CELTIC striker Kyogo Furuhashi has provided an update on the shoulder issue which forced him to leave the field during the cinch Premiership game against Dundee on Saturday.
Supporters of the Scottish champions were concerned when the Japanese internationalist came off in the first half and headed up the tunnel followed by three members of medical staff.
The treble winners play in their opening Champions League group stage match against Dutch rivals Feyenoord in Rotterdam tomorrow night.
If Furuhashi had been ruled out of the Group E encounter in the De Kuip it would have damaged their chances of getting a result over in the Netherlands.
However, Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers made no attempt to replace the centre-forward and his leading scorer came back on just a few minutes after going into the dressing room.
READ MORE: Celtic star Kyogo backed by Rodgers to complete final challenge
"It was just his shoulder,” said Rodgers afterwards. “He just needed to get some work off the pitch and quickly the medical team sorted it out. He came back in and it was fine.”
The 28-year-old scored his side’s second goal and set up his team mate Matt O’Riley for their third in a 3-0 victory which sent them two points clear of St Mirren at the top of the Premiership table.
The £4.6m signing, who has now netted four times in five league appearances in the 2023/24 campaign, is completely confident he will be able to take his place in the starting line-up tomorrow.
Speaking through an interpreter, he said: “There is no problem. None at all. There’s no problem, so nothing to worry about.”
Looking back on the Dundee victory, Furuhashi said: “The first half was obviously very tough for us. Dundee made it difficult, we had a couple of opportunities, but we didn’t managed to score.
“In the second half everything changed after the penalty. For the second goal it was a really good pass from Callum. It was nice to score again.
“For the third it was a good ball from Alistair (Johnson) and a good finish from Matt. We managed to get the win eventually and we were very happy.”
READ MORE: Celtic 3 Dundee 0: Instant reaction to the burning issues
He added: “It will be a different kind of challenge in the Champions League against Feyenoord.
“Like all of the opponents at that level, they are a very good team and we will be away from home.
“We just need to focus on our preparations and hopefully we can get a good result.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here