After what could easily be described as a pretty disastrous and hugely frustrating season, Celtic are back in the mix for the Premiership trophy thanks to Martin O’Neill and if the transfer window speculation rumour mill is to be believed, we have decided that this will be the summer where we make a firm move for Kilmarnock midfielder David Watson.
With Brendan Rodgers deciding to walk earlier in the season, Parkhead saw a return of legend and serial winner Martin O’Neill and despite his tender 74 years of age, the former Northern Ireland international quickly looked like he had never been away from the Bhoys and notched up seven wins from eight games to put us right back in to the mix.
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For reasons probably best left unexplained, we then pivoted to having a 33-day gamble with basically unknown Major League Soccer manager Wilfried Nancy. O’Neill again came to the rescue early in the New Year, but despite a very busy January transfer window, this second spell has had its hiccups and only eleven wins from the current 18 matches.
We are still in the mix, though, and the three-point gap to top spot is certainly not insurmountable, but we have made life more difficult for ourselves than we would have liked with some very disappointing defeats. We will have to see how the campaign plays out now, but as we begin our first team summer rebuild, rumoured long term target Watson could be a very interesting addition for whichever new man ends up in the managerial hot seat and our dug out.
Despite the regular and lengthy links to the 21 year old Scottish Under 21 international, we have never given Kilmarnock a decision to make, and if the speculation is true that we will now firm up our interest, we could find that the player has a number of options available to him. There are the obvious fellow Scottish top flight clubs given a namecheck on holding an interest in him, but Italian Serie A side Bologna are also being linked as having a very strong determination to land the player, especially as United Kingdom grown talent have been stealing the Italian headlines in recent seasons.
With 13 goals to his name in just under 100 appearances, he clearly has talent and an eye for goal. That is good and solid game time for someone of his age, and although it is only very minimal, he also had a bit of European experience outside of his international journeys.
At this late stage of the season it seems obvious that the player is ready for pastures new and that a new contract extension will not be agreed, and talent as a free agent is always tempting from a financial point of view.
If he is moving on, and he has been of interest to us, we could verbally get this agreed to way ahead of the window opening and it would be a great start to what is a very important summer for the club.
