With The Season About To Start, Which Celtic Star Will Rise Above The Rest?

Each and every time I watch this team right now, I wonder which of the players in the squad is going to go on to become the superstar who sets the season alight.

Every single time this team plays a major game I identify a different one.

This is a testament to the talents of the manager in assembling this side.

You look at the quality right across the squad, and it’s everywhere. That makes it exceedingly difficult to pick a “winner” from the list of candidates. The field is wide open.

The best way to go about this, I think, is to look at the top footballers in this side and examine their qualities. Last year, Callum McGregor was the key man but the awards could just as easily have gone to Carter Vickers, Abada or Ralston.

This year the field is going to be even more crowded with the formidable talents on display from our club.

This article will attempt to explore, and identify, who the best of the bunch is going to be. These are the guys who will be the leading contenders for Celtic’s player of the year, and for the wider player of the year award in the game.

I am dying to know what you guys think of this, and who it’s going to be.

Will It Be Kyogo Furuhashi?

The obvious one to start with is, of course, Kyogo Furuhashi.

The Japanese talisman has shown in pre-season what we already knew last season; he is a lethal finisher and an incredibly gifted technical football player.

When Kyogo signed, a bunch of folk posted YouTube clips of him, and to be honest they seemed, as a whole, too good to be true.

Then we saw him play and realised that all the things on those clips – the poise, the first touch, the awareness, the execution – were there and then some. He was exactly what those films advertised, and that is rare.

What a first campaign he had for us, and although injuries cut it shorter than we’d have liked and saw him miss crucial fixtures at crucial times he proved every time he was in the team what a player we have on our hands.

It is even more amazing to consider that he played half a Japanese league campaign before he even arrived at the club. It’s an awesome testament to his talents.

Now, Ange has a decision to make about whether Kyogo is our starting striker; most expect him to be. If he gets the full season under him there are few players in the country, and none outside Celtic Park, who will come close.

He could be the runaway winner. For many he’s the runaway favourite.

And yet this isn’t entirely in the bag.

Don’t get me wrong, if he’s injury free and plays the bulk of games he is going to be the guy everyone else has to beat … but we actually have players in this side whose own contributions will be just as critical.

Kyogo doesn’t have it wrapped up. Although he’s the guy most of us expects to be reigning supreme at the end of it all. A genuine superstar … watch him go with a proper summer behind him.

Will It Be Reo Hatate? 

The guy I’ve been talking about over and over again in this team is Reo Hatate, and I am utterly convinced that he is going to be a star for this team in this campaign.

The biggest star? I realise what a huge call that is, but you know something? I’m convinced.

This is my own personal view, and I know that many of you have you will have your own ideas, but I love to watch this guy, and even when he was running on empty, as he was towards the end of the last campaign, I still think he showed awareness in his passing and his movement which is a step ahead of most other players, even in this team.

He has everything, and that he can also play in multiple positions makes him a virtually guaranteed starter in any match. He scores goals too, and gets assists, and he’s proved, like Kyogo, that he can do it under the hottest atmosphere and the biggest pressure.

We saw him in these pre-season games; he looks exactly like the guy we signed, and that is terrible news for the rest of this league because for his first half dozen games last season he was virtually unplayable and only really faded in the last half dozen.

This is the player everyone will be talking about come his one year anniversary in a Celtic shirt.

If he shows it in the Champions League then he will be the biggest asset in the game here and perhaps the biggest we have ever had … that’s how I good I think he is.

Look out the rest, this is the best.

In my opinion, of course.

Will It Be Cameron Carter Vickers? 

Don’t rule out that the best player at our club this season could be a centre back.

It could well be the case. And if that’s the story of the season then it’s likely that it will be Cameron Carter Vickers, who a lot of Celtic fans I know considered our most important signing in the Ange first window, and the guy who really made our title tilt possible.

He was immense, of course, and thoroughly deserved to be on all the player of the year shortlists. In another year, without the quality in front of him from his Celtic team-mates, he would have walked it.

Absolutely walked it.

It was a tremendous coup to sign this guy up a permanent member of the team; the hacks who are wetting their pants over Ibrox’s defensive signings know this is the most significant one of the lot and not a one of them expected us to complete this deal.

Not one of them, no matter what gibbering nonsense they might come out with about how all we’ve done is maintained the strength of last season’s team, as though that were easy to do.

Carter Vickers is one of the rocks on which this team is built, and if he has a big Champions League campaign then the clamour for him to get the player of the year awards will be loud … and so he could very well emerge as much more important than the front guys.

Will It Be Big Giakoumakis? 

If you were a betting person, you could do worse than to stick a few quid, right now, on Giakoumakis finishing the top scorer in this league. This boy arrived late – the last day of the summer window – he was kept out of the team by Kyogo at first and then he suffered bad form and then an injury before he even got his feet under the ground.

But when he did? Holy Hell, but he was sensational.

So good, in fact, that there was a serious debate about whether he or Kyogo should be our recognised starting striker towards the end of the campaign. His hot scoring streak was so good that it took him to the SPFL Golden Boot and even if he’s yet to receive the award he deserved it.

He is lethal in the six yard box.

If Kyogo is the best all-round striker we’ve had at Celtic Park since Henrik, what to say about this guy? He’s definitely as good as anyone we’ve had since then at the job he makes look simple; putting the ball in the net.

He’s also a big game footballer, and now has two goals which have won titles at different clubs.

I love this big guy and I think his role in this season is going to be absolutely enormous. He will hit double figures with the first couple of months and I expect him to his between 20-30 goals this season and to take that top scorer crown again.

A good Champions League campaign and this guy can shoot the moon.

It’s almost too much to hope for, isn’t it?

Will It Be Matt O’Riley? 

Matt O’Riley was the guy who finished pre-season with everyone talking about because of his outstanding displays and because a ridiculous rumour linking him to Leicester six months after we signed him. Stories don’t get much dafter.

But there is zero doubt – zero – that this guy is a significant talent, and that we are getting him at a time in his career before he was fully on the radar of the sort of sides who will be queueing up in short order.

The boy is an immensely gifted footballer, and physically strong with it.

He has great technique and marries it to that ability to hold onto the ball under pressure.

It is to our scout’s immense credit that they identified this guy as a standout under the noses of some many teams in England, and got to him first. And the fee? £1.5 million for a guy this good is utterly ridiculous and shows that vast reservoir of talent down south for those who know where to look for it.

He is a hugely important part of this squad, and yes, he is one of the guys who has constantly, in this pre-season, challenged my view that Hatate is the one to watch. O’Riley is heading for one Hell of a campaign, domestically and in Europe.

Everyone will be watching him by the time this season is done.

Will It Be Captain Callum McGregor? 

It seems almost amazing to me that with the season about to kick off and plenty of debate about who will be the most important member of the Celtic team that so few people are talking about the captain, Callum McGregor, although he is an obvious candidate and somebody the club is extremely lucky to have in its ranks.

Callum is, on his day, one of the finest midfield players in all of the UK, and that’s an enormous statement but one that I would defend with vigour. As the winner of all of last year’s awards it is sort of absurd that nobody is really talking about the possibility that he could do it all again, but of course he could and he might because his consistency is incredible.

Callum is the beating heart of the Celtic team.

Simple as that.

He is the leader, yes, but that role in which he plays, that deep lying role, is what gets the ball from one end of the pitch to the other. I would prefer to see him moved forward – who you drop becomes the question there – but even in that more difficult position he is still outstanding.

Celtic fans have always been blessed to see great midfielders, and blessed with great captains, but Callum is one of the best of the midfield bunch and will go on to become a legendry captain in his own right … and so yeah, it’s somewhat amazing to me that the whole player of the year conversation is largely going on around him.

He will like that just fine.

He has nothing to prove anymore … but he’s well capable of showing us all up anyway.

Will It Be The Great Israeli Winger Abada? 

What an embarrassment of riches at this club right now that we only, here, get to Abada (and we know there are still a few to come.) He was fantastic all season last season and nobody expects anything other than a supreme impact in this one.

How did this happen? None of us had heard of this guy before, but we had seen us sign players on the say-so of his famous agent on many occasions … was this another example of Celtic going back to the old contacts book? Many of us worried it might be.

But we needn’t have been in the least bit concerned because whoever recommended this guy knew exactly what he was doing, and we have found ourselves another outstanding star, one who played a huge role in the campaign just past.

He will certainly be a massive part of this team.

He will certainly do an excellent job for us. But it’s strange, because such is the strength of the squad now that he’s not even a guaranteed starter every week although I more and more believe he’s in our best eleven.

Because he does have everything in his locker, this guy, and like others he has proved that although he’s young that he has the big game mentality to a T. He scores massive goals, at hugely important times. He can play multiple roles and positions.

I would start him nearly every week.

But that means dropping one of two of the three guys I still have left to write about and to be honest I struggle to imagine doing so … that’s how strong this Celtic squad is right now, that this is such a tricky decision to make.

Will It Be Pre-Season Top Scorer David Turnbull? 

At every other club in this country – every other one – if David Turnbull were in their ranks there wouldn’t even be a discussion about who their player of the year favourite was; this guy would be the overwhelming pick and any debate would seem ridiculous.

And yet Turnbull is a player who is constantly overlooked when Celtic fans toss this issue around. That is a tribute to the strength of this squad. But it’s also a chance for Turnbull to shine slightly underneath the radar of massive expectations.

This guy has all the mental fortitude in the world.

He came back from a devastating injury and the collapse of an early deal with our club.

He came back from that, won back his place in the Motherwell side and then got his move anyway. He then had to stake a claim for a place in this team, and he looked, then and now, like fantastic business.

He is our top scorer from pre-season, a remarkable thing to note given the talent that surrounds him at Celtic Park. At least one pundit, Andy Walker, has nominated him for player of the year before a ball is even kicked.

More should be talking about him.

But I get the impression he is happy to simply do his bit and play his part and if the headlines and the attention and the glory comes he’ll take it all in his stride. That, by the way, is why he’s going to be one of the contenders.

He is capable of making it all about the team and all about the business of being the best player he can be.

We are lucky to have this young man at our club.

Will It Be Our Not-So-Secret Weapon Maeda? 

About a week or so ago, I wrote an article on this very question; is Maeda our not-so-secret weapon?

Everyone has watched this guy now, everyone knows what he brings to the team, and everyone at the rest of the clubs should be aware of him.

But how do you mark greased lightning?

How do give him a defender all of his own, whilst knowing that it leaves wide open spaces for other Celtic players?

Marking Maeda itself is a murderously difficult task as the player never stops moving for a minute.

He is murderously difficult to play against, and he has goals and assists as well as that pace and that movement. He is a superstar. I keep telling people this and they keep dismissing it because he sometimes seems to lack composure in front of goal.

But this guy finished top scorer in Japan.

He was Ange’s number one target in the last campaign, but wanted to stay at his club and win them the title.

That is a measure of the man as well as a tribute to the footballer, and he was a standout last season on the back of that full domestic campaign in Japan as well as those months at Celtic.

He has been rested and is ready for business and we’ll see the complete player here.

I think he is grossly underestimated by our rivals and the other clubs … and he will make them regret it.

Will It Be The Great Jota? 

Few Celtic players that I can recall have sparked such excitement every time they are on the ball as this guy. He is a natural entertainer, a Celtic great in the making, a footballer with everything that fans of the modern game could wish for.

It was an immense signing for us to make his deal permanent.

It was the one that caused the most anxiety all through the summer. But I never had much doubt.

I thought the pictures of him enjoying himself abroad suggested a guy totally at ease with the decision he had already made in his head and though you do get antsy when a deal isn’t signed I thought he looked, and behaved, like someone who could see the next four or five years of his future in front of him. At Celtic.

On his day he is the best technical footballer in the country.

Unplayable when he has his head in the game and is sharply focussed.

That those days are not more common is the only reason we even got near this guy, a player with this talent … but you know what? That stuff comes from playing every week, in a system you’re familiar with.

It is no coincidence that some of his best games for us came in the latter part of the campaign, after he’d returned from injury and was determined to show us all again what a phenomenal skill-set he has.

The guy was sensational.

He could quite easily be the player of the year and I know that a lot of Celtic fans expect him to be.

He is certainly not someone any team in the league will relish playing against … although it’s the big stage of Europe where I am really keen to see him strut his stuff.

How About An Un-Named A.N. Other?

I chose Joe Hart for this picture very deliberately; it could be him.

If we’re going to get somewhere in Europe this guy will need to find the kind of form that made him England’s number one keeper. He has that in his locker. He could well be the guy.

But Juranovic could too. Or Bernabei.

Mooy might stun Scottish football.

Or Lenz. Ralston had an immense campaign; why can’t he have an even better one?

We aren’t done in the transfer market yet either, so it might be that the real star has yet to even front up at Celtic Park.

That’s worth pondering for a minute.

The thing is, we have such an abundance of talent at the club right now that it will be genuinely scary for any club who looks at our bench. I looked at our rival’s bench yesterday and even accounting for injuries I think they look pretty sparse in comparison to us.

Certainly no other side has the depth of talent available to them that we do, and over the course of the campaign it is that depth which is going to be telling, I think. We now have a squad which we can rotate at will without weakening it too much.

And out of that some new hero might emerge.

It’s possible, but my own choice of Hatate is based on what we’ve already seen and what we know.

I’d like as many of you as possible to leave your own views in the comments section of this site; I’m dying to know what the overall consensus is, and don’t worry if we’ve already played today and someone has stood out a mile before you make your pick.

More than anything else, I am going to enjoy this season as a celebration of why we’re the best club in this league.

Ange has worked one Hell of a miracle in the space of 12 months, and that we’re sitting here, with these many players to choose from on the day we unfurl the flag … it’s incredible, and a credit to him and everyone else at the club.

Enjoy opening day guys, and the campaign to come.