FORMER Celtic captain Tom Boyd believes having a free weekend will help ensure Ange Postecoglou’s players are fresh for their Champions League encounter with Shakhtar Donetsk in Poland tomorrow night - and have a vital cutting edge up front.
Boyd attended the opening Group F match against Real Madrid at Parkhead last Tuesday evening and was impressed with how the Scottish champions performed in the first 50 minutes.
However, the ex-Scotland left back was disappointed that Liel Abada, Reo Hatate, Callum McGregor and Daizen Maeda failed to convert the chances which Postecoglou’s team created up front when they were dominating the game.
Celtic paid a high price for their lack of ruthlessness in the final third against Real – Vinicius Jnr, Luka Modric and Eden Hazard all netted in the second-half to ensure Carlo Ancelotti’s charges got their title defence off to a successful start.
The Glasgow club had been on fire in attack before the meeting with the Spanish giants – they had scored 29 times in the cinch Premiership and Premier Sports Cup and no fewer than 12 players had been on target.
But Kyogo Furuhashi, their joint top scorer in the 2022/23 campaign along with Abada, started on the bench due to the shoulder injury which he had picked up early on in their 4-0 league victory over Rangers three days earlier. The Japanese striker replaced Giorgos Giakoumakis with 18 minutes of regulation time remaining.
Boyd is hopeful that not having a match on Saturday – the SPFL postponed all fixtures this weekend as a mark of respect to The Queen – will have enabled Furuhashi and any of his team mates who were nursing knocks to get fully fit for the encounter with Donetsk in the Wojska Polskiego Stadium in Warsaw tomorrow evening.
“Without any shadow of a doubt, there were positives to take from the Real Madrid game,” he said. “On another day we could have been in the lead before Real scored. Would it have changed the outcome? Who knows, but it would certainly have given us a chance.
“I think we played better in an attacking sense against the European champions than we did when we beat Barcelona all those years ago. They put in a good performance and kept the feelgood factor going despite the final result.
“But it is about taking your opportunities when they come along. You have to be clinical in that aspect of your play.
“Celtic have been for most of this campaign. They have been very clinical in terms of taking their opportunities. It’s why they scored nine against Dundee United and four against Rangers and other teams.”
Asked if he thought Celtic having a free weekend would help to get players fit, Boyd said: “It would have given them some time to recuperate. Celtic paid their respects and I think that’s what everyone wanted to do. Now we can get football back on again.”
Boyd is optimistic that Furuhashi and Giakoumakis will both be in good shape for the encounter with Shakhtar – who beat RB Leipzig 4-1 in Germany last week – and can help Celtic get their first Champions League group stage win since they beat Anderlecht in Belgium back in 2017.
“Kyogo seems to be the number one choice and I think if he was fit enough he would have played against Real,” he said. “But we know the styles of both players. Kyogo is a little bit sharper, but Giakoumakis also a goalscorer.
“It is a luxury the manager has, he has two in-form strikers. It’s up to the rest of the players around them to supply them. They will get goals, no matter what. They won’t score every game and it was obviously more difficult against the European champions with the defenders they have. But they will both score goals for Celtic.
“That’s a great luxury for the manager because normally you are trying to find a striker to get you those goals and we’ve got a couple. It’s about keeping them happy - and playing like we are and getting plaudits will keep everybody happy.”
