Brendan Rodgers explains why Celtic hero Kyogo Furuhashi was benched vs Motherwell

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Celtic increased their lead at the top of the league after beating Motherwell 4-0 on Boxing Day.

With Rangers also slipping up at St Mirren, the Hoops now have a commanding 12-point lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership table with the chance to increase that tomorrow afternoon if they beat St Johnstone and Rangers drop more points at Motherwell.

Brendan Rodgers made four changes to his Celtic team to face The Well with Kyogo Furuhashi, Stephen Welsh, Reo Hatate and Luke McCowan all dropped to the bench from the Hoops team that drew with Dundee United.

Explaining the changes, Brendan Rodgers shares why he took the decision to drop Kyogo and start Adam Idah ahead of the Bhoys’ 4-0 win over Motherwell.

Brendan Rodgers wanted ‘freshness’ in the Celtic starting XI vs Motherwell

With the New Year Glasgow Derby a matter of days away, it seems that Rodgers wasn’t even thinking about that match with the draw in Tayside very much dominating the Celtic boss’ decision-making process.

Rodgers told the BBC, “We’re trying to bring as much freshness, especially in the middle to the front end of the pitch.

“I think we missed that sharpness against Dundee United and we hope we can take it up a level today and get the early goal that can open up the opponent.”

Idah got the nod but, in truth, the big Irishman struggled to make any kind of impact before being subbed off in favour of Kyogo who also failed to get on the scoresheet.

Kyogo Furuhashi’s worrying goalscoring record for Celtic this season

With 24 games played, Kyogo has managed just eight goals so far this season. To put this into context, in the Japanese striker’s first season at Celtic, which included lengthy periods on the sidelines, he still managed to net 20 goals in 33 appearances.

In his second season, the 29-year-old forward hit 34 goals in 50 outings and last season Kyogo managed just 19 in the same amount of games as the previous one.

Kyogo has also managed to find the back of the net in two games away from Celtic Park as well this season which is not the best form heading into the second half of the year.

No doubt Kyogo will come good. He has far too much quality not to but he needs to find his shooting boots soon because, with Idah also goalless in his last four games, it’s just as well that Daizen Maeda and Nicolas Kuhn have found their goalscoring touch this season.