Celtic confirmed the signing of German-born Poland youth international central defender Maik Nawrocki (22) this morning. The player emerged through the Werder Bremen youth system and featured only seven times before going on loan two weeks after his 20th birthday to Warta Poznan in the Polish topflight.
He spent half a season at Warta where he made only two starts and one substitute appearance before Legia Warsaw made their move and took him on loan for the 2021-22 season. Still 20, this was his breakthrough season and Legia made the transfer permanent last summer. The player has made 43 starts and four substitute appearances in senior football, well below our typical harvesting point in the mid-60s.
Zbyszek, our man in Warsaw, firmly endorsed him. Maik is “great in the air…. Focussed on the game… Good at passing through the lines”. Legia were fending off bids for him from Galatasaray that were close to double what we paid them for Josip Juranovic two years ago, indicating how much more they value Maik.
And wait for it……….. he’s two footed.
Our settled central defensive pairing has a clear hierarchy. Cameron Carter-Vickers rivals the great Virgil in status, while Carl Starfelt sits somewhere beneath the clouds. This is harsh on Carl. Both players are right footed, but Carl carries the burden of playing on the left, presumably because this suits the pair’s merits and weaknesses.
With Cameron not yet match fit, I would expect to see Maik on the left in the games against Wolves and Athletic Bilbao, allowing Carl to play on his natural side. Brendan Rodgers has not worked with any of these players. It will be interesting to see who he selects for the important games in September we discussed earlier.
Virgil was a week shy of his 22nd birthday and had started 50 matches when he joined Celtic. Maybe the sweet spot for central defenders is a little lower than mid-60s.
Welcome to Celtic, Maik.
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Stand up for the Champions.
First team?
Welcome Maik.
HH
KLV
And welcome to Nawrocki.
Welcome Maik, what took you so long 🤣
Maik Nawrocki is 1.85 metres
e-mail today suggests there still are Ross County tickets on sale
https://twitter.com/CelticFC/status/1683793519230562306?cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&refsrc=email
Will our new lad be Mikey? Rocky? or Awe Nawrocky on n aw noo? or Shug?
“great in the air…. Focussed on the game… Good at passing through the lines”
And he’s quick, by the looks of it. Certainly no slouch.
Big Wavy
Not sure we have too many expert analysts on here but we’ve had a few who have played and coached football ( I am not one of them) whose opinions are worth hearing, even when they are disagreeing with me.
Welcome young fella. We also need a CH who can walk the ball out comfortably as an option, like Virgil and big Kris Ajer could. With CCV back to full training will be great to see how they work together. I’m putting him down as a first team starter. Current status for me (hope that’s ok for the blog’s resident Stadler & Waldorf) are 4 gaps (with the caveat that the young pups we’ve bought make an instant impact)
New GK
AJ > CCV > MN > New LB
RH > CMcG > New CM
DM > KF > New LW
HH
Good afternoon all from Grace’s Bar. A fine day in old Glasgow Town.
I’m seeing Maik’s height reported at 6 ft 1 in on Wiki ,but somewhere else I see people are saying that he is 6ft 3in.
Does anyone have conclusive facts of his actual height ?
TT
SFTB 12.08
Got to be Rocky .
Great post the other day about nobody knowing if our signings or The Darnel’s are any good ,until we have seen them play.
TT
In Gerry McCullough’s interview he seemed to pronounce his name as MIKE.
Magic Maik it is.
Good first impression; very self-assured.
Welcome to the Hoops Mikey!
There’s our strategy starting to take shape. Don’t get too attached to them. Enjoy them while they are here and take comfort that we have a cracking coach at the helm who will make them better.
As as they do so, we hoover up domestically and make a fist of Yurp.
Rinse and repeat. Pleased to see we have a feeder club in Austria aimed at giving others a chance to develop beyond the poor standard of the scottish 5th tier.
𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗖𝗲𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗨𝟮𝟯’𝘀:
🇩🇰 Matt O’Riley (22)
🇮🇱 Liel Abada (21)
🇵🇱 Maik Nawrocki (22)
🇳🇴 Odin Holm (20)
🇰🇷 Oh Hyeon-gyu (22)
🇦🇷 Alexandro Bernabei (22)
🇰🇷 Yang Hyun-Jun (21)
🇦🇺 Marco Tilio (21)
🇰🇷 Kwon Hyeok-kyu (22)
🏴 Stephen Welsh (23)
🇯🇵 Yuki Kobayashi (23)
Welcome to Celtic Rambo Nawrocki
Mick Corleone or Michael Corleone?
Tiny Tim
6 ft 3 if he’s got his platforms on. Otherwise 6ft 1.
Burnley 78- your consistent skill,in selectively ignoring direct posts to you,speaks volumes on your arrogance, and disdain for other opinions on here.
If Mikey Johnston was Mick Johnston he might have been freed by now.
POWER = FORCE X SPEED
Who has the most ‘Power’? A smaller player who is incredibly quick, or a big strong player who is not so quick? …
Out of interest, who in the current Celtic Squad do you think has the most ‘Power’? Maeda? Starfelt? ???
A big strong guy who is also incredibly quick?… Now you’re talking!
Perhaps the formula above could also be modified to:
POWER = ATTITUDE(WILL) X SPEED OF THOUGHT? …
McGregor?
Welcome to Celtic Maik Nawrocki! 🙂🍀
How English Football is breaking the sport
https://youtu.be/
It will be interesting to see the effects of the new signings on team formation and which of our players will ‘make the cut’ and which ones will be left on the bench.
Some of the interesting dilemmas will involve defence. With three costly, quality centre backs in CC-V, Starfelt and Nawrocki will Brendan play with three at the back. If so what happens to the excellent Alistair Johnston?
Up front, if Brendan wants to play with two leading the attack, say, Kyogo and Maeda then do we play with only one winger? Who will it be? Or will he play with two wing backs and a central three? Who will they be? Reo, Callum and Matt.
How will Iwata, Taylor, Bernabei, Kwon, Yang, Holm, Tilio, Oh, Forrest be fitted in? Possibly as 70 minute subs. If we throw in Welsh, Ralston and Furuhashi we could field a team that would beat most other teams in the league.
TINYTIM on 26TH JULY 2023 12:18 PM
I’m seeing Maik’s height reported at 6 ft 1 in on Wiki ,but somewhere else I see people are saying that he is 6ft 3in.
Does anyone have conclusive facts of his actual height ?
—————
If he is as stated, 1.85 metres, then he’s 6ft 1.
Not sure how we confirm it though. 😳🤷🏼♂️😂
CELTIC V ROSS COUNTY
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Tickets for the Cinch Premiership match between Celtic & Ross County are now sold out.
Ireland lassies 1 Canada lassies 0
Direct from a corner
Anyone remember singing “Six foot two, eyes of blue, Big Jim Holton’s after you.”?
This was despite Holton being 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) and having brown eyes. Didn’t know he trained with us as a youth but wasn’t offered a contract.
At risk of indulging in lazy stereotypes
I like German footballers.
Athletic, intelligent, disciplined.
Welcome to our new “Polish” signing.
TRUTH_BEAUTY_AND_FREEDOM on 26TH JULY 2023 12:40 PM
I would have thought that AJ and even CCV might rank very highly on your power ponderings. HH
“Nawrocki, good in air, passes through the lines, focussed”
Sound a lot like Stephen Welsh (who we are trying to force out the door)
I don’t care if he is good in the air, he’s off the plane now. What is he like on the ground?
Chairbhoy and SFTBS
Thanks for the info on Dane.
I really liked the look of him ,cwhen I first seen him 2 years ago.
He’s still only 20, so hope he recovers from his latest setback.
Good to see that we’ve finally signed someone who will be in the starting 11.
Still to replace Mooy and Jota though
St Tams,
Mooy has been replaced by Kwon & Holm.
Jota we need to replace. I think we will and I believe it will be Tete until he rejects us.
Trust the process fella. The big uns will have choices and will take time.
HH
Thanks QUADROPHENIAN! 🙂
I agree with you about AJ and CCV and think those 2 would also score very highly in the ATTITUDE/WILL stakes! 👍
I love your ‘Power Ponderings’ 🙂 alliteration and will shamelessly borrow it if I may!
Further ‘Power Ponderings’: …
Kyogo would surely score highly for both Speed and Speed of thought!
If we take ALL of the below into account, then who would Celtic’s MOST POWERFUL PLAYER EVERbe? 🤔🍀
– FORCE X SPEED
– ATTITUDE(WILL) X SPEED OF THOUGHT
McGrory?
McBride?
Dalglish?
Larsson?
Van Dijk?
If we also take into Account ‘Power on the ball’ then Jinky immediately springs to mind. In the modern game especially, ‘Power off the ball’ is also very important,..
Lots of ‘Power Ponderings’ to ponder! 😂🍀
HT Canada 1 Ireland 1
Welcome to the Celtic family Maik.
May your days with us be blessed and trophy laden.
I’m just waiting on the first ‘Don’t pander to the Power Ponderer’ comment! 😂🍀