Ange Postecoglou has admitted that he should have started with Kyogo Furuhashi as a striker at Ibrox.
The Japanese internationalist started in that role away to Alkmaar on Thursday night before being moved wide left on the hour mark with Edouard sent on to occupy the Dutch defenders.
Postecoglou started with that format at Ibrox but Celtic’s French striker was way short of his best, turning in a laboured performance summed up by a dreadful first half miss when it seemed far easier to put a shot on target. That chance was created by Kyogo.
After going behind Postecoglou did make the change. Playing through the centre Kyogo created three decent chances that almost certainly would have been converted on another day. Yesterday wasn’t Celtic’s day.
Afterwards The Sun reports Postecoglou explaining:
I just thought Kyogo would be much more of a threat down the middle, to be honest I probably should have started him there to begin with but obviously with Forrest out we’re a little bit short in the wide areas.
That’s why we started with him out to the left but I knew with his speed getting Kyogo in the middle was going to cause them problems and that was the main reason.
With such a thin squad and no natural left-winger there was logic to playing Kyogo out on the flank but with the transfer window closing and Edouard expected to move on Postecoglou will be able to plan the coming months with some certainty.