'Kyogo was getting angry...I thought he was going to sneak on', Ange Postecoglou on Celtic striker's late arrival in win

Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou jokingly suggested any thoughts of resting Kyogo Furuhashi before next week’s Viaplay Cup final were ended by the Japanese striker’s agitations on the bench during the club’s 4-0 victory at home to Aberdeen.

Celtic's Kyogo Furuhashi with Aberdeen's Graeme Shinnie after his demanded to enter the fray late on. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

The 28-year-old had recovered from a shoulder injury sustained the week before to take his place in the matchday squad for the Pittodrie side’s visit, but the Australian took the opportunity to hand Oh Hyeon-gyu a first start in what proved another emphatic victory. Asked if he considered it useful to give the club’s top scorer minutes ahead of next week’s decider at Hampden after introducing him in the 72nd minutes, the Celtic manager quipped the matter had been taken out of his hands by the player.

"He would have been fine but John Kennedy kept telling me 'look, he is getting really angry, you better put him on',” said Postecoglou. “So I didn't have much choice. I thought he was going to sneak on at one point. I just thought before the game it was good chance to get Oh some minutes. Kyogo has been outstanding in recent times and it was going to be hard for us to find a game for Oh with the fact we are only playing a game a week at the moment. I didn't want to go too long without giving Oh a start and I thought today was a good opportunity to do that. But Kyogo is fine, he is raring to go and looking forward to next week."

The Celtic manager delighted in the “tempo, quality and intensity of our football” that he described as “outstanding”. But with his team’s nine-point Premiership lead safeguarded following a ninth-straight domestic win, he gave a flat “no” in response to whether such sparkling form provided them with a psychological advantage over their Ibrox rivals going into the final. "Cup football is cup football. In any round you go in with the possibility that irrespective of form any team can win it,” he said. “Even more so in a final. We played Hibs last year and it was a pretty tight game. So from our perspective we are not going into it thinking anything other than to we’ve got be the best we can be t get the job done.”