Reo Hatate's Celtic omission mystery only has two answers but Brendan Rodgers must sort it either way - Chris Sutton

Reo Hatate was my Player of the Year as Celtic scorched to the Treble.

I’m fairly sure there are a number of supporters who would have agreed with that vote. Hatate was electric, he was dynamic, he was thrilling and, most importantly, he had a huge influence on the team. So the simple question is: What has gone wrong? Or what is going on?

Hatate being left out of the side for the opening day of the season and the subsequent comments on the situation from Brendan Rogers tell me something’s not right. Let’s get one thing straight. Rodgers knows a player all right. He’s not reached his levels in management by not being able to see talent. Hatate clearly has it so whatever reason, it’s not being shown. Of course, Rodgers might simply not think he’s as good as David Turnbull or Matt O’Riley. Fair enough if that’s the case. It’s a manager’s prerogative to decide who he likes and who he doesn’t.

But I cannot honestly believe that, if the Japanese was showing in training what he has shown on the park for the previous 18 months, he wouldn’t be starting. So that leads me to believe there can only be a couple of things at play.

Either something is simmering in the background as regards a transfer which is swirling around in his head and diverting his focus. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there are teams in bigger leagues having a close look in this transfer window. Or he’s simply not delivering on the training pitch for another reason.

Whatever it is, it can’t be of assistance to have one of your top players not firing and you cannot tell me Hatate is not within Celtic’s top bracket of stars. None of this is to take anything away from Turnbull and O’Riley.

Both have clearly performed through the pre-season for the manager and shown