CATCH HIM IF YOU CAN
Ange says Kyogo is proving too quick for rivals... and even his team-mates
HE has already shown himself to be too quick for at least one of Scotland’s elite assistant referees. Hold the punchlines, please.
Because, to hear Ange Postecoglou tell it, plenty of Celtic players can sympathise with any linesman left trailing by Kyogo Furuhashi’s predatory anticipation and fleet-footed movement.
The Celtic head coach believes the rest of his team are still playing catch-up to the Japanese striker.
And he is clearly excited about seeing Furuhashi stretch well clear of any rivals for the title of Scottish Premiership top scorer. Once the rest of the squad are ‘in sync’ with his thinking.
‘Sometimes he’s just too sharp for us with his runs,’ admitted Postecoglou, who is undoubtedly pleased with how the £4million summer signing — already on the radar of clubs in Europe’s top leagues — has taken Scotland’s top division by storm.
‘In terms of goals tally it’s hard to say (what I expected) — but I knew he could make an impact,’ said the Aussie.
‘I’m the person least surprised by the impact he’s had. I knew what a clever player he was and his movement is very hard to contain.
‘Provided we played our football in a way I thought we could, then I knew he would be a guy who could get goals for us.
‘I felt probably the last two or three games we haven’t been using him as much as we can.
‘I still think even within our team we’re not sharp as he is in terms of getting the ball to him in the right areas.
‘But the beauty about him is the way he works off the ball, defensively, for us. It’s just outstanding.
‘I’m glad he’s getting the reward of goals because that’s what strikers want. Even if he wasn’t scoring, his work rate and effort has been outstanding.’
Addressing Furuhashi’s muchdisputed goal in Thursday night’s 1-0 win over Hearts, Postecoglou said: ‘His movement was brilliant and he consistently does that.
‘He’s just very hard to stop and, from our perspective, it’s just about us getting in sync with him.
‘We’ve just got to keep seeing him and playing him in because we know he’s a threat.’
Joint-top of the scoring charts with Motherwell’s Tony Watt on eight goals, Furuhashi — a player who clearly just loves playing football — is an obvious matchwinner for Celtic.
Yet Postecoglou is keen to stress the importance of less eye-catching performers in a squad stretched by injuries. Starting with the tightest defence in Scotland’s top flight.
Insisting he sees a willing mentality developing, he said: ‘Callum McGregor and Joe Hart, the really experienced boys, are big on just driving the lads and telling them that’s the expectations around this football club. That’s a positive thing.
‘It’s not me driving it, it’s the players themselves. They want to get rewards for their hard work.
‘They understand the expectations for us, there are no excuses for us. From that point of view, you’d rather win much more comfortably. But even winning 1-0, I still think it instils belief in them.
‘We still have to defend. People keep on talking about our defence but it is another clean sheet for us. And that’s also without Joe having to be extended too much.’
Thursday night’s three-point haul owed plenty to the performance of Carl Starfelt, who walked off with man-of-the-match honours. Not bad for a guy playing his first game in five weeks.
The Swedish centre-half, relishing the opportunity presented by a packed schedule between now and the visit of Rangers on January 2, believes the much-maligned Celtic defence is proving a point.
‘You can’t only play one way,’ said Starfelt. ‘Everyone knows we want to dominate games and have the ball. We want to be in the opponents’ half.
‘But sometimes you have to show resistance because you will not dominate the game for 90 minutes. There are times you have to show something else.’
Contrasting Thursday night’s grinding win with his debut for the Bhoys, a 2-1 loss to Hearts at Tynecastle in the opening round of league games back in July, Starfelt risks no argument when he suggests Celtic have improved in the intervening months.
‘I think we’ve developed, for sure,’ he said. ‘Back then there were a lot of new players and we didn’t really know each other. People had only trained for a couple of sessions, so for sure I think we have got better since then — and I feel that we still have steps to take to get better and better.’
Celtic face nine games in the next four weeks, with Sunday’s trip to Tannadice for a lunchtime kick-off affording very little time for Postecoglou to do much with his team.
‘I’m definitely not used to this, having played in different countries,’ said Starfelt, the former IFK Gothenburg and Rubin Kazan player.
‘I am used to playing a maximum of 35 games a year. But I prefer this way, playing more games. Sometimes it can be too much, if you get injuries, for example, but I prefer to play games as it’s much more fun.
‘It’s been two games in a week ever since I came in. I don’t think there has been a single week when there was only one game, but I am enjoying it.’
I’m the person that is least surprised by his impact. I know he’s a clever player and he is so hard to contain