Hearts boss Robbie Neilson has praised the success of Celtic’s transfer model after he added attacker Yutaro Oda to the squad this week.
Ange Postecoglou arrived at Celtic having had a successful stint at Yokohama F Marinos as he guided them to league glory.
He arrived in Scotland having a tremendous knowledge of the Japanese market and it was not long before the Hoops once again made their move in Japan for Vissel Kobe forward Kyogo Furuhashi.
That was to be Postecoglou’s only recruit from Japan that summer but he instantly returned once more in the following transfer window to add Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and Yosuke Ideguchi to his squad as they made a huge impact in Celtic going on to win the league title.
It has proved that Japanese players can come to Scotland and make an impact on the game with a number of SPFL Premiership clubs now scouring the market to find new recruits.
One player in the Celtic ranks who will be hoping to do that is defender Yuki Kobayashi who has arrived in this window alongside fellow J-League star Tomoki Iwata. Kobayashi is yet to be given a senior international cap but will hope that he can impress in green and white hoops to be given the shout by Hajime Moriyasu.
Neilson is confident that his new addition can add some quality to his team and believes that the Celtic new boys have led the way.
“I’m pretty sure the players will see the Celtic players in Japan and the ambition they will have to get to Europe. That probably helped with us bringing him Oda in. When you go into a market you don’t know, it’s always good to measure it against players who have come over,” said Neilson as quoted by the Daily Record.
“The majority of Celtic players have come in and done very well, which tells us that players from that league can compete here as well. Potentially, when you go into a market you don’t really know it’s always good to measure it against players who have come over.
“You see the majority of the ones at Celtic have done very well, that tells us it’s a league that can compete here as well.”
In otherwords Celtic show Hearts and the rest of the SPFL where to look for players !