Oliver Burke made all the headlines two years ago with a big money move from Nottingham Forrest to Leipzip but progress since has not gone to plan. He has played 46 minutes of league football for West Brom in the Championship this season, so has lots to do to recover his early promise at Celtic.
Brendan Rodgers has James Forrest in the form of his life this season, while Scott Sinclair is back in the team and scoring goals, but Forrest clearly tired before the winter break and, apart from Sinclair, options on the left are limited. Burke will fill the role hoped for Daniel Arzani, before his injury at Dundee.
Of more strategic interest is the potential signing of striker Vakoun Issouf Bayo, who plays for Slovakian club, Dunajska Streda. The Ivorian, who will be 22-years-old later this week, has played 32 games since leaving Africa, where he managed just nine starts in Tunisia. This is where Celtic now have to operate, in that narrow gap between when a player shows enough form to interest, but before his profile attracts the attention of others.
This has worked well for us before (van Dijk) but will inevitably have a high variance of success.
Although 18-year-old Timothy Weah has appeared in only six senior games, he will be more of a known quantity than Bayo. Celtic have experience of the French youth teams, in particular, Weah’s club PSG, from where they acquired Odsonne Edouard. Still, Weah and Bayo will both need plenty of support to settle.
If both deals go through we will have four strikers for the run in, a vast improvement on hoping Edouard can give us 20 minutes for key away games at Pittodrie and Ibrox.
This is all a bit early in the window for Celtic to be this busy. Unsettlingly so.
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Genuine question Ghuys..
When do we expect Weah to play? Either start, or come off the bench??
He wont play on artificial, (PSG will insist on that), would we risk him v the cluggers of Motherwell? Aberdeen?? huns??? with no protection from referees, (sorry, forget protection, just apply the rules of the game). Do we keep him for home games v opposition we would expect our full strength team to win??
He’s only here till end of May with No chance of us buying.. Whats the point??
Tontine
Excellent tale and writing.
I wish you would put your memories in book form. Brilliant stuff.
YNWA
BIG GEORGES FAN CLUB HAIL HAIL WEE OSCAR. cheers ghuys, this inclues we big georges fan club, thanks bhoys we used to sing them with gusto, never thought of them being sectarian in any way.hh.
Back to basics
NFL Should have told them to get tae or SG for comment. Sometimes I wonder …..daily record fashion shoot after ….’thieves & vagabonds’ comes to mind.
HH
southampton comparisons.
a quick look at transfermarket, says there are 5 players in the 26 man 1st team squad that are graduates of the hampton youth academy. making less than 300 appearances. james prowse aving 170 of these.
i would argue celtics youth set up is more succesful.
next, our scouting record was so bad that 4 plsyers were bought by southampton, foster £10m, vic £10m, virgil £12m, stuart, £7m, plus sell ons worth another £10m.
£59m worth of value, to that 1 club.
i dont think they are better at developing or scouting players than celtic are.
our set up is more succesful, by any measure.
Welcome to the best club in the world young Timmy Weah
Work hard, score a few goals and we will all get on just fine.
HH
D. :)
I see the Holy Ghost’s 11 are one up.
Saint Stivs on 7th January 2019 6:08 pm
happy tims, hurtin huns.
cant ever imagine sitting right next to them.
look at the coupons on the ones in the bottom right. him with the tie on, was he a huns player ?
mike ashley in the middle proving he is a tim.
celtic board top left corner.
who has the cup ?
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gzjEQdgqpRQ/VomRmtIattI/AAAAAAAAUp8/CL6TkWGr4KY/s1152-Ic42/100580-scottish-cup-final-rangers-v-celtic-0-1-aet-hampden-glasgow-BJKGR3.jpg
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Alfie Conn 1977?
BACK TO BASICS,
As I have been saying for the last couple of days, it is in overdrive and the BBC Scotland is leading it. To think we have to fund such bigots…..
SILVER CITY 1888 on 7TH JANUARY 2019 8:10 PM
The problem with the term sectarian is that everyone has their own idea of what it means. In fact the definition of it is so nebulous that it could be argued that the Celtic Song or even Ave Maria are sectarian songs.
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Yep – that’s probably true – a bit like some accusations of sexism where no intention of offence is intended can be taken as a mortal slight.
JAMESGANG – always liked the Heaven 17 backing singers – backing singers always seem soo smooth and cool. The guys & girls in Jools Holland’s’ Big Band, for instance, are superb.
HH
BGFC
TONTINE TIM on 7TH JANUARY 2019 7:47 PM
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Excellent read again Tontine.
Very talented indeed and the morale of the tale should not be lost on Brendan.
Thank you
D. :)
Adi – Hear you. Don’t want to be harsh on Neil
1) He is a Celtic man and
2) Victims of abuse are almost always (rightly) sympathetic to other potential victims.
That said
1) He should have seen this coming
2) By making this statement he has allowed a group with an agenda to create an equivalence between his experiences – multiple physical assaults and a credible murder attempt – and those of Beaton, alleged text messages and calls.
A victory for the “one side is as bad as the other” movement I’m afraid.
Hail hail
Celtic may spend 2 million keeping training centre at lennoxtown and barrowfield going, no way we spend 2 million on academy players only. Also the paradise windfall helps cover the bills for youth. barrowfield could be developed to generate more income would like to see i.e. 500 spaces for car parking just of london road, 3 pitches further back, one pitches with a 500 seater stand (with facilities) for reserve, unders and woman football games and training etc…
Academy does ok regards players progressing. Do think it would be better to have a feeder club at decent level where we could place best players to assist to close gap between youth and first team, but would not like to see other fans being forced to watch youth that dont offer better that what they can get. Ps one first player every two years would be great return for our academy.
Transfer business, good so far, get the striker in. Sign up quality rightback and centreback and I will be delighted.
HH
Interesting to see how Liverpool respond to being behind at Wolves- Klopp obviously hasnt learned from us that making so many changes is likely to lead to a lack of rhythm in your team and will he change his passing out from the back policy because his replacements obviously cant cope with it when being pressed?
So Beaton was threatened last week, I expect the perpetrators will be in custody by now, well they would be if it was true.
why not ask lenny about real threats to sutton.
Stephbhoy- there are plans to develop Barrowfield,new pitchrs,changing rooms,ladies and some youth teams will be based there.
MIKE IN TORONTO on 7TH JANUARY 2019 7:56 PM
Tontine
If you aren’t/weren’t a professional writer, you should have been, my friend.
*cheers MIT, when I was gainfully employed I did a lot of report writing, council by-laws etc so I had to be careful as far as the politicians were involved.
bada, any links to the planning for that ?
steph, good post.
tontine great post.
tonyrome, yes it is, ta.
Would not be surprised if the threats were made by the same media lick-spittle with a throw away sim card.
Mad Mitch .
With all due respect, your posts regarding your expectations , with our youth set up , need a reality check.
At youth level the players play, predominantly, against players their own age .
Progression from there to the first team squad is a huge leap . To then become a first team regular is a massive step.
You mentioned O’Donnell as a right back. He was with Celtic as a youth, he’s now 26 , and has blossomed after 4 years in Killie’s first team. Patience is required , big time patience, and then hope they have the mentality to deal with expectation . Throw in some entitlement within the support, and the environment becomes even more difficult.
Btw . You also mentioned Shay Logan, at right back . Seriously ? Sober up & keep the faith. HH
AngelGabriel,
Agreed regards SL, thats just bawbaggery.
Must say I was surprised at Lenny offering those thoughts re the allegations……….
Of course, he’s his own boss now.
MadMitch @ 6:59 pm
Sorry had to go out on Dad taxi duty.
I see you ASSERT that Southampton fit the criteria as do Celtic in some years over a decade ago but you provide no better supporting evidence than “a source told me”.
I looked at Southampton’s team for the last league game against Chelsea. Only Ward-Prowse of their starters, was clearly an Academy product. One other starter, Valery, was developed by a French team but came over as a 16/17 year old so you might be given that one.
3 of their 7 subs Stephens, Slattery & Ramsay) , only one of whom made an apppearance as an injury time “wasting time” sub have vague claims to Academy status but if you look closely you see that Stephens, was developed by Plymouth but scouted (bought) into Southampton’s academy at age 17, Slattery was in Chelsea’s academy but came to S/hampton as a 9 yr old so he counts but has only one FA cup start to his name and Ramsay was 7 years with Chelsea before switching as a 17 yr old. he has had 1 appearance.
No great evidence there. We can claim the likes of Aitchison, McInroy and Ewan Henderson As having achieved more
angelagabriel,
that was very well articulated.
i wasnt getting anwhere with stats. ta.
earlier comments on logan and odonnell also, did they not lose 4 and 5 goals to celtic just a few weeks ago.
lustig is still a better player than both. shows yir medals and caps, in swedish.
Liverpool brought on a 16 year old a academy player early on – Ajax academy that is
as was SFTB, ta.
Welcome Tim Weah.Just a thought.The two players Celtic have brought in on loan to help go for 8,probably have a market value of around 30 million.
I expect Lenny has to take such accusations on trust at face value, oh and he does qualify with “as honestly as he can” which for a lying cheating illegitimate is no very honestly at all.
SETTING FREE THE BEARS
To bring a wider perspective to the MADMITCH Southampton academy debate they have made huge sums in the last decade by selling home grown talent.
This has helped fund their raids on Celtic for Wanyama,Forster and Armstrong plus VVD.
The reason they do not have many in present squad is down to them being a selling club.
Neil Lennon has been vilified in the rags,since he came to this country, he should know when to tell them to gtf.
!!BADA BING!! Hope you are correct, have not seen any plans for development ar barowfield and only last year the old yard next to the training field on london road was up for sale, would have thought that land would have been ideal for redevelopment.
HH
Want to feel old? Timothy Weah was only 11 when Rangers died.
Canamalar.
Bawbaggery ;-))
Btw . Your cynicism, regarding Beaton isn’t misplaced. Killie have complained about the inconsistency from referees and the SFA . Hearts and Aberdeen likewise.
The Huns have had a statement every fortnight.
Celtic complain , and its full pelt reaction as if we were the perpetrator.
Saint stivs . Cheers ? .
https://youtu.be/PlnzG4SJvSI
watch Candiearse…….
FAN-A-TIC
I agree that they sold a great number of good Academy prospects a good while ago (Bale, Walcott, Chambers, Shaw) which gave them the money that allowed them to raid North – what’s their record since in player development? I am not aware of any further big sales.
Point remains- no club, outwith the lower leagues where needs must, meets that barrier that MadMitch set up as reasonable.
We are forever finding new ways to kick Celtic for failing to reach targets that are hugely difficult to reach.
STV,
The former Liverpool coach added: “It’s too early to be talking about getting involved in title races”.
Would that be the “ former under 17 coach”?
TONTINE TIM on 7TH JANUARY 2019 6:59 PM
Around 30+ year ago after the “happy birthday” game a night of celebration was had at a local Celtic establishment.
There were complaints about the type of songs being sung so a meeting was hastily called, topic, the singing of rebel songs.
1st question, define a rebel song, answer, one that mentions the IRA, solution, nae singing the Merry Ploughboy again lol.
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Tontine
The issue is simple.
Facts.
SOME of the supporters of our SCOTTISH team :
Sing the National anthem of a foreign country.
Wave the flag of a foreign country.
Sing songs in praise of a terrorist organisation.
Sing songs insulting the monarch of our country .
Why would reasonable Scottish people not view our Club as being disloyal to Scotland ?
Why would we expect Scottish institutions not to reflect those views and act accordingly ?
The questions are rhetorical .