Celtic duo Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate have been benched this morning as Japan prepare to face Australia in World Cup qualifying.
The pair both started among the subs last time out against Saudi Arabia. Japan won the game 2-0, with Maeda playing the last half hour.
Hatate, however, remained on the bench throughout. Today, he will hope to avoid a repeat of his last trip away with the Samurai Blue, during which he didn’t play a single minute despite being called up and travelling halfway across the world with his international teammates.
The 26-year-old has made an inconsistent start to the season with Celtic but is arguably the best midfielder in Scottish football on his day.
Maeda, on the other hand, is a running machine. Brendan Rodgers has previously hailed the forward as the best in the world at pressing, a point which is difficult to disagree with.
The Celtic manager’s priority this morning is ensuring that Maeda and Hatate leave the match fit and healthy.
The Hoops have an arduous run of seven games in 21 days on the horizon, so Rodgers will need a fully fit and firing squad to pick from.
Things start this weekend with the visit of high-flying Aberdeen to Parkhead on Saturday in a table-topping clash.
Happy enough for our players to be playing less during these international breaks, especially as we haven’t had a great track record of players picking up injuries on international duty?
Still would have a bit of concern for the mental impact for Hatate, if he shouldn’t get any game time yet again?
Personally, don’t know how the Japanese manager has stayed in his job after his amount of failings, and certainly hasn’t done anything to boost the confidence of our Japanese players?
Still looking like he would rather do more damage than good regarding them imo?