Kyogo Is The Star Man, But Abada Has The Weapons To Make A Major Impact.

One of the greatest movies of all time, Once Upon A Time In The West, opens at a train station.

Three great character actors, Jack Elam, Woody Strode and Al Mulock are waiting for someone arriving. These were all men who had played starring roles as villains and viewers would have been forgiven for thinking they were watching the main characters.

Within five minutes, all three of their characters were dead.

Audiences knew then that they were watching a bold and brilliant attempt at deconstructing the Western archetype.

Had Sergio Leone, the director, gotten his way that beginning would have been even more seismic.

He was rebuffed after asking Eli Wallach, Lee Van Kleef and Clint Eastwood to take those roles; he would, in the opening scene, have killed three the central figures of his earlier tour de force.

I was reminded of that at the weekend when the Kyogo show gave way to the Abada experience instead.

It’s like when Griffiths got injured just prior to Rodgers’ first game against the NewCo.

Everyone had expected him to be the star … but a new star was born in Dembele.

You never really know who the star will be until you see how things unfold.

It helps to have so many good players on form at the same time, of course, and just as Leone was able to call on the services of Jason Robard, Charles Bronson, Claudio Cardinale and most importantly Henry Fonda to be the stars of his masterpiece, we have a squad now which is starting to look as if it’s going to be something to see.

I found it funny that St Mirren focussed so much of their attention on Kyogo at the weekend; we all did, but most of us weren’t involved in having to come up with a tactical plan to stop him.

All they did was create the space which allowed Abada and others to roam freely through their lines.

This is the same issue that every club in the land will face in this campaign.

Abada looks at least as good as Kyogo so far.

He has four goals in six games. Kyogo has six in seven games and Turnbull has five in nine matches. Teams who want to defend deep against these guys are welcome to try it … but one of them will probably get through.

In Holland, AZ will be wary of giving too much attention to Kyogo, but they saw too how good Abada was against them in the first leg.

He is the real surprise package here, firstly because there was a natural suspicion of his agent and secondly because he’s still a young guy – a 19-year-old as opposed to Kyogo who has seven years on him.

Abada already looks like a young player of the year contender.

On top of that – and although we don’t like to think of this stuff normally – his age makes him a saleable asset somewhere down the road, and if he keeps getting better he’ll go for one Hell of a fee.

This is a top class signing from Celtic, with this kid already having asked questions of James Forrest in the starting eleven and even shifted our winger to the bench although he’s closing in on 100 goals for the club.

What a credit that is to the teenager.

Don’t get me wrong, Kyogo looks to be our most significant signing in a long, long time and watching him has been one of the great pleasures of the last few weeks … but don’t rule out the boy on the right because he is going to be one of the top performers at the club for many years to come and will certainly be critical to how we do in the next four days.