Chris Sutton brought Celtic’s sale of Kyogo back into focus after their painful Champions League exit at the hands of Bayern Munich on Tuesday night.
The former Parkhead striker hero, writing in his Record Sport column, made no secret of his surprise at the decision to let the Japanese striker star leave for Rennes in a £10million deal last month without a replacement. And it was mentioned during commentary in Celtic’s 1-1 draw with the German giants after passing up three glorious chances early on in the Allianz Arena.
Celtic eventually did find the net through Nicolas Kuhn only for it to be cancelled out with the last kick of the game by Alphonso Davies as Vincent Kompany’s men progressed to the last-16 of the tournament. And Sutton took to social media to mention Kyogo, and the strength in depth which he said “niggles away” at him.
Brendan Rodgers spoke after the game of the need to strengthen to improve at elite European level and Sutton wrote: “That was such a bold, brave and disciplined performance. The only thing which niggles away is Celtic didn’t have a strong enough bench to help the team. I still don’t quite get the Kyogo sale but that’s me being picky on a night to be proud.”
In his Record Sport column at the time, Sutton said: Selling Kyogo Furuhashi feels like Celtic have just put their hands up and admitted there’s a ceiling on their Champions League ambitions. That the end of the road has been reached in Europe this term, whilst an unnecessary risk has been taken at home. If you wanted to be ultra-critical, you could even say it’s money over magic.
“Celtic deserve big congratulations for qualifying into the Champions League play-off stages. Brendan Rodgers and the players have really delivered at the top table and it’s been brilliant to see after years of underachievement at the top level.”