Reo Hatate has revealed that personal reasons rather than a sharp visit to Brighton forced him to miss out on Sunday’s Celtic Park reception for the SPFL champions.
The midfielder provided the assist for Kyogo Furuhashi to open the scoring against Hearts at Tynecastle as Celtic clinched the SPFL title for the second season running.
After celebrating on the pitch and in the dressing room the action switched to Celtic Park where 10,000 fans had gathered to welcome back the champions.
During Monday some fans noticed that Hatate was missing from the pictures, putting two and two together some fans on the internet had him flying south for signing talks with Brighton.
On Wednesday the midfielder was nominated for the PFA Scotland Player of the Year award with The Sun asking about Sunday’s no show.
But Hatate said: “It’s not a big deal. People are reading too much into it. I had my personal things so I had to be away from the team. But that’s all, nothing else.”
Premier League high-flyers Brighton have been linked with a summer move for Hatate, and worried Hoops fans started speculating.
But the Japanese ace added: “I wasn’t at the Brighton game — I watched it on TV in my house.
“The main thing is that I play for Celtic. This is where I am and I am focusing on the rest of the games.”
Hatate is expected to be in Celtic starting XI for Saturday’s final Glasgow Derby of the season when Ange Postecoglou’s side visit Ibrox.
Some folk just can’t wait to have the whole team transferred and the manager fly away.
That’s it started up again We’ve got the derby on Saturday then the cup final so of course they’ll stir it up The summer transfer window is going to to be interesting from the huns and their media poodles
The miserable BBC commentator at the Cup semi-final said that the one-touch pass from Hatate to Kyogo, which McGregor turned round the post was – an accident!
What a lot these bitter Huns have got to learn!