Martin O’Neill admits that Celtic will miss Yang
Martin O’Neill admitted that Celtic will miss Yang over the next few weeks and praised his players for getting a result on a tough evening…
Yang Hyun-jun was the Celtic match winner and a clear Man of the Match in Paisley last night, as the South Korean international star put in yet another impressive all round performance as the Hoops maintained their one hundred percent start to the Premiership campaign.
Five wins in a row can be added to the seven consecutive victories at the end of last season to put Celtic on a brilliant run that hopefully continues for the foreseeable.
Yang’s brilliant performance last night in the 2-1 win over St Mirren was the the prefect parting gift from the 24 year old who will now join up with the South Korean squad for the upcoming Asian games in Saudi Arabia.
The Celtic manager, who deserves great credit for the flying winger’s impressive turnaround, admits his side will miss the talents of the winger over the next few weeks.
Martin O’Neill said: “We are going to miss him. He’s in really fine form at the moment.
“If they don’t win the tournament, then he has to do (national) service. I hope they do win it.
“But he’s signed off with a brilliant goal. He’s in great form and he’ll work for you going backwards. He doesn’t mind doing the hard graft.”
Yang had an ice pack on his leg after going off but Martin said: “He’s OK. If he’d got up a little bit earlier, I think maybe we might have continued with him. But he looked shaken up a bit, so we took him off.”
The veteran Irishman also praised the home side for giving his players plenty of problems especially in a 15 minute period of the first half, but hailed his players for showing great energy and determination to earn all three points in what he described as a tough evening.
“They played very, very well indeed,” the Celtic gaffer said. “Caused us plenty of problems and took the lead. A 10 or 15-minute spell in the first half where I thought we were well and truly second best.
“We came out with renewed energy, renewed determination in the second half, got the equalising goal and went on to win it. But it was a tough evening for us.”
