JOSIP JURANOVIC admits he was impressed by new arrivals Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi after the Japanese trios made their Celtic debuts in last night’s 2-0 win over Hibernian.
It took Maeda less than four minutes to grab his first goal in green-and-white while his compatriot Hatate was a stand-out in midfield, picking out his team-mates with ease and covering a lot of ground.
Juranovic’s spot-kick gave Ange Postecoglou’s side some breathing space and Ideguchi was brought on for the last 15 minutes or so, performing well in his brief cameo.
Hatate was named man of the match at Parkhead and Juranovic was pleased to see his new team-mates quickly settle into life in Glasgow.
“It’s incredible,” the Croatian said of the Japanese triumvirate. “It’s their first match and they played really well. I cannot wait to see them in the future.
“The lads played really well, the whole team. Also, the guys on the bench supporting us. I think that we played really well from the first minute until the last.
“Congratulations to the new guys that came in. It was their first game in front of our fans and they played really well.”
On-loan Benfica winger Jota, Giorgos Giakoumakis – who finished last season as the top scorer in the Dutch top flight – and Mikey Johnston all clambered off the bench for the game’s closing exchanges.
Juranovic sees this as proof of the strength in depth that the Celtic squad currently possesses and the 26-year-old expects the competition for places for the rest of the season to be fierce.
“That’s how you know we are some team,” he reasoned. “On the bench we also had [Anthony] Ralston, Mikey, [Giorgios] Giakoumakis, Jota – we have incredible players, really.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel