There was no disguising the joy and relief of Kyogo Furuhashi as he opened the scoring in Celtic’s 2-0 win over Livingston and Celtic Park.
Since scoring against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League the hoops striker has only had one goal to celebrate but his memories of scoring at home to Aberdeen are likely to be a bit hazy with a brutal head injury suffered later in the game.
For 45 minutes yesterday there was little service coming his way, very few of the cut-backs from the by-line that he has thrived on.
Within a minute of the second half getting underway Luis Palma cut inside to try a shot at goal, rather than suffer a near miss Kyogo put a Chalmers-like touch on the ball to redirect it into the net.
His relief afterwards was obvious as he embraced the ball, recalling a long lost friend that has been frustratingly elusive in recent weeks.
Soon afterwards Liam Scales delivered something of a rarity, scoring from a Celtic corner. Daizen Maeda ran across Palma’s delivery with Scales, moving away from goal getting his head on the cross to send it spiralling across goal towards the Celtic TV camera.
A two match losing run was ended but there is still plenty of work to be done to reach the standards that were common place last season.
Hah! I said “Steve Chalmers touch” yesterday too! That’s such an instinctive thing for a striker – the slightest of redirections to take out the goalkeeper, like Denis Law’s backheel.
There was a difference when yang started to cut inside sooner thats whats needed if we play kyogo deep. The longer the flight of the ball from high on the byline the more chance he is marked by 3 or more.
Just as enjoyable as Kyogo’s goal itself was the sight of numerous Livvie players standing with their hands in the air appealing for offside with looks of dejection on their faces as their game plan went up the spout!
On the head injury!
The Law makers of the game should maybe be looking at this!
The Aberdeen player probably knew that he wasn’t going to win the ball, but went for it anyway. It wasn’t a clear 50 / 50 challenge!
Same incident ocurred last week, Man. U Ladies v Liverpool. The Liverpool centre half was in the six yard box, in front of goal, making a routine defensive header from a cross from the wing. She went up and headered it away and from nowhere comes the Man. U winger with a clash of heads resulting in a serious head injury for the brave big defender!
The reporters after the game agreed that she was entitled to go and try and win the ball. But I doubt that she knew she could win it. She was late and she was therefore reckless, in that she seriously injured her oponnent and it was entirely her fault!
She should only have gone for the header if she considered it a 50 / 50 ball and she knew she had at least an even chance of winning the header.
Players have to take responsibility for their actions on a football field. They are all playing for a living but a line must be drawn as to what is acceptable conduct on the field of play!