Kyogo Furuhashi will feature against Aberdeen after recovering from a shoulder injury; the Japanese striker is the Scottish Premiership's top scorer; Celtic host the Dons on Saturday sitting nine points clear at the top of the table
Sunday 19 February 2023 09:23, UK
Celtic striker Kyogo Furuhashi is "good to go" and will be involved against Aberdeen on Saturday after recovering from a shoulder injury.
The Japan international was forced off in the first half of last Saturday's convincing 5-1 cup win over St Mirren at Celtic Park with a shoulder injury.
Celtic face Rangers in the Scottish League Cup final at Hampden Park next Sunday and, ahead of the visit of Aberdeen in the Scottish Premiership on Saturday, Ange Postecoglou confirmed the league's top scorer has fully recovered.
"Kyogo is fine. He trained today, had a session yesterday and is good to go," said the manager.
"I think I said after the game, I was pretty relaxed about it.
"He had a similar one last year and I think he missed one session and played the next game.
"So it wasn't anything that we were overly concerned about and, from our perspective, if it wasn't right, it wasn't right, we move on and deal with it.
"He missed a session to get some treatment on it and has trained the last two days so no issues.
"The only one from last week is David Turnbull got a knock and will miss tomorrow, that's it, everyone else is OK."
Postecoglou stressed that all his focus was on Aberdeen and expects a tough match against the Dons, who have Barry Robson in interim charge following the sacking of Jim Goodwin last month.
Since Goodwin departed, in the wake of a 6-0 defeat by Hibernian at Easter Road, the Dons have lost 3-1 at home to St Mirren and beaten Motherwell 3-1 at Pittodrie.
Postecoglou, whose side have lost only one league game this season and who lead Rangers by nine points at the top of the table, said: "It is always a challenge when you are meeting a team with a new manager.
"Barry has had a couple of games, in the first game they had a man sent off really early and they had a good result and a good performance in the last game.
"They had a weekend off which means he has had a chance to work with the team so we have to be ready for that.
"We know that at their best, they are a good side. They have some good individual players that can hurt you, particularly in an attacking sense so we have to be ready for it but at the same time, our form has been pretty good for quite a while now and particularly at home.
"If we start the game well and play to our tempo, we know we will be hard to stop."
Despite winning 12 and drawing one of his 13 games as Gers boss, Michael Beale admitted the probability of winning the title back from Parkhead was "low".
However, Postecoglou kept his distance from Beale's prediction, saying: "I haven't heard the comments. I don't really pay an interest to it."
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