Celtic will take plenty of positives from today’s first pre-season match against Wiener Viktoria, and one of them will undoubtedly be Yosuke Ideguchi’s 90-minute performance.
The Japanese international arrived at Parkhead back in January along with Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate, and Matt O’Riley. However, as the latter trio produced big in the second half of last season, Ideguchi was rocked by an injury that postponed his impact in Glasgow.
Even though he was back available again by February, Celtic were settled by that stage and opportunities became hard to come by. The longest appearance we got from Yosuke was his 63-minute display against Alloa.
However, in today’s first pre-season friendly of the schedule, he was given the full 90 by Ange Postecoglou. The former Gamba Osaka man was everywhere in the midfield and showed his tenacity with some brilliant challenges throughout.
It was even more promising from a Celtic perspective that there were no signs of weariness either. Even as we closed in on full-time, Yosuke was still battling away and closing down the opposition. He was keen to make his mark this afternoon.
Yes, the lack of quality that Wiener Viktoria offered played a big role in how straightforward this fixture was. But that has nothing to do with the fact that Ideguchi still featured for 90 minutes and didn’t show any loss of stamina.
Yosuke Ideguchi ready to show his worth at Celtic this season
Pre-season is normally about building up fitness levels and getting players match-ready for the new season. The truth is Ideguchi looks more than prepared already.
You can understand his willingness to impress too. He will have around 6 months of pent up frustration in his system that he’ll be itching to get out. That’s what he showed this afternoon and it was a real positive for supporters.
There is a big gap in the centre of midfield for Celtic after the departure of Nir Bitton. Ideguchi should have his eyes on that role. Given the standard of opposition we haven’t found out whether he can fill it today. But we have found out that he’s ready to give it a real go.
It’ll be interesting to see how many minutes he gets against Rapid Vienna on Saturday. You have to imagine Ange will turn to other senior players who will be due to return for that one.
But even so, Ideguchi was one of today’s biggest positives, and it follows on from his promising cameo against Motherwell on trophy day back in May. He has a bit of momentum at the moment and he’ll now almost certainly get another opportunity to impress.
His development is going to be absolutely fascinating this season. Hopefully he become a major part of things in 2022/23.
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