Callum McGregor names the Celtic players with 'hardest jobs' as captain gets specific with Angeball praise

Callum McGregor looks behind him and sees a defensive rock in Cameron Carter-Vickers.

He glances forward and sees a blur of movement and imagination in the shape of Kyogo Furuhashi. And while the rest of this Celtic team isn’t too shabby either, their captain is adamant that CCV’s solidity at one end and Kyogo’s star quality at the other are fundamental to a season that could yet end in a Treble. Ange Postecoglou and his men took another giant step towards that goal with a comfortable 3-0 win at Tynecastle on Saturday to book their place in the Scottish Cup semi final, with Kyogo and Carter-Vickers joining Aaron Mooy on the scoresheet.

It may have been a rare goal for the American but his ability to stop them going in at the other end gives players like McGregor the platform to play and the Celtic captain was effusive in his praise after a victory that was a lot more straightforward than many predicted it would be.

“He’s outstanding,” McGregor said. “He and Carl (Starfelt), to be fair and when Yuki (Kobayashi) came on, he was strong as well.

“I’ve said this plenty of times – in our system the two centre backs have the hardest job because they’ve got to start the play and be involved in everything. On the flip side of that, they are one on one defending all the time.

"So they’ve got to be strong and defend their line, they’ve got to be quick, so it’s a really tough position and when he plays it he makes it look easy. Let me tell you, it’s not easy.

“It’s the same with big Carl. We understand that gives us a big platform in the game to how we want to play.”

While Carter-Vickers’ work may go unnoticed at times, the same can’t be said for Kyogo’s. The Japanese whirlwind scored his 26th goal of the season with a sensational