Say sayonara to this crazy jaunt to Japan

Gordon Strachan's team are scheduled to play Yokohama Marinos on Thursday, August 3 - and then play Hearts at Tynecastle on the Sunday. Now the fans are quite right to question if this makes sense.

For me, asking your players to fly halfway around the world to play in a friendly game just days before one of your toughest fixtures of the domestic season is madness.

Apart from a trip to Ibrox to face Old Firm rivals Rangers, they just don't come any harder than a journey through to Edinburgh to face the Jam Tarts.

Anyone who doubts how hard it will be for Celtic should just cast their mind back to last season. Two nothing down before a spirited second-half fightback handed the Hoops a 3-2 win and then a 3-0 defeat at the end of the season after the title had been secured.

Now I'm sure the Celtic players will be travelling first class, but such a journey will still take its toll on them.

I can remember during my own Parkhead playing days when we had just played PSG over in France.

Tommy Burns, manager at the time, was given the opportunity to put the following league match against Motherwell back to the Sunday, but he decided to decline. We ended up being delayed in Paris, didn't get back into Glasgow Airport until 6am on the Friday and could only manage a 1-1 draw against Motherwell the following day.

We were shattered and there is no doubt the journey during the week prevented us from playing as well as we should have against Well and cost us a victory.

Now, who is to say the same thing won't happen to Celtic just two games into the new season?

Obviously we've still to find out the exact details of the trip. If it is simply a PR exercise to publicise the club in the Far East, which will bring in money to the club, then surely a more convenient date could have been arranged?

Why not go over there as part of the pre-season preparations if that was the case?

Maybe Strachan will send over a second team, with a handful of fringe players, to take part in the fixture and, if that happens, fair enough, there isn't much room for complaint. But if players are being asked to fly all the way over to Japan, play in a game and then return to Scotland to face Hearts a day or two later, I don't think it makes sense.

Celtic might not think it's much of a big deal at the moment, but what happens if they drop points at Tynecastle and then lose out on winning the title by a point or two?

Strachan will be aiming to get off to as good a start as possible and taking part in such a friendly fixture at that stage of the season would make life so much tougher for the Hoops boss.

Taken from Evening Times