Ange Postecoglou hoping for full Celtic team to reach potential against Rangers
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou has stressed his focus is on ensuring his full team reach their potential against Rangers rather than spending too much time pondering how to utilise Kyogo Furuhashi and Giorgos Giakoumakis.
Postecoglou has his two main centre-forwards fully fit for the first time as Celtic look to all but secure the cinch Premiership title with victory over their city rivals on Sunday.
Furuhashi scored his 17th goal of the season against Ross County last weekend on his first start since aggravating a hamstring injury on Boxing Day.
Giakoumakis arrived in Glasgow without having done a pre-season and was still trying to get up to speed when he was booked in for surgery to clean up his knee.
The Greece striker only scored once in the first half of the season but he stepped up in the absence of Furuhashi after utilising the winter break to work on his fitness and is now on 13 goals for the campaign.
Giakoumakis returned from a minor hamstring injury off the bench in Dingwall after missing the Scottish Cup semi-final defeat by Rangers.
Daizen Maeda started up front for Celtic at Hampden but struggled to make any impact on the game and Postecoglou now has the dilemma of whether to start with Furuhashi or Giakoumakis and which one could come off the bench to make an impact.
Get FourFourTwo Newsletter
The best features, fun and footballing quizzes, straight to your inbox every week.
“It’s better than earlier in the year when I had neither of them,” the Celtic boss said.
“Both are in great form. Kyogo is certainly getting closer to the fitness and sharpness that he is comfortable with. With Giako, he only missed a week, he didn’t lose any conditioning.
“They are both ready to go and both ready to make an impact but, ultimately for me, it’s about having as many of our players as we can playing their best football on Sunday.
“That will be important for us rather than thinking that one or two individuals are going to make the difference.
“The key to our success up to this point has been the contribution of everybody at different times and we are going to need everyone ready to do that on Sunday.”