What does the arrival of Tomoki Iwata mean for Celtic's midfield?

The arrival of Tomoki Iwata at Celtic has given the Hoops yet another option in the middle of the park.

Ange Postecoglou now has several midfielders at his disposal to fill the number six and eight roles in his team.

The Australian has - in no particular order - Callum McGregor, Matt O'Riley, David Turnbull, Aaron Mooy and Reo Hatate in his squad as well as fringe players Yosuke Ideguchi, Oliver Abildgaard, Scott Robertson and the currently injured James McCarthy.

While the arrival of the Japan international may mean the latter four are closer to leaving Parkhead in the near future, the club still has an array of talent to choose from in midfield and, realistically, it is not going to be easy for Iwata to break into this contingent in his first few months.

However, he is obviously J1 League MVP for a reason. Make no mistake, the 25-year-old will be coming to make his mark on the Scottish game - and make it fast.

The Japanese player is coming off an excellent season in which he won the league title with Yokohama F Marinos and seems ambitious to not only win another championship but feature prominently in Europe as well.

"I would like to give a result to the team and, of course, to become league champions,", Iwata said in his first interview with the club. "But also to have a good result in European competition. I think at Celtic we can go higher and achieve more in Europe - I would like to contribute to the club's history."

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Precisely that confident and focused mindset will be required as Iwata tries to break into a midfield which is, with no exaggeration, the beating heart of how Celtic like to play their football.

It is arguably the area of the squad in which the Hoops have the most depth and that leads to one obvious question: where will he play?

Postecoglou addressed this factor in a recent press conference, saying: "The way we were playing at the time at Yokohama, with that double six, I felt he could be a really good player.

"In Japan, a lot of teams tend to play on the counter-attack so I thought he could be a really good extra layer of defensive security for us. But he’s also very good on the ball technically and a very powerful runner. I know he could play two or three positions — full-back, centre-back and as a six."

The Australian has detailed at least three areas of the park the 25-year-old can feature in but if we concentrate purely on the midfield then it appears, through the omission of mentioning the eight spot, that Iwata is likely to play in the deepest-lying role.

That just so happens to be the position occupied by the club captain, who is no doubt also the first name on the teamsheet.

It is no easy task to unseat a player like that. However, he may not displace McGregor from the starting XI but instead allow the Scotland international the opportunity to push further forward on occasion.

Given he has previously featured as a central defender, Iwata seems a fine candidate to anchor the midfield three and snuff out any counter-attacking danger.

According to Wyscout, the Japan international completed a high number of possession-adjusted interceptions, 9.5 per 90, across the title-winning season that has just concluded. On average, he wins 68.72 of his defensive duels, which is among the best for a central midfielder in Japan.

The 25-year-old also seems like he will be able to deal with the important role of distributing the ball from the back by progressing it or playing the correct pass.

He finished the season with the second-highest passes per 90 in the whole Marinos squad (with 71.34) and also ended up with the highest total passes in the J1 League throughout 2022 (2,347).

In terms of passing accuracy, he was superb. He had an overall completion rate of 91.56 per cent and in his time as a centre-back he had the highest passing accuracy of any other central defender in the J1 League (83.44 per cent) in 2022.

He clearly seems a suitable candidate to give McGregor more freedom in the middle of the park and perhaps with a keen eye on future European competitions into the bargain.

If that is to be the case, then one of Mooy, O'Riley, Hatate and Turnbull will drop further down the pecking order but that is a natural part of squad progression.

The team faces many different challenges across a season, and each of those four, along with the captain and Iwata, will be required at different times depending on the opposition.

Crucially, it also allows the captain to be rested more. Given how much football he has played over the last few seasons, that is not a bad thing.

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Having someone who can hopefully take the burden off a player who has clocked up 1,819 minutes this season for club and country despite being injured would be a real positive. 

Avoiding repeat statistics such as the Scotland international playing 5,577 minutes during the last campaign and 5,582 minutes during the 2020-21 season will be imperative to making sure he can remain competing at a high level for Celtic for as long as possible.

On that front, Postecoglou has made his feelings clear on the importance of squad rotation already during this campaign.

"Everyone wants to play every game but it's impossible to do," he said recently. "If we are going to maintain the levels of performance that we need with the schedules we have, we need players out there all the time with energy.

"Knock on wood, our medical team and sports scientists have done an outstanding job this year in terms of keeping our best players on the park all the time and it has helped that I have been able to rotate the squad and keep players fresh."

Iwata's arrival allows for a variety of different factors to converge. The manager can now look after his captain's game-time even more but also give him a more attacking role if needed.

It also keeps Hatate, O'Riley, Mooy and Turnbull on their toes - no matter how well they perform, they will always need to keep improving on things to remain in the starting XI.

Ultimately it gives Postecoglou another quality player in his squad who has experience of winning a league title and will hopefully have played a role in lifting another one at the end of the season.

This piece is an extract from the latest Celtic Digest newsletter, which is emailed out every weekday evening with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from The Celtic Way team. 

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