Craig Swan
With Kyogo out, Giorgos filled the void.. it’s been like that all over park
Ange has stuck to task and kept his team gelled despite injuries
KYOGO FURUHASHI lit the touch paper for Celtic’s Premiership charge.
His hat-trick on the second weekend of the campaign against Dundee got Ange Postecoglou a first league win. Three days ago, Kyogo was back in the mix. Starting for the first time since Boxing Day, he headed home the opener against Ross County to leave his team within touching distance of the crown. It’s what happened in between that says as much about Postecoglou’s squad and his management as those goalscoring contributions from the Japanese master. Not just when Kyogo’s been missing but when others have been too. In between those first and last goals, the striker started just 11 other league games. That’s 13 starts in 34 matches, not even near half. The way in which his boss has mixed and matched, finding ways to counteract the absence of key men, has been startling and inspiring. Hands up, when the teams were named for Dingwall, who raised an eyebrow at Kyogo being named ahead of Giorgos Giakoumakis? Imagine even contemplating that being a discussion in December. The Greek was nowhere, out for two-and-a-half months.
It seemed an outlandish notion at best, absurd at worst.
Yet when Kyogo had four months on the sidelines with a hamstring problem, Giakoumakis filled the void. Suddenly, he became a main man, scoring 12 times as his teammate was recovering. It has been like that all over the park. Jota was magnificent in the first part of the term but he, too, sat out almost seven weeks. When he did, Liel Abada carried the burden. Josip Juranovic even performed his winger duties when
Celtic went to Dingwall in December. The Croat has been an excellent signing but his arrival hasn’t stopped Anthony Ralston from doing his bit.
With Juranovic missing against the Staggies on Sunday, the Scotland cap was solid and strong in the right-back role, pulling off a great job.
Skipper Callum McGregor, the main man for the team, has had spells out. Greg Taylor was absent for almost three months.
Juranovic went to left-back or Liam Scales and Adam Montgomery were called upon to fill the Taylor gap and ease any stress for the manager.
Even Boli Bolingoli got games against Livingston and Motherwell, showing how stretched the squad was in the first half of the term. David Turnbull spent three months recovering from surgery.
The point of all of this is not to suggest Celtic have been harder done by than others. Every team in the country have to deal with serious injuries at various points of a season. Everyone misses key players.
And it’s true no one else in the country has the financial resources to have a squad big enough to cope when that time comes.
But it says much for Postecoglou’s no excuses mantra that Celtic have managed to overcome the loss of major players so well.
A fortnight here, or a week there, fair enough. But Kyogo has missed four months and was also absent for a spell earlier in the term when points were spilled to Livi and Dundee United to leave Celtic with a mountain to climb in the title race.
Postecoglou, through the absences and setbacks, has put together this run of 24 wins and four draws from 28 Premiership games to be on the brink of the title.
To have done that with a full squad would be impressive enough.
To do it when he’s had some of his best players on the injured list for a lengthy period makes his efforts to regain the title and get Celtic straight into the Champions League groups even more so.