Kyogo Furuhashi is one of the most popular players in Celtic history. Over his three-and-a-half years at Parkhead, he was a regular starter throughout and managed to score 85 goals in total. That includes finding the back of the net in cup finals, Glasgow derbies and in the Champions League. As he left for Rennes in January, many hailed him as a modern club legend.
The timing of his exit was not ideal to say the very least. Celtic have the Premiership title to defend, the Scottish Cup to win and important Champions League knockout phase tie against Bayern Munich coming up.
One has to wonder whether Celtic made a mistake green-lighting Kyogo's exit. Especially since they did not have a replacement lined up and ultimately were not able to sign one before the transfer window.
Brendan Rodgers has now shed some light on the situation leading up to Kyogo's Celtic exit. And a lot of fans won't like it. As reported by the Daily Record, the manager said:
"Some people will say that, but you don't have the depth of knowledge that I have on the player and working with him and going back to the summer. It's a fair enough thing to say.
"You can very easily say you should really have someone in the door before you let him go, but there was a situation with that player which meant that wasn't the case. And that was something that had been running for a number of months, not just for the few days before he left. I repeat, if a player does not want to be here, then we do the best deal and move on."
Celtic fans won't like Brendan Rodgers' claim about Kyogo
So, it looks like Kyogo no longer wanted to be at Celtic. Perhaps he felt that he had already achieved everything possible with the club and that is somewhat true. He did win eight trophies in his three and a half seasons playing for the Hoops.
Now, this also looks to be a situation that had been running for a while. So, then the question is, why did not Celtic have a replacement in place before parting with Kyogo? The departure should not have come as a surprise to them judging from these comments.
No matter which way you look at it, Celtic did not handle this situation well. One can only hope that Adam Idah is able to find his form and lead the line moving forward.