One of the alarming parts of Celtic’s drop in form of late is how off-colour, Kyogo Furuhashi has looked.

The Japan star is a livewire and someone who puts fear into the opposition backline if you feed him the ball anywhere inside the penalty area – that’s why he was utterly devastating under Ange Postecoglou.

But following Celtic’s damaging 2-0 defeat to Hearts on Saturday, James McFadden suggested Kyogo Furuhashi simply isn’t the same player he was under Ange Postecoglou, as he told Sportscene Premiership Highlights.

That’s one goal in his last nine Premiership matches – he has six goals in total from 18 games, to put that into context, Hyeongyu Oh has five, yet has played far fewer minutes.

James McFadden feels Kyogo Furuhashi doing things he wouldn’t normally do has contributed to his poor form, including ‘running into wide areas’ and then not helped by a lack of creativity around him.

You have to say a lot of this falls on Brendan Rodgers’ head. Say what you want about the Celtic board, the manager needs to take some responsibility here.

Bring Kyogo Furuhashi to life, then it makes things far better. But that spark seems to have been lost.

Kyogo Furuhashi’s lack of form for Celtic

“Not what we are used to seeing and we aren’t used to seeing him running into the wide areas, either,” said McFadden.

“He is used to playing in between the goals and the wide men can make those runs in between full-back and centre-back, which then gives the defence a problem. Kyogo is having to fight for opportunities.

“He is moving away from goal and he’s not used to the Kyogo we are used to seeing. He has been criticised. But he is still having roughly the same amount of touches.

“They probably need another option (in January) because they aren’t playing the same way. They are probably having to rely on a bit more physicality, which he doesn’t have and they aren’t creating chances.”

Trust in Kyogo Furuhashi

As Kyogo proved earlier on in the campaign when he scored the winner against Rangers, he is a big-game player.

Hopefully, he can find his scoring boots before Rangers come to Parkhead on December 30.

But you would just bet your bottom dollar that he introduces himself to everyone again for that fixture because he is made for them.

There will be a lot of belief from Celtic fans that Kyogo will return to his best sooner rather than later.

You are just frustrated for him that he isn’t being fed as well as he should.