'Maybe a little frustrated' - Kyogo Furuhashi Celtic stats which are bad news for Rangers

The last time Celtic and Rangers met in a final, the former ran out winners, in part due to the profligacy of the latter, epitomised by the missed penalty from Alfredo Morelos and the man of the match award for Fraser Forster.

“We didn’t execute in the penalty box and that was ultimately in our hands,” Rangers boss Michael Beale, who was then part of the coaching staff, remembered.

Big games, cup finals, those defining fixtures are won by those who seize the opportunities they work for themselves or are presented to them. In such moments you need individuals with a coolness but also a killer instinct. Cup finals especially can produce tight and nervy encounters. That individual may only get one chance. Miss it and it’s gone. All that remains is the regret. No matter what follows, success or failure, it will linger. Such situations and scenarios bring pressure and responsibility. Protagonists are thrust forward even before the teams take to the field.

Kyogo Furuhashi may well be the ultimate protagonist of the Mount Florida showdown. The Premiership’s top scorer yet, to many, not even Celtic’s best and most influential Japanese player, emphasising just how good Reo Hatate has been. But more than most he will grab the headlines because of his goals and in the final he is primed to be the difference maker. In a hypothetical world where your life depends on a striker in Scotland finishing a chance, it is Kyogo who you would want the ball to be at his feet.

The 28-year-old’s scoring stats in the league are remarkable as they are ridiculous. He averages 1.09 per 90 minutes. He requires just 3.45 shots per goal. As for his xG (expected goals), he is outperforming it handsomely, by seven goals. An element of luck and an expected regression to the mean? Hardly. Furuhashi is a lethal finisher. Quick, sharp, composed, he possesses a variety of goals, over, under, around or those strikes which simply make the goalkeeper irrelevant.

Bad news for Rangers

If it wasn't for injury last season he would have finished as the league’s top marksman. He has not gone more than two games without scoring since October The bad news for Rangers is that he has not found the net in his previous two outings, albeit he featured for barely 40 minutes combined across both games. The latter was the comfortable win over Aberdeen in the league with Ange Postecoglou opting to give January addition Oh Hyeon-gyu a first start. After all, Kyogo had suffered a shoulder knock in the previous win over St Mirren,

"He would have been fine but John Kennedy kept telling me 'look, he is getting really angry, you better put him on',” the Australian said. “So I didn't have much choice. I thought he was going to sneak on at one point. But Kyogo is fine, he is raring to go and looking forward to next week."

Kyogo Furuhashi leads the scoring charts in the Scottish Premiership. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

The forward played down his anger. “Maybe a little frustrated…” is how he put it. Back in the starting XI on Sunday afternoon, Rangers will be viewed as the perfect opposition for him to relieve himself of any leftover frustration.