John Hartson was blown away by Celtic duo Kyogo Furuhashi and Daizen Maeda as the Bhoys earned a 2-2 draw against Spanish giants Atletico Madrid in the Champions League group game clash on Wednesday night (25 October) at Parkhead.
The popular BBC pundit described Maeda as “excellent”, and also praised Kyogo for another “great” goal.
Celtic were superb in the first half and they twice took the lead. Hartson – who was commenting on the game – noticed that the Hoops ran out of steam in the second half.
He wrote on Twitter: “Couldn’t fault the players tonight… the 1st half was brilliant put so much into it. Felt we ran out of steam 2nd half.. understandably! Maeda excellent .. Kyogo another great goal. Keep the faith.”
Positives
Ideally, Celtic would have wanted a win after their back-to-back defeats in the Champions League. But they will take great pride in this performance, and Brendan Rodgers will be looking to build something positive from here on.
The players showed great mental fortitude to keep the La Liga giants under pressure. They took an early lead through Kyogo and restored the lead again within three minutes after Antoine Grizmann equalized.
Both Kyogo and Maeda are top players for Celtic and they have played a crucial role in the club’s rich success under Ange Postecoglou. Kyogo, the Japanese international, has scored 61 goals for the Bhoys already in just 96 games for the club and has scored seven goals already in all competitions this season.
Unfortunately, another Japanese midfielder, Reo Hatate, picked up a hamstring injury and he was taken off after just seven minutes.
