How big is Kyogo Furuhashi loss? And how do Celtic replace him?

Only time will tell if allowing Kyogo to leave mid-season is a good move or not.

Selling a 30-year-old signed for £4.5m for a reported £10m, having enjoyed four excellent years of service, makes sound financial sense, but only if an adequate replacement can be found.

Former Celtic striker Chris Sutton said on X: “The one thing I really am not keen on is Kyogo leaving in January, especially with the Champions League and domestic to play for.

“If that’s the case, his replacement will have to be pretty special and have to hit the ground running.”

Podcaster Paul-John Dykes, from A Celtic State of Mind, described news of Kyogo’s expected departure as “really disappointing”.

“You look at that moment where he’s changed his agency in the summer,” he told BBC Scotland. “You don’t want to lose the quality of a Kyogo, but I think that was the first sign.

“After the change of agency, there was that story link coming to Manchester City and, at that point, we wrote that off as being a means of trying to drum up interest. Then there was the MLS chat of the week that was apologised for, it was a mistake online.

“But the one thing now that’s really telling is the fact that Brendan a couple of weeks back said that if a player doesn’t want to be here then he can go. And that left us all guessing who could that be?

“He was always there in the big games. You could count on him on the big occasion. I mean, even the ghost hat-trick the other night against Young Boys, he’s left us with a memory that his finishing was unbelievable. His anticipation, his movement, was incredible. Very, very sad to see him go.

“We’ve put ourselves in a position where it’s going to be difficult to replace him like-for-like in terms of quality. We do need to go in and buy a player in January, otherwise we’re going to be short for the rest of the season.”