Sutton worried that Brendan Rodgers ‘doesn’t fancy’ Celtic’s £2.5m man

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Celtic hero Chris Sutton admits he is concerned about Oh Hyeon-Gyu with the £2.5 million striker left on the bench during the 2-2 Champions League thriller with Atletico Madrid on midweek. 

Brendan Rodgers, Sutton believes, was crying out for a different sort of attacking threat as Celtic’s early ferocity faded into fatigue against Diego Simeone’s Spanish giants. Kyogo Furuhashi and Daizen Maeda had ran their proverbial hearts out, and could go no longer. 

But the sight of James Forrest coming in on Kyogo’s place with ten minutes to go – as Oh Hyeon-Gyu continued to twiddle his thumbs on the Parkhead bench – has Sutton wondering what the future holds for a man brought in as part of Ange Postecoglou’s Far Eastern recruitment drive in January. 

Brendan Rodgers omits Celtic striker Oh Hyeon-Gyu

“If you can’t play through a team anymore because the legs have gone and you don’t have the back-up of the bench to boost the energy again without losing the quality in your play, you need a different way to relieve some pressure and get yourself up the pitch,” Sutton tells the Daily Record. 

“Someone you can clip a ball 40 yards up the pitch and he’ll win you a free-kick or hold the ball up. Drag the opposition back and let your unit move forward and get a breath. Right now, Celtic patently don’t have that.

“Giorgos Giakoumakis could do it, but he left.” 

Oh is yet to score in eight Celtic appearances under Rodgers. Every single one of his outings in 2022/23, meanwhile, have come from the bench, the former Suwon Bluewings frontman averaging just 12 minutes on the pitch. 

‘Needs to get up to speed’

“Oh Hyeon-gyu might have been the one (to change the game against Atletico),” ex-Hoops frontman Sutton adds. “But the fact he’s not playing much tells me he’s either being poor in training or the manager doesn’t fancy him, because it was crying out for that type of striker.

“It’s not old fashioned, it’s not old school, it’s not route-one dinosaur stuff. It’s a valuable alternative.

“Either Oh needs to get up to speed or this (Celtic losing control of games) may keep happening. That’s a tweak and an adjustment I feel they have to make.”