Hatate, O’Riley and Giakoumakis: 3 things learned from Celtic vs Hearts

Celtic could have easily ended up dropping points in a tough away fixture against Hearts but managed to come out with a 2-1 win, in what shows the progress that the Hoops have made since the arrival of Ange Postecoglou as manager. On the day, Reo Hatate and Giorgos Giakoumakis were the ones on the scoresheet for the club while the hosts ended up missing a penalty.

Of course, like always, there are things to improve upon. Celtic need to finish games off. They have not done so over the past few weeks despite taking early leads in all of them and having enough chances to score more.

They also need to learn to control games better as sooner or later, these nervy finishes will end up costing them points.

But overall, they should be delighted with the result and the performance, especially considering the circumstances that they find themselves in at the moment with several key players out due to injuries or international duty.

Hatate, O’Riley and Giakoumakis: 3 things learned from Celtic vs Hearts

Here are three things we learned from Celtic’s 2-1 win over Hearts with Reo Hatate and Giorgos Giakoumakis scoring the goals:

Reo Hatate looking like another transfer masterstroke from Celtic

What a strike from Hatate to open his account for Celtic. The Japanese midfielder powered one in from 30 yards out to give Celtic the lead vs Hearts. In terms of first goals for the Hoops, this is as good as it gets.

Hatate had been terrific in the previous game against Hibernian as well and is starting to look like another transfer masterstroke on the part of Celtic.

When Celtic signed the Japanese trio this January, many had claimed that Hatate was the one with the most potential and it is slowly becoming clear why. Hopefully, he can continue to perform like this moving forward.