Celtic star opens up on close-knit dressing room culture and hails Japanese striker the ‘nicest man I’ve ever met’

Celtic midfielder Matt O’Riley has labelled Japanese team-mate Kyogo Furuhashi as the ‘nicest man’ he’s ever met - claiming he could miss four open goals and still have a smile on his face.

The former MK Dons star opened up on the strong togetherness in the Hoops dressing room that is driving them forward in their relentess quest for a domestic Treble this season.

O’Riley, who has drifted in and out of Ange Postecoglou’s starting line-up in recent months, put in a man-of-the-match performance and netted twice during Sunday’s impressive 4-1 dismantling of Kilmarnock at Rugby Park.

While several of Postecoglou’s new recruits, including January signings Yuki Kobayashi and Tomoki Iwata have had to wait patiently for their opportunities to impress, O’Riley believes everyone if pulling together and playing an important role in the pursuit for a clean sweep of trophies.

He also reserved special praise for talisman Kyogo who took his goals tally for the season to 29 in Ayrshire before passing up a chance to add his 30th of the campaign after missing a first-half penalty. Despite passing up the opportunity, O’Riley reckons the way he put it quickly behind him epitomises why he is such a special player.

“He’s probably the nicest man I’ve ever met,” stated the 22-year-old. “That guy could miss four open goals in a game and still be smiling, which I find incredible. It showed the king of guy he is and it’s really nice to have someone like that in your team.

“He’s knows he’s already got... I don’t know how many goals, so I don’t think he’s too fussed about missing one. It’s not just on the pitch with what you see, he’s genuinely the nicest man I’ve met. Regardless of whether they miss or score, they’re still going to work hard.

Furuhashi displayed that he is more than willing to help out defensively when he bailed O’Riley out by sprinting back the length of the pitch to make a crucial goal-saving intervention to snuff out a rare Kilmarnock attack. Recalling the moment he gifted possession away with a smile, O’Riley admitted: “I remember it perfectly because I gave away the ball and he covered me nicely!

“That shows the character of everyone in our team. It doesn’t matter who makes a mistake, someone else is going to be there to rectify it. I think we’ve shown that across the course of the season. It showed last week as well. It wasn’t our most fluid performance (against Rangers) but we gave everything and that was enought to get us over the line.

“That just shows the depth of our squad. Yuki and Tomoki have come in from another country and culture and have settled in really quickly. And it helps that they are both genuinely very nice people as well, so they’ve settled into our culture very easily. They are both really making an effort to speak English with us which definitely helps.

“On the pitch you can see they are enjoying themselves. Yuki probably hasn’t played as much as he wants to but when he’s been asked he’s performed really well which shows the kind of guy he is.

“It’s quite unique as we have got a lot of different nationalities in our team, with a nice blend of Japanese and pure Scottish guys who keep it, well, Scottish! It’s a nice balance.”