Celt star Nakamura works ‘like Cantona’

GORDON STRACHAN believes Shunsuke Nakamura has the same work ethic as Eric Cantona — practice makes perfect.

During his Leeds days Strachan had first-hand experience of the work Cantona did behind the scenes.

hat is why the Celtic manager is more than happy to leave the Japanese star at Barrowfield after training to practice his free-kicks and perfect his skills.

Nakamura had been criticised recently for some quiet games for the Hoops but scored a stunning free-kick in the 5-0 victory over Motherwell at Parkhead which came as no surprise to Strachan.

"He did that because he practises," Strachan said. "I used to do the same work with Eric Cantona where I chested it down and he volleyed for 20 minutes after training.

"Naka is the same in that he stays on to practice after training.

There is no real expectancy on him. I just want him to keep doing what he does."

Stilian Petrov stole the headlines with the first hat-trick of his career but he also heaped praise on his team-mate.

"He was great and we all know Naka is a great player," said the Bulgaria captain.

"He has found it difficult to adapt to the game because it is tough here but he showed what he can do during the game and his free-kick capped his night off."

Petrov is in sensational form having also scored the winner at Kilmarnock on Sunday, but the 26-year-old felt it was more important to impress the manager and the supporters after a poor team performance at Rugby Park.

"That was my first hat-trick so I was really happy," added Petrov.

"The most important thing was after the Kilmarnock game we wanted to show everybody that we could up our game.

"We are trying to improve all the time and we scored some great goals and played some great one-touch football."

Motherwell manager Terry Butcher feels it is impossible to keep Petrov quiet in this form.

"Unless you put a man-for-man marker on him it's difficult to stop him," said Butcher.