SUCH has been the rapid rise of Matt O’Riley over the past year or so, it was somewhat jarring to not see his name among the initial 21 man list named by Denmark manager Kasper Hjulmand this week.
The midfielder may not yet have a full cap to his name, but his performances for the Danish under-21 side of late allied to his creditable showings at Champions League level with Celtic had raised hopes he may have had a fighting chance of making the cut for Qatar, even allowing for the quality the Danes enjoy in midfield.
He still has an outside chance, with Hjulmand able to name up to five more players in his final party. Even if he doesn’t make the final squad though, Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou says that his disappointment should be tempered by the sure knowledge that his time will come if he maintains his current level of application and performance.
“I don’t think Matt had to focus on that,” Postecoglou said. “He knows that playing his football for us and playing well will get him closer to that goal.
“That Denmark team is a very strong and settled aside. Whilst it would be disappointing for Matt if he missed out, I think the way he’s going, and if keeps developing, his time will come.
“He’s fortunate that he’s at an age where he’s still got a couple of World Cup cycles to come.
“He’s been really good. He’s just focused on his football here. If it happens then great, if not he’ll continue as he has been.”
Postecoglou was rather more surprised though that both Kyogo Furuhashi and Reo Hatate didn’t join Celtic teammate Daizen Maeda in the World Cup squad announced by Japan manager Hajime Moriyasu.
“In my mind both have the credentials to be there,” he said.
“But I’ve been a national team manager and they are not easy decisions to make sometimes.
“You take in the balance of the while squad and the manager is the one who’s got that responsibility. He’ll carry the can for those decisions. “From my perspective, I look at it from working with both guys. If they were selected I’ve got no doubt they could make an impact.”
Postecoglou has reluctantly become Scottish football’s own ‘tinker man’, with the compressed nature of the fixture list in the opening half of the season and the harsh lessons of the spate of injuries suffered last season playing their part in his approach this term.
He has made no fewer than 50 alterations to his line-up in the past 11 games since the defeat to St Mirren, a fact which only increases his admiration for his players due to the way they have handled the team being in a somewhat constant state of flux.
“Under any sort of normal circumstances, even in those circumstances, it’s probably too many,” he said.
“I was really conscious of us getting through this period with as many fit bodies as possible so we had the energy to make sure it didn’t affect our performances.
“I think every time I’ve made six or seven changes, even though I’m putting in fantastic players, it affects the cohesion of the team.
“Credit to the lads, we’ve found our way through that. The alternative for us was to rely on a core group of players. “We went through this last year and I remember going into games with barely enough players to fill a bench and were calling up kids from our B team for numbers and play in the first team.
“For me, it was a balance between ‘how can I ensure we are strong through this and don’t lose too many players through injury?’ without it affecting the cohesion of the team.
“Did I get it right? I think for the most part, yes. But I’ve got no doubt that if the games were more spaced out and I made less changes, I think our form would have been even stronger.”
Among the spattering of mainstays in the team have been the aforementioned Hatate and O’Riley, with Postecoglou praising the pair - who have racked up 38 games between them already for Celtic this season - for their resilience.
“It’s been important,” he said. “Again it’s a position where provided the lads themselves embrace it, you can grind through in those midfield areas.
“In these periods of football you are more concerned about the guys who are doing more of the high speed running stuff, your full-backs, wingers and strikers.
“They are the ones who you more need to manage through. But credit to Matt and Reo. You still need to be mentally resilient and strong.
“You’ve seen that with Callum (McGregor). He’s fantastic as just keeping on going in that midfield position game after game.
“It was only an impact injury that’s kept him out. For us, with Matt and Reo this year, we want to build that resilience in them.
“I think they’ll come out of it better footballers and stronger mentality. Just the fact they’ve got through it and have played so well through this whole time.”
Meanwhile, Celtic will be without James McCarthy for the trip to face Motherwell this evening, with Postecoglou describing a hamstring injury he picked up in training as ‘significant’ and likely to rule him out until after the World Cup.
