There were a few interesting appearances at Celtic training in Yokohama on Tuesday.
Brendan Rodgers‘ side are in Japan, preparing to take on Yokohama F. Marinos and Gamba Osaka over the coming days.
The high-profile matches will be important for the team as they continue to step up preparations for the new competitive season.
Celtic trained in the special surroundings of the 70,000 Nissan Stadium on Tuesday evening — and will face reigning J1 League champions Marinos on Wednesday.
We’re yet to see any video evidence of the session but the club have released plenty of images on their website.
The photos feature the likes of Sead Haksabanovic, David Turnbull and Liel Abada being put through their paces in some sweaty evening conditions.
Training seems to have been watched by a crowd of 100 or so, in similar scenes to what we saw in Sydney late last year.
It’s real evidence of the global appeal of the club that we could draw a following for a training session 6,000 miles from Celtic Park. The crowd seems to have been a mixture of Japanese nationals and people from other countries.
There were also a few interesting findings in terms of the players involved in the session.
Odin Thiago Holm took part in the session, and is seen dribbling with the ball in one photo. We will hopefully get to see him in action over the course of the trip.
19-year-old right-back Ben McPherson is also seen in a couple of images. McPherson trained with the first-team last season after Alistair Johnston’s ankle injury, so it’s no great surprise to see that he’s been brought along to Asia.
With Johnston still missing, and Anthony Ralston’s current fitness uncertain, it may be McPherson’s time to strike.
It will be interesting to see if he or Holm feature in the squad for Wednesday’s game.
In other news, the Celtic influence seems to have helped St. Johnstone to make a signing
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