ANGE Postecoglou tonight admitted he is unsure if Kyogo Furuhashi will be fit to face Rangers on February 2 after watching his Celtic side defeat Hibernian 2-0 at Parkhead.

An early goal from Daizen Maeda – the Japanese internationalist who joined the Glasgow giants along with his countrymen Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi this month – and a first-half Josip Juranovic penalty secured a comfortable victory.

Postecoglou - whose team moved to within three points of Rangers, who play Aberdeen at Pittodrie tomorrow evening, at the top of the cinch Premiership table with the win – was delighted with the performance and the result.

However, the Greek-Australian confessed he is unsure when Maeda’s compatriot Furuhashi, who is his top scorer with 16 goals in the 2021/22 campaign, will be available for selection again and if he will make the derby match.

The 26-year-old, a £4.6m summer signing from Vissel Kobe in his homeland, had been struggling with a hamstring problem before the winter shutdown and hobbled off in the first-half of the league meeting with St Johnstone at McDarmid Park on Boxing Day.

"It's fair to say he hasn't recovered from the injury,” said Postecoglou. “We're still getting some advice on it. He's not likely to feature in the next couple of weeks at least, it could be longer.

"In terms of definite time frames, we're just getting some more info and hopefully during the week we'll know a little bit more.”

Asked if the striker would be available to face Rangers, he replied: “Mate, you're talking about a game that's four or five away from us. Anything past tonight is no real concern to me.

"From our perspective it's really important we started the second half of the year at a good level, a good intensity, set down a marker tonight and go from there."

“We’ll see. We are just waiting on some firmer advice. Suffice to say, it is something that is going to keep him out for weeks. I don’t know how many weeks.

“We will just wait and see what happens this week. We were hoping he would return quicker, but we will probably know better later in the week. It is two or three weeks.”