Ange Postecoglou clearly didn’t want to feature his two Celtic debut Bhoys last night as he stated it was “unfair” on Carl Starfelt and Kyogo Furuhashi to be thrown in at Tynecastle.
Celtic started the season with a miserable 2-1 defeat in Edinburgh. Postecoglou was forced into playing Starfelt despite him only having one training session with his teammates. Furuhashi, meanwhile, only came out of quarantine on Friday night yet was given 15 minutes in Gorgie.
Neither managed to make much of an impact on the game unsurprisingly. Given the lack of time they’ve had to get used to their colleagues, the result was no major surprise.
And Postecoglou clearly didn’t want to rush them into things if it could’ve been avoided. Speaking to Celtic TV post-match, he stated it wasn’t fair on either man to have to shoulder the responsibility of last night:
“Look it’s a bit unfair on them. Carl had one session and Kyogo joined the team today. But I just felt we needed some fresh legs after Wednesday night’s 120 minutes of football.
“They’ll get better. They’ll get into training and get to know how we want to play, and the other lads will improve.”
Celtic boss had no option but to throw debut Bhoys in
This is something Postecoglou clearly felt strongly about post-match. He even pointed out the unfairness of it all on Sky Sports post-match too.
Starfelt in particular had a gruelling task after only recently coming out of self-isolation. Being thrown in at Tynecastle was never going to be straightforward. He showed some positives and negatives, and came within inches of bagging a late equaliser at the death too.
Furuhashi meanwhile was never in a position to be judged on last night. He was thrown onto the pitch in hope rather than expectation. For a player who hadn’t trained with the Celtic squad, it was an incredibly ridiculous situation to be in.
But these are all messages to the board. Postecoglou is stating outright that he wouldn’t have played these players if he had more personnel. In fact, he’s telling the board he shouldn’t have to play these players.
Our failure to prepare appropriately for the new season has left us trailing in the title race after matchday 1. That’s an embarrassing situation for our club to be in.
Postecoglou will want more players in the door this week. Fingers crossed he gets his wish. He certainly needs more backing than he’s getting.
In other news, “Words in my mouth”; Postecoglou put BBC reporter right at Tynecastle before Celtic kick-off
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