The Celtic Section

The Celtic Section

Celtic Football Club has always been my football team ever since I was into football. I have begun to speak about my love for the club more and more lately and as I’ve connected with a lot of great fans of my team on Twitter I felt like a blog discussing where I think the club is at in the current climate going further into the season after a busy transfer window. I will be talking about club signings, star players, the recruitment policy, results so far and so much more in this blog post. I would love to know what you think of me discussing football and if there’s anything about football you would love for me to discuss then comment with what it is or connect with me over on Twitter where my username is @PaulMcG1994. Let’s get right into the blog post.

The signings

So as I write this the transfer window in Scotland has just closed and I think we have had a great transfer window with great development signings as well as guaranteed first-team quality too. The signings are as follows:

• Christopher Juillen
• Luca Connell
• Boli Bolingoli
• Hatem Abd Elhamed
• Tobi Oluwayemi
• Leo Hjelde
• Liam Burt
• Jonathan Afolabi
• Fraser Forster
• Moritz Bauer
• Mohamed Elyounoussi
• Greg Taylor
• Jeremie Frimpong
• Lee O’Connor

I think we’ve got a really nice blend of youth and experience in and in my honest opinion, this was one of our best transfer windows in a long time. We had a really big clear out of the deadwood from last season’s squad and I think we’ve replaced that with quality. Losing Kieran Tierney was a big loss but bringing in Boli Bolingoli and Greg Taylor to cover that left-back role is definitely great business. Boli has grown game by game and Taylor was up there with the best left-backs in the league last season and is still young so he has time to improve even more than that too.

Another key thing for me is that we kept the big exits to a minimum too. Rumours were floating around for most of the window but we’ve not lost anyone who is huge for the team and this can only benefit us this season.

The Results

We are currently on 11 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss from 13 games this season and for me, that is very good. Obviously, there was the disappointment of the home game with Cluj in the Champions League but since that match, we have played very strong attacking football and won games comfortably. The results have been as follows:

• FK Sarajevo 1-3 Celtic
• Celtic 2-1 FK Sarajevo
• Celtic 5-0 Nomme Kalju
• Nomme Kalju 0-2 Celtic
• Celtic 7-0 St Johnstone
• CFR Cluj 1-1 Celtic
• Motherwell 2-5 Celtic
• Celtic 3-4 CFR Cluj
• Celtic 2-1 Dunfermline
• Celtic 2-0 AIK
• Celtic 3-1 Hearts
• AIK 1-4 Celtic
• Rangers 0-2 Celtic

I feel like we can really kick on and some would probably say the international break has come at a bad time for us in terms of wanting to keep the momentum going. It will be interesting to see how we line up against Hamilton on the 15th as the first Europa League game away to Rennes follows it. I do think we should be making the most of our squad depth this season and I feel like maintaining our attacking style while keeping a solid defensive discipline on show will be essential because it’s what makes us very good at the minute and I also believe we should be progressing in Europe despite being in a tough group with Lazio, Rennes and CFR Cluj.

The star men

For this section, I am going to pick out my 3-star players for this season ahead. After the summer we have had it was very very difficult to pick just 3 but my final 3 are Odsonne Edouard, Kristoffer Ajer and Ryan Christie. I have picked 3 players in different positions because they stand out most to me and are a vital part of the structure of our team.

Edouard

I can say a lot about our forward player but the thing that strikes me most about him is his ridiculous levels of composure that he has shown time and time again when it has come to putting the ball in the back of the net. When the time comes and I hope it is later rather than sooner he will probably break the record for the highest fee we have ever received for a sale of a player. He has also now been selected for the France U21 squad so his star power will only continue to rise and the big clubs will come knocking for him.

Ajer

If this man isn’t our captain at some point when Scott Brown finally decides to retire I will be stunned. He is very dependable at the back and commands that centre back role every single time he plays. He shows the fans that he loves his football more than ever too by celebrating tackles like wins and by giving his all no matter what position he plays in. It took him a while to get going for us but since he has been played at centre back after his loan to Kilmarnock he has become a vital squad player who will only continue to improve.

Christie

Like Ajer, it did take Christie time to earn his way into the first team at Celtic following his move from Inverness. A loan out to Aberdeen showed that potential was there and in the last couple of years he has really shown that potential. He is full of energy and will always chase down opponents in order to win the ball back for a full 90 minutes and he contributes goals and assists on a regular basis. Keeping Tom Rogic out of the team is a difficult thing to do but he has made that CAM position his own and when Rogic is fully back from injury he will struggle to take that position from Christie.

The recruitment process

Something that is discussed a lot is Celtic’s recruitment process and how we go about signing players. I feel like in the past we didn’t do business quickly enough and could make a signing drag on for so long that it ended up making us lose out on good players. Towards the end of the window, I felt like that changed this year. On deadline day, we made 3 signings and everything seemed to be done smartly. We did go a while without a signing between the 2 main periods of business but considering we had a big rebuild to do this was fully expected.

I think we are doing some really good forward planning too. It’s not often we sign 7 players for the future in one window and I think a lot of that comes with trying to get a director of football/recruitment chief role sorted in Nick Hammond as well as finding players who we can mould into Neil Lennon’s style of play. It’s very clear we want to play a very fast-paced, direct style of football and it has shown to be effective so far. I also think the changes to the English Premier League and Championship transfer deadlines aided us as our signings came up from down south more and more as the window went on.

Recruitment going forward

I think we have a lot of options going forward with our recruitment, to be honest. As far as the first team goes I don’t think we will need much in January. However, if a position where we need cover comes up I feel that we need to act fast upon that and learn to create a shortlist of 4/5 players per position and not just 1 or 2 like Celtic seemed to do a lot before the summer window.

As far as development goes there are so many options for us going forward. I feel like to get ahead of the big clubs we need to bring these youngsters in at 15/16 years old from areas such as Scandinavia, South America and other European areas like Croatia, Holland, Russia. Work permits could be an issue in some places but if you don’t try you won’t find out. I feel like the earlier we bring them in the better as it means we can mould them into our style and develop them effectively. If they succeed then it’s great but if they don’t work out for whatever reason then we can cash in on them. We definitely need to keep bringing in bundles of them too because big teams will come looking for our players so having ready-made replacements at the club will only benefit us and save us the stress of first-team recruitment.

I would also get Nick Hammond signed up as a full-time director of football so that it can ease Peter Lawwell out of negotiations. I do think we should still stick to strict budgets each transfer window but there have been too many times we’ve missed out because of very small differences in transfer offers for players and we need to stop that from happening. I do also think that we need shortlists with more depth when it comes to finding players along with more scouts at the club. I think the more the merrier with the number of scouts because it can allow you to scout more areas at once and unearth hidden gems a limited transfer scouting network doesn’t allow for.

My final thoughts

I would love to take this moment to thank you for reading my content. I have put a lot of thought into this blog post and I would also love for you to tell me if you want to see more Celtic related content. You can do this by commenting on this blog post or by connecting with me on Twitter @PaulMcG1994. Have a great day guys.