KYOGO Furuhashi claimed that Celtic’s players need to improve their finishing after netting the second hat-trick of his Parkhead career in a record-breaking 9-0 drubbing of Dundee United yesterday.

Japanese striker Furuhashi scored three times in the opening 45 minutes of the cinch Premiership match against United at Tannadice to take his tally for the 2022/23 season to six.

His feat was matched by Liel Abada in the second-half and Jota, Josip Jurnaovic and Carl Starfelt also hit the target as the Scottish champions reclaimed top spot in the league table from Rangers.

The final scoreline was the record away victory by any team in the Premiership era – it bettered the 7-0 triumph that Aberdeen romped to against Dundee at Dens Park back in 2017.

But Furuhashi still believes that Ange Postecoglou’s team, who forced several saves from United keeper Carljohan Eriksson and passed up numerous chances, can perform better in the final third in future.

“I have never been involved in a scoreline like that,” he said. “I am happy with the hat-trick and I am happy with the team and the victory as we scored a lot of goals

“First of all, my teammates always provide me with good passes. The first aim (for the season) would be 20 goals and then I would like to reach 30 and more.

“It is the result of our football and what we have been working on. We are happy with the result, but we still have a lot of things to do.

“We certainly had more opportunities, but we need to improve our finishing quality although we have the confidence from scoring nine goals in this game.”

Celtic were last week drawn to play European champions Real Madrid in the group stages of the Champions League and Furuhashi admitted he is looking forward to the forthcoming games against the Spanish giants.

However, the £4.7m signing is focusing fully on the Premier Sports Cup match against Ross County in Dingwall on Wednesday night.

“The Real Madrid fixture motivates us,” he said. “We will try our best to play a good game against Real Madrid. But we have to keep playing well in each game.”