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| <-Page | <-Team | Wed 02 Aug 2006 NK Siroki Brijeg 0 Hearts 0 | Team-> | Page-> |
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| Valdas Ivanauskas | <-auth | Julian Ryall | auth-> | Viktor Kassai |
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Celtic count cost of friendlyJULIAN RYALL in Yokohama August 04 2006 Celtic were last night picking through the debris of another crushing friendly defeat with directors defending their fixture schedule and Gordon Strachan warning again that his squad is not strong enough. The club, who lost 3-0 to Yokohama F Marinos, are due to arrive back in Glasgow this afternoon after a 13-hour flight from Tokyo to London Heathrow and have just tomorrow to recover before the Bank of Scotland Premierleague match against Hearts at Tynecastle on Sunday. To add to their woes, striker Kenny Miller strained a hamstring the day before the game in Yokohama and is a doubt for the Hearts match. The defeat to Yokohama means Celtic have won just one of their eight friendly matches in the past month but Michael McDonald, a director who travelled to Japan for the match, yesterday insisted they were right to play the game and said Strachan was happy with the fixture schedule. However, Strachan admitted there were "no positives" to take from the match and said that the performance in Yokohama and the 3-0 defeat to Manchester United last week showed that his squad was not strong enough. The manager also said the two matches, in which the club used many fringe players, showed how reliant they would be on first-team regulars this season. Defending the decision to play in Japan, McDonald said: "We are a big club and we have to stretch ourselves. We have been to the United States three times in the last four years and the pre-season games we played this year were against some of the big Premiership clubs. We had a powerful squad out there – including seven or eight players who will be starting the game on Sunday – and we're happy to be here. He said of the Hearts fixture: "We were fully aware of that before we came out here, as we were aware that we would be playing Chelsea [next] Wednesday, but the manager seems to be very comfortable with that." McDonald refused to comment on reports that Celtic would receive £850,000 for travelling to Japan to play Yokohama Marinos, midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura's former team, but preferred to focus on the positives, such as the reception the team received from local people and the amount of effort that had gone into promoting the game. However, Strachan said after the match: "There were no positives tonight. Games like tonight and Manchester United give us warning that there is a lot of responsibility on the players who play regularly. If we do not play them regularly, we will be in trouble." Strachan sought to play down the impact of the trip to Japan on the Hearts match, saying: "I don't think this trip has affected the players who are still there [at home]. They will be well rested, tuned and ready for the game on Sunday. "Of course I was disappointed with the result, but this simply serves to highlight that we have 16 or so players who can play well in any team and in any conditions. We have to keep them fit and improve upon our front players." He added: "It was a performance that will make sure that I won't be sleeping well tonight. And that's to go with the two hours of sleep I got last night. "On Saturday we played well; on Wednesday we played poorly against Manchester United," he said. "The sides against United and here today were chances for young players and fringe players to impress me, but the two performances make it clear to me that the squad we have has got smaller and smaller. "It means we have a nucleus of 14 or 15 players that we can rely on – and that's not enough for a club like Celtic," he said. Nakamura, who returned to face the club where he made a name for himself before a transfer to Italy's Reggina, was diplomatic about the players' hectic schedule, but admitted it had been "mentally tough". He said: "As a team, it was a bad result, but personally it felt good to come back and play a team I used to play for. I feel sorry for the other players who have had to take this long journey, especially as we have had a lot of friendly matches, in the US and Poland, while Chelsea is coming up soon, but I will be very happy when I can concentrate on domestic matches and make sure that my physical health is fine and that I am making progress." The match in Yokohama was watched by more than 27,000 fans, many of whom bought merchandise from a Celtic store outside the stadium. Harry Duffy, a 42-year-old who left Irvine 18 years ago to set up a building business in Melbourne, Australia, said at the match: "In Scotland and Ireland, we've got as much of the market as we're going to ever get so the club has to look elsewhere. It's all about finding new sources of revenue." Stephen McKee, a 34-year-old teacher who has lived in Japan for 10 years, added: "It's meaningless. It's all a commercial exercise designed to sell shirts – they've obviously done well on that score."  Taken from the Herald |
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