’s absence leaves Celtic short in attack especially considering that both Kyogo and Daizen Maeda are almost certainly going to be names included in the Japan squad for the Asian Cup. And with Reo Hatate also approaching full fitness – he may even make the bench against theRangers on Saturday – he too could be an outside bet to make the Japan squad.

With so many players likely to be missing Celtic could ask for postponements and while Brendan Rodgers has spoken out against using that option, it should not be taken off the table.

The Celtic manager was asked at an earlier media conference about how much thought he’d given to the Asian Cup and the likelihood of losing a significant number of his players from his squad midway through the season – for a month – to play in this international tournament. Here’s his response:

“A lot. The likelihood is a lot of those guys, if they’re fit, will be there. That’s part of our planning. The thing for us is it’s not a surprise. We knew it was there and we spoke about it in the summer leading into this window. We have that in hand and we know what our ideas are for that,” Brendan said.

Kyogo Furuhashi of Celtic celebrates during the Cinch Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Livingston at Celtic Park Stadium on December 23, 2023. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Daizen Maeda (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Celtic’s January transfer activity is going to be crucial to combat this huge problem and how successful we are in signing targets could have a massive bearing on the outcome of the title which is now much closer than it was at the start of the month.