Petrov Is Right: Celtic’s Best Player Next Season Could Well Be One That Surprises People.
I like Stan Petrov. He’s a smart guy.
I like former players who have never said a bad word about us in public. I like them when they get a foothold in the media and it is especially pleasing if they are not only clever but articulate.
Yes, I find him impressive.
When someone like that talks, people should listen.
That Sky and other outlets are more likely to put goons on the air instead is telling. Why couldn’t Petrov have spoken, today, about the Jota deal? We might have been spared the painful sight of Boyd trying to sound like he has a spark of intelligence.
Nothing could make that guy seem smart.
Stan said something the other day that I thought summed up how well he reads the game.
He said that our best player next season could well be Reo Hatate.
I could not agree more. I’ve said similar. The strikers and the wide players are great to watch, but in this guy’s first half dozen matches we saw glimpse of a monster talent far greater.
He went off the boil. Of course he did.
He had come out of an exhausting full season in the J League and that will impact players in different ways. Just because Maeda was able to cover every blade of grass … it would have been unfair to expect similar.
But in that first flare of brilliance we saw from Hatate there was plenty to suggest that we were watching somebody very special indeed.
His vision, range of passing, his first touch, his eye for goal … these were all on display, and with a summer behind him in which he can get used to the system and the speed, and on the back of some rest I think he could be the most significant footballer in the country.
At Parkhead, against the club across the city, I thought he was particularly brilliant. But it was actually the following game, at Fir Park, where I thought we saw the player who, if he emerges in he coming campaign, will be utterly dominant.
Typical of Stan Petrov, a midfielder himself who came to Parkhead with a big rep and actually got off to a slow start because we bizarrely played him at right back for a while, to sing the praises of a guy who played in a similar role.
I cannot wait to see what a fully fit, fully integrated, Hatate does in midfield next season and not just in Scotland but in the Champions League too.
I think we have one Hell of a football player on our hands here, and all of Europe is going to know it this time next year.
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