Hayato Inamura

Looks a decent passer but not particularly strong in the challenge. Hard to take much from playing against Cork in a pre-season friendly though.

 

Looks like he’s perfectly suited to the inverted full back role, very good on the ball with an eye for a pass. We wont really know his defensive abilities until against higher opposition.

Safe to say though he’s definitely squad level at the least for now, either need to be loaned or trusted as KT’s back up.

 

Got the feeling the clubs gonna hold off on signing a backup to KT and see how this lad fairs.

I know the initial outlook from Rodgers was to loan him out, but if the club see him making some sort of impact in these coming games, can imagine they'll hold off and see if they can get away with going with Inamura.

 

Very positive performance, can't fault him at all. Obviously not a particularly strong challenge but liked what I saw, hopefully see more of him in Portugal.

 

Hayato Inamura was barely in the door but it didn’t sound like the Japanese defender should have been in any hurry to unpack his suitcase., writes Michael Gannon in Cork.


Brendan Rodgers heavily hinted the 23-year-old was likely to be part of the B team set up and probably heading out on loan.


But Inamura might need to clear some space in wardrobe after all, following 45 minutes in Cork that even surprised his manager as Celts saw off Cork City 2-1 in Ireland



The former Alberix Niigata ace was handed a start in Ireland in a slightly more unfamiliar left back role rather than his usual centre back slot.


And he produced enough in a superb first half display to suggest his short term future could be much closer to home.

Inamura stood out a mile. Right from kick off his touch looked class, his passing crisp and his delivery devilish.


He didn’t look scared to take the ball – instead he demanded it. There were questions when he landed about how he’d cope with the rough and tumble of the Scottish game, but there were some high balls and meaty contents in Cork and didn’t seem to get too flustered.

It’s ridiculously early days, of course.

But Inamura has certainly given his gaffer something to chew on.




When asked if he could force a Rodgers change of heart, the boss said: “One hundred percent. I'm not fixed on it. The feeling from us all was, okay, we'll bring him in and see how he does pre-season, thinking that he may need to get out and play.

“But I always judge players in the pre-season on how they look and are they going to be capable.

“He's certainly shown in the few days training he's so smooth with the ball. Not only that, he plays forward.


When you play for Celtic or any of the big clubs, you have to pass the ball forward.

“You've got to have the personality to take the ball and play and he has that.

“I've got to say, he surprised me. We knew that he was going to come in and I felt that maybe it was going to be a bit more settling in for him and maybe alone or whatever, but we'll see how he works.




He's obviously not been playing that long.

“I think we see that with the Japanese boys, they go through university and they're not actually professionals until they're 23, 24.

"So he's late into the game and then it's always about the adaption and how he comes across.


But in these first days training, he's so competent with the ball. He's a good size.

"He'll need to develop physically, that's natural when you come into European football.

"But his comfort on the ball, his willingness to attack is really good. So we'll see how he looks over the remaining games.

 

Thought he done well. 100% a full back.

 

Those comments by Rodgers sound encouraging on Inumara. We might just go with him as back up to Tierney, he's a good size, sweet passer of the ball and pacy, just don't know yet how he shapes up defensively. If we do, it would save us a bit of money to concentrate on a RW, CDM and CB hopefully.

 

He can also play his way out of tight spots which is always a handy tool if gonna play full back. He's quite vocal too.

But still got a lot of adjusting and learning to do.

 

Looks promising. Would be happy to be proved wrong on him.

Sporting and Newcastle games will be a better test. Need to see how he defends

 

rodgers is a laugh 'when you play for celtic ,you have to pass foward' .lets see it then!

 

Promising from Rodgers, he's usually pretty quick to downplay expectations on a player after a good cameo with stuff like "he's still a young man learning his trade" so to say he's been surprised by him and open to changing his mind means he must like him.

 

So much of what Rodgers says there is actually quite ignorant.

judging by those comments on what the plan was for inamura in his eyes… he hadn’t even watched him before but already had him wrote off! No doubt as it wasn’t his own transfer scout/choice!

also this “need to adapt physically to the European game” is a load of *. Maeda is the fittest player we’ve ever had at the club and he came from japan!!!

if a player is good enough, play them!!

 

Someone needs to ask who's signing these guys, it's clearly not the manager

 

I kind of wish that were the case, but noone is going to ever be able to convince me that BR (and his agent and lawyer/s) failed to negotiate say so (if not final say) on transfer dealings or assurances concerning transfer budgets.

There may be extra transfers that the club makes in addition (and Inamura may be one of those) to that that BR is the driving force behind, but considering how much that was an issue that resulted in his leaving the first time, there is no way he would've returned without those assurances being set in stone as part of the contractual conditions.

That said, BR has a pretty mediocre record in transfer market dealings at virtually every club he has been at, and irrespective of level of budget he has had to work with, so in a way knowing it is not exclusively in his hands is not the worst takeaway.

What is the more concerning from that takeaway is there may be a bit of disconnect in the internal communications or it might just be complete BS on behalf of the manager who has been known to signal messages of intent through the media to the club with the groundswell of 'popular opinion' to back it up.

 

Promising start by the sounds of it

 

Rodgers comments making some waves over there.

 

Didn't see the game but delighted to hear he impressed at left back. Could be the answer to Tierney's back up.

 

He looked exactly the same as he did in his youtube highlight reels, fairly mobile, showing to get on the ball plenty, always looking for a forward pass trying to be positive, only really went backwards/sideways when there was properly no option on. Good signs of how he'd be involved in games we're dominating possession. Not really tested defensively though.