One thing that has been levied at Celtic this season is their lack of cover for Kyogo Furuhashi in the striking department.
Yes, the club has options that they can use as a temporary fix. Players like Daizen Maeda and (when he returns from injury) Liel Abada can put in a shift as a striker, but in reality, sticking plasters don’t work as a permanent solution to a gaping hole.
And that’s why pundit and journalist, Mark Guidi, is not totally convinced about South Korean striker, Hyoengyu Oh. The 22-year-old had a decent scoring return for Celtic last season but, at the moment, Guidi believes Celtic need a better option.
Guidi said [The Go Radio Football Show], “He’s a major downgrade on [Giorgos] Giakoumakis. I like Oh, I think he’ll come good. But he is a proper project player but Giakoumakis, as much as you can be, was the finished article in terms of Scottish football.
“I mean some of the goals that he scored. The quality in his finishing. He was every bit as good at finishing as Kyogo.
“What actually was the full story with Giakoumakis? That was always a strange one. But it was allowed to just go because Celtic had been so successful.
“And whatever Ange said everybody just went along with because that was it. But when you look at it now, just bringing on someone fresh for the last 20 minutes, as I say, I like Oh, but at the moment, he’s a real downgrade on Giakoumakis.”
Criticism of Hyeongyu Oh is harsh
Cards on the table. Did Celtic make a mistake in selling Giorgos Giakoumakis? I think they did but it wasn’t their fault.
Giakoumakis wanted guaranteed first-team football and that is something Celtic couldn’t offer him at the time.
The form of Kyogo Furuhashi meant that the Greek striker had to cool his heels on the bench and, ultimately, that is something that he wasn’t happy to do.
In Oh, Celtic have a young striker with raw talent and his national manager, Jurgen Klinsmann, rates him highly.
All he needs is minutes on the park to give him a real chance to show what he can do. In seven appearances for Celtic, Oh has had a combined 81 minutes on the park. [Transfermarkt]
That included two Champions League cameos at eight and four minutes and a two-minute appearance against Kilmarnock yesterday.
In fact, the longest the Korean has had on the green is 21 minutes and that was in the 3-0 win against Dundee last month.
He’s simply not getting the opportunity to showcase his finishing because, as we saw last season, Oh can find the back of the net when the chances come.
Unfortunately for him, they are not coming quickly enough in the limited time he is getting in a Celtic jersey.
In other news, ‘David Beckham-esque’: Peter Grant was blown away with 23-year-old Celtic player vs Kilmarnock