Last night good news appeared in the Daily Record/Sunday Mail about the hamstring injury suffered by Kyogo Furuhashi against Real Betis.
When the striker was substituted in the 71st minute he showed all the tell-tale signs of having suffered a hamstring injury, pulling up suddenly and going off the park very tentatively.
The immediate message from Ange Postecoglou following the win over the Spanish side wasn’t promising, it didn’t sound good for the striker as the Celtic boss prepared to explore other striking options with seven games coming up over 21 days.
Strangely the upbeat quotes in the Daily Record/Sunday Mail weren’t repeated in any of the other publishers invited in to speak with Postecoglou on Saturday. The mood was positive elsewhere but none of them shared the quotes used by the Record/Mail:
He’ll get scanned today (Saturday) and I don’t want to put a time frame on it. We don’t think it is anything serious but as to whether he will be available for Sunday, we probably won’t know until tomorrow. I’ll make a decision then but nothing is confirmed.
The Sun was less upbeat, covering Postecoglou’s comments about the style of training and playing with Kyogo mentioned almost as an after thought:
“I’d rather sort of keep going at the pace we are going and it means we are going to have some casualties along the way and lose a few.
“But I still think, for us as a team as we try to grow to be a certain type of side that plays a certain brand of football, it is just part of the process.
“You know, we’ll get better at making sure our players don’t pick up these kind of injuries, though the fixture scheduling makes it more challenging. It is stuff we need to deal with and we will.
“But we won’t compromise, and I won’t compromise, on the football we play, or the way we train. Because I know in the long-term that is going to give us the success we need.”
Kyogo was being scanned on Saturday but is unlikely to play a part against Motherwell.
Over at The Scotsman they reported:
The loss of the Japanese striker during the 3-2 victory over Real Betis on Thursday means that no fewer than six players have suffered such muscle problems in the past two months. Postecoglou has yet to obtain the full prognosis on Furuhashi’s problem which he describes as a “concern” but “nothing too serious”, and seems likely to keep him out of Sunday’s hosting of Motherwell. But, even with Albian Ajeti also forced off in midweek with a hamstring issue to leave him without a recognised senior centre-forward, he believes any injury casualties require to be accepted as a trade-off for the intensity he seeks from his team.
At the Herald they reported along similar lines:
Kyogo Furuhashi became the latest player to add to what has been a lengthy injury list throughout the campaign when he pulled up with what seemed to be a hamstring problem during the final Europa League win against Real Betis on Thursday night.
The Japanese playmaker had only been introduced to take over from Albian Ajeti who had gone off with a similar complaint midway through the opening half.
The count for Celtic players nursing hamstring injuries sits at six across the last two months with the Greek Australian accepting that the high intensity training and game schedule could be a contributing factor.
It seems strange that comments from Postecoglou specific to Kyogo and his timeframe weren’t used by any publishers other than the Record, they seemed to provide the obvious headline bearing in mind the reaction and fall out from his injury on Thursday night.
The Celtic team will be announced at 1.45pm today with Ange Postecoglou likely to provide Radio Scotland with a pre-match interview.