All the Celtic chat this morning is surrounding the club sending scouts to watch Japanese playmaker, Kanji Okunuki.
Sky Sports reporter, Ben Heckner took to social media platform X to post this update last night, “News #Okunuki : according to Sky information #Celtic Glasgow is interested in Kanji Okunuki from 1. FC #Nürnberg.
“The Scots have scouted the Japanese intensively in recent weeks. But there is no concrete offer yet.”
And in my opinion, that offer must wait till at least the summer as Okunuki’s latest comments should set alarm bells ringing for Celtic.
Okunuki said [FC Nurnberg], “The coaching staff of the Japanese national team told me that they would continue to monitor my performances in Germany.
“Of course, one of my goals is to be able to represent my country at the Asian Cup.
“However, this is only possible through consistently good performances at FCN. And that’s what I’m focusing on right now.”
Celtic face an Asian Cup headache
The Asian Cup has the potential of upsetting Celtic’s defence of the Scottish Premiership title this season. If selected, Brendan Rodgers faces losing up to seven players for the tournament.
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The players he is definitely looking at losing (depending on injury status) are Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate and Hyeongyu Oh.
On top of those four Celtic could also lose Marco Tilio, Hyeokkyu Kwon, Tomoki Iwata and Hyunjun Yang. That’s a total of eight first-team squad players.
Granted, Kwon and Iwata are the least likely to be selected for their respective countries but you can never say never in football.
Celtic have a pressing need to get in cover for the Asian Cup starting in January. Focusing on a player who has designs on making the competition and a player that the Japan national manager, Hajime Moriyasu, is keeping tabs on could end up being a huge mistake for Brendan Rodgers.
Since his summer move to Nurnberg, Okuniki has scored four goals and created two assists in the German second tier. Hardly eye-catching.
The winger has also been rated an average of 6.8 by football ratings site, SofaScore for his performances for his new club.
Whatever the scouting department has seen at Celtic must be enough to convince them to target the winger but, for me, they should be focusing on targets who will be first-team ready and not at risk of going to any tournament in January.
In other news, Peter Grant says ‘incredible’ former Premier League winner would love to play for Celtic