Celtic Steps Up The Hunt For A Creative Player. We Are Aiming To Fill Some Very Big Shoes.

Brendan told the media yesterday that he is hunting for a creative, attacking player.

Although all of us believe that we should be prioritising a central defender, this is not bad news for us. Indeed, I’m pretty thrilled by it, as long as we bring in the right player. Those players are not easy to find. When we signed Scott Sinclair I knew we had one.

Now we need another. We need a player in a mould which even Sinclair doesn’t fit.

He plays primarily on the wing, and of course that’s Patrick Roberts’ spot. Sinclair is a little different to Roberts, and to Forrest, in that he also cuts inside and scores plenty of goals, but he lacks the kind of spark that we’re looking for here.

Brendan wants a very specific type.

What some call a “classic number 10.”

We’ve had such players before.

This article will look at the best of them from recent years, the prototype for what we’re trying to sign here.

And just for the Hell of it – and because the highlights are so damned fine – I threw in a video for each of them.

Kris Commons

The last player at our club to be able to play both a central role and one on the wings where the objective was not just creating chances but scoring goals. He epitomises everything the role should be. His record with our club was phenomenal; he came so close to hitting the 100 goal mark that would have given him a permanent place in our history.

Kris was one of those rare footballers who can conjure something out of nothing.

His goal to game ratio was fantastic for a non-striker. He was the go-to-guy on so many occasions, for so many big games, and opposition teams would build their entire game plans on trying to stymie him. It’s not for nothing that even European sides considered him our biggest threat.

His Celtic career didn’t end as well as it might have; Brendan never gave him a game, which suggested something had happened behind the scenes between the two. He has gone on, unfortunately, to a career in the media. Which means there will be certain points of contention between him and our support.

But really, it would be a tragedy to remember Kris Commons for that.

He was a sublime talent when on the top of his game, and we got the very best of him.

Here, amazingly, are all 91 of his goals for us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPwRyyIfbvU

Shaun Maloney

Shaun Maloney was an excellent servant to Celtic and it’s good that he’s back at the club in a coaching role now.

I can think of few players who our young stars can learn more from than this wizard on the wing who was equally comfortable playing a role behind the strikers of even up front as one of them.

Not only was he a great creative force, but he was a hard working player who gave a lot for the team during both of his spells with the club.

Shaun was capable of tremendous moments of magic as a player.

He could find a gap in a defence and exploit it like few other players I’ve seen. That he was a product of the youth academy made it all the more impressive; fans love it when a home-grown kid pops up to stake a claim. And what a claim. Amongst his most memorable moments was the sensational goal he scored against Rangers – one that was to be bettered only once – and his free-kicks could be breath-taking.

Apart from his goals, Shaun laid on enough of them to make him more than just a potent scorer.

He could drive at and open defences with ease.

He left the club under a cloud the first time; a lot of people blamed the player for the way it ended, but I do believe some sort of deal could have been struck had we not been going through one of our periodic cost cuttings.

His love shone through when he returned to the club, and his decision to come back as a coach is symbolic of someone who cares and ought never to have left in the first place. There has always been a suspicion that he was led by an overly greedy agent.

Whatever it was, he scored one goal in every four appearances for the club and laid on a pile more.

A player in his mould is just what’s required.

Here’s a short video of some of his career highlights … and because it shockingly doesn’t include the best … that’s underneath it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhRD0b2bB8k&list=PLLBaqwFGKtm09p18DSq7kvlQui2kiNCOF

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cizC1Rc-Ops

Shunsuke Nakamura

The Japanese sensation was signed from Italy, and he came with a sterling reputation.

It was one of the last times our club went out and bought the absolute finished article, with not even the slightest doubt about the skill-set we were getting or that he would do us a job. There are a handful of players I’ve seen in the Hoops who you genuinely believed could and would deliver on every occasion, no matter the opposition, and he did it time and again.

Naka did things with a football that seemed, frankly, impossible. His dead-ball ability was legendry.

I believe that whilst he was at Celtic Park we had the best free kick taker on the planet in our ranks.

Individual moments of magic in massive matches, in front of huge TV audiences, hyped others above and beyond our Japanese Bhoy, but I saw Naka doing it week in week out and the opposition didn’t matter a damn. He would just produce.

History will remember the twin strikes at Old Trafford and Celtic Park to down Utd, but it will also remember title winners and matches where he was unplayable in every way. And it will remember what I believe is the finest goal I’ve ever seen in a game against Rangers, his howitzer against them against Celtic on a big, big night when it was all or nothing and someone had to deliver in style. He ran riot that night, but his goal was simply incredible.

He was comfortable wide right, wide left or playing through the middle.

When he wasn’t scoring the most sensational goals he was creating them for others.

We have never replaced him.

Here are all of his Celtic goals. An awesome summary of his time here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvPYZTHpJEw

Lubomir Moravcik

Oh, that we had seen him, that we had signed him, in his prime, there is an entire generation of Celtic fans who would simply not talk about anyone else. Had he spent as long at our club as the King of Kings did, it might have been Lubo who was voted in as our best ever foreign player.

He was that good. He was that skillful.

He had everything.

Naka was the closest we ever came to a player of his quality and invention.

For opening up a defence and getting in behind them there have been few players in our history who were his equal. Like Naka he did it against anyone and everyone. He scored goals in Europe, he did it at Ibrox on a massive day when he tore their defence apart.

He scored twice on his debut against them at home, in one of the best all-round displays you could ever have hoped to see.

His natural talent was out of this world. Like Maloney and Naka he was a scorer and creator, and like both of them he was also a fantastic dead-ball player.

One of my finest memories of him was a free kick he scored against Motherwell; Goram was in goal for them that night and he stopped everything, and I mean everything. Then with just minutes left we got a free kick and up he stepped.

The screamer would have beat three keepers. Goram went nuts, launching the ball up the park in petulant frustration and to cap it Billy Davies, who was their manager, went nuts on the touchline.

And to think he was the signing who drew such mockery from the media.

What a player he turned out to be.

Here are all of his Celtic goals. What a treat to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbg_oqjsX8

In Conclusion

When the manager talks about wanting a certain type of player, of creativity, I like to think this is what he has in mind, one of these deadly footballers who is comfortable creating chances as putting them away, the sort who can find a gap in a defence or pull players towards him only to turn them and be behind them before they know it.

These four guys – and Scott Sinclair, who is the most like them in our team – could all do that, and did it time after time.

If we can find someone of that sort and bring him in then I do believe we’ll be happy enough with how this window has gone.

The search is ongoing.

There are ten days left to go.