Lewis Morgan has had a difficult shift this season. The 23-year-old winger was used sparingly as a squad player before the concurrent absences of Odsonne Edouard, Leigh Griffiths and Bayo saw him drafted into the striker role against Rennes on 28th November.
Lewis scored a good goal that day but he is not a striker. He made another four appearances in that position before Edouard’s return, which brought the experiment to an end. He made 17 appearances in League One for Sunderland during the second half of last season. In the Wembley play-off final, he was brought on as an early substitute, while Aiden McGeady remained on the bench, but his time in the North East was not particularly productive.
Now he is Going to Miami for talks with Inter (not that one), with the MLS side having agreed a fee with Celtic for his permanent transfer.
There are several things about our experience with Lewis Morgan I like. Celtic scouts considered him the top talent in the Championship, a player with the potential to make the step up. It is good that we sign players like this.
He was loaned back to St Mirren, then after six months at Lennoxtown, out to Sunderland. He was given a chance in the qualifiers, then put through the striker turmoil, which gave Neil Lennon a chance to assess the player.
The player has a League Cup winner’s medal and a Wembley experience, things that he will be talking about for the rest of his life, and is likely to sign a contract to keep him in Florida for a few years. He would have hoped to hold down a first team place at Celtic, but on balance, the move from St Mirren has worked out well for him.
We have difficulty keeping players who are outstandingly successful, but they usually leave a for fee that allows us to further strengthen. What happens with players who do not make the grade is also important. Getting them off the wage bill, for a fee and hopefully a profit, stops the budget from being clogged by unproductive costs, a problem we have discussed on these pages since the days of Martin.
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Sky News saying Flybe could go under….avoid
Celtic40me
Was only three weeks ago, i also don’t agree about him having to play second fiddle to Edouard because if you bring in someone good enough who bangs in the goals both play, the system is adjusted, also a squad game players get injured. We should be running with 2 or 3 more highly paid acquisitions and trimming the excess cheap projects.
Their is definitely ways to improve the squad without bursting the bank.
SYDNEYTIM on 12TH JANUARY 2020 10:36 PM
Celtic40me. I choked on my cornflakes when I saw you say that 3.5m was a decent amount of money for a striker
I hope you’re ok, especially seeing as that’s not what I said.
We rarely spend that amount of money, as you’re so keen to tell CQN. It suggests we’ve seen something in him.
Sydney, The amount of cash in the Bank won’t impact one way or the other on Pedro’s bonus.
CEO’s in Irish Banks had their bonus linked directly to Profits. They gambled big, Sub Prime Mortgages from the States were the order of the day immediate paper profits turned to dust when the borrowings were irrecoverable, Share Prices fell from 25 euro to a couple of cents, almost bankrupted the entire Country.
Call Desmond anything you like but don’t call him a fool, if Pedro was putting his own welfare ahead of the Celtic Company, he would be out the door in a flash.
He will have targets set like any other CEO, Profit will be high on the list but there will be a lot more than that, I have no doubt but footballing success will also be high on the agenda.
Easy for you to scoff at that & keep posting doom & gloom posts slaughtering everything about the running of Celtic.
I have learned nothing is as black & white as you paint it.
Anyhow what counts right now is this window, how about waiting till it’s done before adjudicating on it.
SID on 12TH JANUARY 2020 10:44 PM
Their is definitely ways to improve the squad without bursting the bank
There are, hopefully that’s what we’ve just done.
I’m not sure changing what has been a pretty successful system so far this season to accommodate a new signing is a great idea when we’ll need to win almost every game between now and the end of the season. Maybe Lenny sees a front 2 as a way of beating them at least once in the remaining two games but I didn’t think there was much wrong when we were topping our Europa group and were on the long winning run.
SID
I’m opTIMistic that our new signing is more Dembele or Edouard than Bayo.
Tiny Tim
I would counter saying our recruitment team in various guises has recruited :
Virgil
Moussa
Eddie
Ajer
Olivier Ntcham.
Wasting money on the ‘has been’ washed up old pros who might fancy an easy time in scotland has never really worked for us. Or anyone !
I come back to the question of which known players should we sign. We don’t need to be super scouts to have a look throught Ida or transfer market and see who is there. Few would come unless they have no other offers. And there is a reason for that. Only those wanting to market themselves for the big stage such as Eddie or Moussa. That’s a market we have done well in.
Celtic40me
Well just imagine how well we might have done with another top striker added to the squad, that I was calling for in the summer, rather than making another big profit that wasnt required or a necessity. I see a drop in quality when Edouard goes off, he was also injured for about a month and a partner for Edouard letting him roam and find pockets of space would enhance our team, we’ve done well but theirs certainly room for improvement, especially with a massive bank balance.
https://celtsarehere.com/picture-patryk-klimala-arrives-in-glasgow-to-sign-for-celtic/
SID on 12TH JANUARY 2020 11:06 PM
Celtic40me
Well just imagine how well we might have done with another top striker added to the squad, that I was calling for in the summer,
You can only play 11 players at a time. We lost at Parkhead with OE up front, we won all the games that he wasn’t fit for.
Yer right OS is shit, take the first offer and get rid
Ghuys, Thanks for the chat but this Tim is knackered so it;s Good Night & God Bless from me.
OE even
I take it Turnbull is cricked then, or are we saving wages till the end of the window?
Bada,
The photograph does not instil confidence of him passing his medical. 😉
Patryk arrives on zimmer
Celtic 40me
Your not really getting this having a squad competing against each other to raise levels concept are you. You can never have enough good players, we have operated for 5 months with one top striker. Look at the performances of his replacement Morgan, absolutely stinking. Yes we still won games and able to beat Ross County but your forgetting how lucky we were to win a cup and struggle to beat Hamilton at home.
Pog- VG….give it a couple of weeks…
Bada,
Just having a laugh. Bhoy needs to be given a chance like one or two others.
Personally I think Bayo’s movement off the ball is excellent but like the Griffalo impossible to judge what level they are at without a sustained run in the team. Time for two up front. Also time to give Shved a run out. Jamesie needs some competition sitting on that bench.
The media will start the negative stuff on the guy soon enough.
Leave them to it…he will need our full support.
Hail Hail.
Pog- I was meaning, give it a couple of weeks and he will be injured……..hope now obviously, I liked the look of Bayo,was getting in the squad and then injured again…..frustrating for all HH
*not
Burnley78
My main gripe is about signing players with a history of being injury prone.
I’m with you on the failures of golden handshake signings .e.g. Lundberg,Roy Keane ,Gary Gillespie ( original crock signing)(:-).
But .
Lennon ,Hartson , Sutton were the stage before ( would need to be loans now )
Robbie Keane ,Craig Bellamy worked.
I don’t have the inclination or time to look at whose available.
As I said ,that’s our paid scouts job .
Mido ,Balde ,Bangura ,Brozak,Pukki,Tonev,Rasmussen,Carlton Cole,Wakaso,Berget,lassad,Scepovic,Ben Hutchison,Kazim-Richards,Ciftchi,
The ratio of success to poor is not good enough .
Especially in the striker positions.
TT
Unproductive costs? How about a CEO who makes more money than 90% of the English top flight clubs CEO’s and continually sells every best player the club has? Signings – Bayo, Shved, Arzani, Taylor? A ridiculous programme of replacing quality with ‘potential’ that no doubt is about to bite us on the arse big time. The embarassment of losing the league this season should be equally placed at Lennon’s door as well.
Here is two questions
1.Who was last recognised strike pair and when?
2. Why and when did we stop with two upfront ?
ST,
The game tactically has changed Big Time.
Who knows maybe a return to 2 strikers would benefit certain teams.
I cannae see Celtic being one of them. But you never know.
WTF, Ryan is Brutal.
SMSM putting out sh!t that Morelos is a Charity guy.
Ryan Kent, Do your Good works in secret.
We have Lenny. Praise the Lord.
The Truth.
Lenny Bhoy.
Anger is indeed an Energy.
Petec. You might be right
But who was our last strike force and why did we change ??
Shearer kicked Lenny in the head.
Lenny is one that Forgives Easily.
God Bless Lenny.
Gerrard is posing him massive questions.
I Believe we can get 1 point at the hate factory.
No club has Domination quite like this.
Neil Francis Lennon. Thank You.
Europa League.?
SYDNEYTIM on 13TH JANUARY 2020 3:08 AM
I’ll have a stab, Hooper and Stokes.
Probably the success of teams like Liverpool, Barcelona, Man City, Bayern etc who play with one main CF in recent times or more likely the goals wee Forrest adds from out wide mean we don’t need two up top..:)
HH
So nothing about Turnbull then
DBHOY close hooper and stokes were not really a strike force did not play much together usually hopper on his own 31 goals i think
answer was scott mcdonald and van vinegar of H . 2008/2009. Van V of H ws replaced by Marc Fortune in season 2009/10 which he struggled . Scott McDonald started off a lot of that season injured and when he was fit, he was sold to balance the books in jan 2010
at that point we brought in Robbie keane on loan to be our loan striker that is when it happened!!!!
It was nothing to do with tactics!!!!!!!!
, all down to hard cash and we would not buy the going rate for one never mind two goal scorers and hence the 5 in midfield came about
sooo now we have the cash get two up front again :))))
Good morning CQN from a calm,dry and quite mild Garngad
Hopefully Patryk will get through his medical and we move onto the next target.
Let’s get another couple in, I would prefer some steel in midfield.
Hail Hail
D. :)
Sydneytim
I’ll stick with Hooper n Stokes. They played a good number of games together and were very potent with KC playing in support. I remember them both scoring a hat trick each against the sheep. I would consider them the last strike duo we’ve had.
One main CF is a bit of a tactical trend imo.
Now regards the main thrust of your point. If I’m picking up what you’re laying down correctly then I completely agree it would be good to see two CF’s especially in SPFL games when most teams only play one up against us.
HH
Reading back on here prompts this – remember the adage “failure to prepare, prepare to fail” – well CQN’s adage appears to be ” failure to preach doom, leave the room (blog)”.
How can one site be so unrepresentative of the mass if our support?
If, what is the norm on here was true, we should all be “drinking the Kool Aid” at Celtic Park.
Canamalar
Turnbull at Motherwell has Not yet returned to first team action since his operation
Hope that helps with explanation why he will not arrive this month
5 MORE SLEEPS