The best thing Brendan Rodgers has done this season was benching Kyogo Furuhashi.
The player needed it. The team needed it.
He was not playing well. He was a shadow of the footballer we all knew and loved. He looked so far off it that you wondered whether he had a future at the club. There was talk that Rodgers had “ruined him” as a player.
Something had definitely changed, either in our approach to games or in how other teams had decided to respond to Kyogo. The adjustment had rattled him either way. Although the manager claims to have changed nothing, you can see by the way we’re playing right now that some sort of adjustment has been made to the side. And Kyogo is back.
There is no doubt that this is the case. Not only has he started scoring again, but he’s started to turn in those performances which terrify defences and saw him crowned the best player in the league last season and the one before. He is truly our talisman.
More than anything else, he’s the big-name, big-game player who scares Ibrox most, and he is gearing up for the fixture there in a few weeks time. That’s bad news for them in a big, big way and especially if he’ll be there in the same team as McGregor and Carter Vickers, other big game footballers who will be crucial to the run-in.
It wasn’t just the goal yesterday; he was brilliant in the link up stuff and he got an assist for Kuhn’s excellent finish. His head is up. His confidence is high, and when this boy’s confidence is up he can dance through the opposition with ease. Yesterday was the best I’ve seen him play in a while, the best I’ve seen him play, actually since he tore the Ibrox club to pieces.
The last thing they wanted was this guy up for it and ready to play. They would have been much happier with Kyogo in the stands and Idah out on the pitch. There was a time not that many backs when many Celtic fans would have preferred the same.
But Kyogo is back and looking sharp, just in time, just before we go there.
What a boost that is for us.
He desperately needed that rest, I think we all keep forgetting he has been playing all season with a shoulder injury that probably needs surgery. Yesterday he looked much more like the Kyogo of last year and when he’s in that form there’s nit a striker in scotland anywhere near his level.
The only thing that’s been lacking in the side was fluid movement between mid&attack although it might not seem a lot 1 players wrong move disrupts it,players seem to be understanding the boss now
He must play every game now, no doubt about that. He scares the living daylights out of that mob. McGregor and Hatate back and we go full steam ahead. Tempo much better Saturday. With McGregor and Hatate back it gets even higher. Some good news for a change.
They will target his shoulder big time that day and probably get off with it big time…
That shoulder injury situation should have been kept in house given the things ‘work’ in this country…
Bad management and not Boxing Clever enough in this one me thinks !