Chris Sutton believes Celtic’s continued recruitment from the Japanese market is a logical move given the success stories already written in green and white.
Speaking in his weekly Daily Record column, the former Parkhead striker pointed to the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda, and Reo Hatate as prime examples of why the club now sees less risk when bringing in talent from the J-League.
“It’s no surprise to see Celtic continuing to shop in the Japanese market given the spectacular success of most of their signings from that neck of the woods.
“There is no longer the risk attached to bringing in a player from the other side of the world because the likes of Kyogo, Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate have flourished in Scotland.
“A few haven’t quite made the same impact, of course, but there’s not the same concerns about adapting to the game as some people might have had previously.
“Hayato Inamura was the latest export and after it sounded like he was going to be farmed out on loan, Brendan Rodgers seemed pleasantly surprised by his display in Cork and might have more of a look.
“Is he going to be the long-term back up for Kieran Tierney? I doubt it. He’s still very much one for the future as you wouldn’t want to have to chuck him in for the final 20 minutes of a Champions League qualifier.
“And as for the latest striker target, is Shin Yamada going to be the long-awaited replacement for Kyogo?
“We’ll have to wait and see about that too.
“At £1.5m Yamada isn’t going to break the bank and he might turn out to be another smash hit.”
Celtic are closing in on the signing of Shin Yamada, for a fee of £1.5m. He was the top Japanese scorer in the J-League last season, finishing third in the overall rankings. This has slowed down for him a bit this year, though. He’ll travel to Glasgow in the next week or two.
Although he didn’t meet the expectations at Celtic, Tomoki Iwata is a success story, now bossing it at Birmingham under former Celtic assistant Chris Davies. He came into Celtic as J-League POTY, but it just didn’t work out for him.
It’s a low-risk, high-reward market for Celtic. They can bring in players for cheap and can pluck out a few rough diamonds who can be stars for Celtic.
Judgment on this summer’s J-League duo will be reserved, but fans have already been impressed, despite Cork City not being the best calibre of opposition.
