Reo Hatate was man of the match in Celtic’s 4-0 victory over Kilmarnock, and Brendan Rodgers expects him to be at his best this season.
This time last year, Rodgers did not initially choose the Japanese midfielder, who struggled with several injury-related layoffs during the season.
With the first goal and constant danger, he was essential to Celtic’s victory on Sunday, which saw them take the top spot in the Premiership standings.
Hatate has, in Rodgers’ opinion, significantly improved under his direction to rank among the team’s most valuable players.
For whatever reason, I didn’t see the player that I had wanted to see at the start of last season, he stated. I had seen him play, so I knew about him and appreciated what I saw.
However, he never really made it through the previous year’s preseason. and not in the way I had hoped. After he was hurt, he felt completely broken.
His periods of time on the team were brief, but irregular. However, he has returned for the preseason. And once more, that confidence is evident in the way the season concluded. He is aware of my admiration for him as a player. He also understands my expectations of him as a player.
When it came to receiving the ball and moving through space, he was always a fantastic, skilled player. It was about maintaining the element of risk in the game for me. For the simple reason that I detest midfielders who own the ball 90% of the time. It is not excellent. Yet, there are spots on the pitch where taking a chance is appropriate.
And based on what I’ve observed during preseason, I believe he’s excellent. It doesn’t matter; I had wanted to see that last season. Now that he’s returned, he’s been nothing short of extraordinary. I’m therefore quite happy for him.
Having scored four goals in a game in each of their preseason warm-up matches against DC United, Manchester City, and Chelsea, Celtic kept up their recent trend of doing so.
Rodgers said he was happy with what he observed in his team’s first competitive game.
“Hopefully, [scoring] becomes more appealing to us.” It was just an extension of our pre-season, and it was a very strong performance. There’s always the hope that you do well on the team and have good balance. And that’s what we did today as well. So, I’m rather happy.
When I first arrived here [a year ago], not many of the players had previously collaborated with us. We were a little erratic and erratic. However, as the season progressed, we managed to complete the task when it mattered most. And that clearly instills some confidence in the guys.
We just carried over the final three months of the regular season into today’s preseason. It’s your hope to maintain the level. However, I felt we performed really well today.
Derek McInnes, the manager of Kilmarnock, acknowledged that the match was inconveniently scheduled after arriving back late on Friday morning from their away Europa League match against Cercle Brugge.
“It was always going to be difficult because of the circumstances in which we entered the game,” he declared. We don’t want to moan about it too much because it is undoubtedly a side effect of living in Europe. Even though we don’t have the strongest squad right now, a team like us feels the loss of five players. I’m just relieved that there were no injuries sustained during the game.
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