The Asian Cup is likely to provide Celtic with a bit of an obstacle to overcome this season.
The rescheduled tournament will take place in Qatar from January 12 to February 10 — with at least three Celtic matches affected.
Our interest in the Asian market means that we could be without a whole host of players while the competition is going on.
Japan could call up Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate, while Tomoki Iwata and Yuki Kobayashi are also eligible.
South Korea are likely to need Hyeongyu Oh while countryman Hyun-jun Yang seems likely to join us soon.
There’s a fair chance that new signing Marco Tilio will be picked by Australia too.
So we could be without five or six players at that stage of the season. The fact that they’re almost all attackers isn’t lost on us either.
We will be entitled to ask for games to be postponed but may also choose just to get on with things.
It’s hard to envisage Celtic without Kyogo, Oh or Maeda, even just for a few games. It seems pretty likely that another striker will have to be signed. Ideally, they wouldn’t be eligible for an Asian country.
Brendan Rodgers did use just two strikers in the amazing invincible season. Moussa Dembele and Leigh Griffiths netted 50 goals between them that campaign.
When they were joined by Odsonne Edouard the following season their game-time was better managed, but their form was arguably not as strong.
It will be interesting to see how Rodgers approaches the acquisition of a new striker. With Kyogo and Oh ahead of them they may be hard pressed to find much game time.
But potential injuries and the Asian Cup seem to make signing a third striker a necessity.
In other news, the issue of away allocations for derby matches has raised its head again
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
