'Sometimes he's too sharp for us' - Celtic boss makes confession over star man and his team-mates

It escaped the attention of most that Kyogo Furuhashi’s winner against Hearts ended the Celtic striker’s longest run without a goal since his summer move to Scotland.

Celtic’s Kyogo Furuhashi celebrates after the winner over Hearts that tookhis season's tally to 14 - a number that his manager Ange Postecoglou considers could be bolstered by his team-mates being sharper at playing in the constantly-on-the-move striker in the right areas. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

Three games without scoring hardly represents a drought for a player who has now struck 14 times in only 22 appearances since his £5million move from Vissel Kobe in his Japanese homeland. Ange Postecoglou doesn’t see any drop off in the performances of the 26-year-old. Instead, what Furuhashi’s recent fortunes in front of goal say to the Celtic manager is that his team-mates must do more to match the blurring forward’s defence-slicing runs with incisive service. When it comes to his talisman’s outstanding contribution in his new environment, though, there is no respect in which he has exceeded the Australian’s expectations.

“In terms of goals tally it’s hard to say [if he has met these] but I knew he could make an impact. I’m the person least surprised by the impact he’s had,” the 56-year-old said. “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 still not as 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. Is 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. His movement [for the Hearts goal] 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. Sometimes he’s just too sharp for us with his runs. We’ve just got to keep seeing him and playing him in because we know he’s a threat.”

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