Journalist Robbie Hanratty was left impressed by Celtic forward Sead Haksabanovic during the club’s most recent game.
In their second Champions League game of the group stages, the Bhoys took on Shakhtar Donetsk away from home.
After a bright start to the game, Reo Hatate’s deflected effort gave Celtic the lead only for Mykhaylo Mudryk to equalise before the break.
With the scores still level at half-time, Daizen Maeda came on for Haksabanovic. But during his time on the pitch, it seems as though the winger caught the eye, with Hanratty singing his praises on the live blog for the Daily Record.
Captioning his post ‘Slick Sead’, he wrote:
“Sead Haksabanovic is fouled and wins Celtic a free kick in a dangerous area. But the resulting effort goes behind for a goal kick.
“A really big night for Montenegro international. His clever movement and turn of pace is already causing the Shakhtar defence havoc.”
TIF Thoughts on Sead Haksabanovic and Celtic…
The 23-year-old joined from Rubin Kazan over the summer having signed a five-year-deal. Since that move, however, he had only featured off the bench for Celtic, so this first start was indeed a big occasion for the player.
Judging from those comments, it certainly looks as though he showed some real quality in his 45-minute cameo. Indeed, in his stats (via SofaScore) the attacker won three out of four duels, managed one interception, had 31 touches and won three fouls – the most while he was on the pitch.
In particular, the way he was fouled on multiple occasions does suggest that he really was causing the opposition ‘havoc’. He may have only lasted the half, but it was a pretty decent showing from the ‘slick’ Celtic man.