Reo Hatate was all smiles with Brendan Rodgers after his Champions League heroics. No wonder. The Japanese is back to where I thought he’d be a year ago.
Front and centre and dominating games at Europe’s highest level. For all the accolades handed out to Celtic’s players this week, Hatate’s display was the most noteworthy in my book for a variety of reasons. Rodgers has huge performers throughout his unit right now and I cannot remember seeing a Celtic side control a game at that level against such high-quality opposition in the competition.
Sure they took five off Slovan Bratislava, but RB Leipzig was different. They are second-best right now in the Bundesliga and they were most certainly second-best in midweek. Nicolas Kuhn is, naturally, taking most headlines for his goals and I’ve no idea how the team are going to replace Callum McGregor when the day comes for him to finish. Mercifully for my old club, that’s a while away yet because he was just sublime against Leipzig.
McGregor just makes things look so easy. He just does things in under-pressure situations where others buckle and blunder.
The captain knits everything together and he’s been that way for quite some time. His consistency of performance is always there. Which is, it has to be said, why my eye has been drawn back to Hatate.
In the second season of Ange Postecoglou in Glasgow, the midfielder that he brought to Scotland was just outstanding. Kyogo may have won the Player of the Year Awards for his goals, but I felt Hatate should have been the recipient and I said so at the time.
How the Japanese boys that were signed by Postecoglou were going to respond to his departure for Spurs was a big topic at the time. And, although Kyogo and Daizen Maeda kept up seamless good form for Rodgers, Hatate’s career ascent flattened off.
The start was well documented. The fact the boss opted to select David Turnbull ahead of him at the beginning of last season made you wonder what was going on.
No offence to Turnbull who is a fine player in his own right, but he’s not at Hatate levels and the manager wouldn’t have been leaving him out just for the sake of it.
Something wasn’t right, that seemed clear. And then when he did manage to get into the side and show his qualities, he kept breaking down. Instead of running Champions League games last season, he missed out too often due to injury.
It was left to Matt O’Riley to come up trumps alongside McGregor and you can’t say the Dane didn’t respond. He was superb and Paulo Bernardo did enough to earn himself a return ticket from Benfica. In the end, Hatate, while still making a contribution or two showing glimpses of class, mustered less than 20 starts.
From shining light and potential superstar with the world at his feet, the Asian had stalled and was fighting to recapture his best.
I’m pretty sure no-one would have been more frustrated at that than Hatate himself and he’s then had the gauntlet thrown down to him this season with the permanent signing of Bernardo coupled with the arrivals of Arne Engels and Luke McCowan.
Of course, new faces are always flavour of the month in the stands. McGregor is McGregor. His standing is assured amongst fans, but the supporters have fawned over Engels, loved Bernardo and delighted in the work of McCowan.
Crucially, though, Hatate must be catching the only two eyes that really count. Those of Rodgers. Yes it is a squad game and yes having the options is vital to the way Celtic want to play. But, whatever anyone says, the first pick team for the bigger games tends to tell you a lot. Sure there’s horses for courses, but when you get the nod the majority of the time, then for my money it shows when you are in the pecking order.
Four Champions League games so far and Hatate has started in three of them. Old Firm game. Started. Cup semi-final against Aberdeen. Started. That tells you what he’s delivering for Rodgers on a day-to-day basis and something else has caught my attention with Hatate over the past week.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who felt that, at times, he wasn’t getting through games. When the subs board went up after an hour or so, you sensed he would be one to get replaced. Myth or not, it happened plenty in the past. But he’s blown that notion out of the water this week.
When the numbers went up seven days ago at Hampden, Hatate’s was never sighted. The full 90 minutes against the Dons and he was at it right until the end.
He doubled down on that spectacularly against Leipzig. Although absolutely superb in the first hour, many in the stadium were still slightly surprised when it was Engels who made way for Bernardo against the Germans and not the Japanese.
Hatate justified Rodgers’ faith and more. Not only did he grow even stronger in that last hour, he added his first-ever Champions League goal to seal the deal.
Make no mistake, that 90-minute performance of that quality against that standard of opponent is a real statement from the player of where’s at once again. Hatate is back to that thrilling best with outrageous talent and an engine to keep it all running.
At 26, he’s five years older than Engels, four more than Bernardo and looks to be really grasping that senior-figure responsibility. It was where I thought he’d be last season. No wonder Hatate and the boss were smiling together afterwards.