Soccer
Martin O’Neill admits Celtic will miss Yang Hyun-jun during Asian Games
Celtic manager Martin O’Neill admits they will miss the talents of Yang Hyun-jun during some crucial games after the South Korea winger netted the winner against St Mirren.
Yang scored in his second consecutive appearance as Celtic came from behind to beat Saints 2-1 in Paisley.
The 24-year-old will now fly out to Japan for the Asian Games and miss the midweek trip to St Johnstone and two games against Rangers, plus the Europa League opener against Ferencvaros.
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 O’Neill 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.”
Saints took the lead midway through the first half through a Nikolas Agrafiotis penalty following a Liam Scales handball.
But the Irish defender headed the equaliser six minutes after the interval and Yang netted on a counter-attack midway through the second half.
St Mirren were heading for the top of the William Hill Premiership at half-time and they registered 19 shots on target.
“They played very, very well indeed,” O’Neill 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.”
Celtic’s winner came from Camilo Duran dispossessing Ryan Carr 10 yards into the Hoops half but St Mirren head coach Craig McLeish feels they are gaining so much more from their possession-based approach.
“I thought there were so many good parts about our play,” McLeish said.
“Probably the little bit of frustration was when we were a wee bit loose in possession. The first half, Celtic’s chances come from us giving the ball away at times when we should be more secure on it.
“And then even the second goal, that comes from us not being secure on the ball.
“We can’t then turn round and have a pop at the boys for that. We’re asking them to play, we’re asking them to be brave on the ball. We just need to keep doing it better at times, we need to keep building on it.
“Throughout the night we carried a threat. Even when we go 2-1 down, we show so much bravery and personality to keep going and keep playing.
“We probably have our strongest spell of the game and create some really good chances, probably unlucky not to take one of them.
“It probably shows where we’re at: we’re so disappointed with not coming away with anything.”
