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Should This Be The Window We Buy Scottish? And Who Out There Would Fit The Celtic Profile?

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The transfer window has been open a few weeks now, and with three signings already in the door, and both of them for big bucks, Celtic’s squad building seems to be taking shape in a very nice way. But there are positions that still need to be filled including central defence.

There is talk, of course, about Shane Duffy, and he appears keen on the move, but Brighton are alleged to be demanding a hefty loan fee – a reputed £2 million – to get the deal over the line, and I don’t believe Celtic should be paying anything like that.

Once again, it comes down to EPL money, and the clubs down there demanding – and sometimes getting – crazy cash for their footballers.

We’ve never paid a loan fee at that sort of level before and I don’t believe we’re going to start now, unless it comes alongside an option to buy at a relatively good price.

In those circumstances, maybe.

So either Brighton will reduce their demand, we’ll work something out or we’ll walk away.

That would present us with a dilemma … but might it be one who’s answer is a little closer to home?

In short, is this the year Celtic chooses to buy domestic?

And if we did, who would the likely candidates be?

Well, there are a few … most Scottish based players are well below the level we’d be looking at, but there are a handful who are just interesting enough to register on the radar.

We’re going to take a look at who those particular footballers are …

Martin Boyle

Martin Boyle is an obvious option, and this website has been singing his praises for a while.

Of all the players currently in the SPL, he would be my first pick because he has pace, he has talent on the ball, he scores goals and in a better team would grow as immeasurably as a footballer.

And he plays wide right, where Forrest gets into the team every week because he has no competition for his place.

Which is not a state of affairs any major club should wish for. It is important to have every footballer looking over his shoulder, and the reason he’s gone backwards is that he doesn’t have that fear pushing him on to better form.

Boyle has the talent to be a Celtic player.

He is confident and quick thinking, with good feet and a knack for scoring goals.

Lennon knows him well and rates him highly … and with Hibs about to open talks about a new deal the time is now for getting in there.

He can probably be had for around £2 million. That’s a bargain in modern football terms, but the Easter Road club might be understandably reluctant to sell him to another Scottish team … and our history with buying players from them isn’t exactly great.

Nevertheless, I think if Celtic made their move most supporters would be happy with it.

Boyle could do us a turn, and most realise that.

More importantly, perhaps, is that he would grow as a player … and that would make James Forrest better as well.

Aaron Hickey

This was a deal I wasn’t initially interested in seeing get done, because the kid plays in a position where, until recently – this week – I wouldn’t have said we needed another player. Of course, Bolingoli has changed all that and a left back is suddenly a priority.

I wouldn’t pay a bit of notice to anyone who says we’re after ex-Dundee Utd boy Barry Douglas; our current plans are to sign footballers who can actually stay fit and his injury record is atrocious. We’d be asking for trouble there, and to be blunt I don’t think he has the quality.

Does Hickey though? Well, he’s certainly in the right age group and he’s certainly got the growing reputation.

There are top clubs talking to him, but it might just be that he longs for Celtic Park after leaving as a youth player.

There is interest for Europe – including Bayern Munich if you can believe that.

Watching them last night you can see how he’d grow as a man and as a footballer, but not where he would fit into that world class, Barcelona annihilating team at the moment, or for years.

Would he play at Celtic?

Well, he already has enough SPL experience that we could throw him in there without worrying, and we gave Tierney his debut younger than Hickey is now. Greg Taylor is doing just fine out there at left back but we need cover and competition and there will be squad rotation, and that means Hickey would play a lot of football.

Is the deal realistic? If you believe Craig Levein we made more than a few attempts to sign him before, when Hearts were in a position – so they thought – to turn our money down.

But they aren’t in that position anymore, and they know it well.

One other thing to consider; we have a 30% sell-on clause should Hearts actually punt him.

It would probably be better for them, and more lucrative, if we were the buying club as we could waive that fee and they’d get maximum value from the deal.

Until he signs for someone else, this is a live one.

Scott McKenna

An obvious one this, and one that a couple of seasons ago would have seemed like the perfect bit of business.

Indeed, all the planets seemed to be aligning just so … and then Aberdeen, flush with ego and the stupidity that thinks because Celtic can command a premium for its player that every team in Scotland suddenly can, slapped a ludicrous £8 million price tag on him.

End of interest from Celtic Park.

On the surface, anyway.

Aberdeen could have gotten a tidy sum from Celtic for McKenna, and they might even have gotten a nice chunk of change from someone in England, but that kind of demand is plainly bonkers and not even the cash rich clubs of the EPL and the Championship were remotely willing to part with money like that for a Scottish Premier League player outside of Parkhead.

The price-tag did the player no favours either; for the last couple of years I’ve watched him be steadily eroded by that mammoth valuation and all the pressure that goes with it. So much so, in fact, that there are two other defenders on this list I’d consider in front of him.

McKenna looks a shadow of the player many thought he was going to be.

He has stagnated at Aberdeen and hasn’t coped well with being rated in that fee bracket. He knows his chances of the sort of move he wanted are less than they were … and there is no way Celtic would even pay the £5 million we might once have offered to get him.

The more I see of him the less impressed I am these days, but that’s a consequence of a lot of things having gone wrong for him. He is, of course, one of the Aberdeen Eight, facing a lengthy ban from the SFA for breaching health protocols … which further dilutes his value.

What would a reasonable price be for McKenna now? £3 million at most, which is quite a drop from the days when Aberdeen thought they might even get eight figures if they could somehow start an auction. He’s not worth anywhere near that.

David Turnbull

Turnbull is a very good footballer, and with the advantage that we tried to sign him last summer before his injury devastated the move and set his career back a full year.

It was great to see the kid shake it off, finally, and score a goal in midweek. He is definitely back.

The question naturally arises; would we still want him?

Well, the midfield isn’t markedly different from it was when we were initially interested in the player, but there are two crucial developments which might make it difficult to see.

The first is that Olivier Ntcham hasn’t left and doesn’t look as if he will.

The second is that Ryan Christie has developed into a phenomenal footballing weapon who works hard, scores goals and plays in a similar position to Turnbull.

It was already obvious that Christie was going to make it at Celtic, but his explosive performances last season sealed the deal.

David Turnbull could undoubtedly do the job for us.

He’s a great player, and if his fitness is no longer in question then it stands to reason that it would be an excellent piece of business. Times are tough for clubs in the SPL and it might not even require the fee we paid last time … but has the chance come and gone for this kid because of the talents of others?

One tantalising possibility is that someone in the Celtic midfield might leave, and I know who the main candidate to depart is; I’ve been meaning to do a more fulsome article on Tom Rogic for a while. It’s just not clear to me what his future in this team is at the moment.

If he goes then, yes, the possibility of Turnbull signing opens up again.

The thing is, a lot of Celtic fans might not consider that a trade worth making … but maybe the club would.

John Souttar

John Souttar has nearly 200 career appearances in Scottish football, every single one of them in the top flight. Big deal, you might say.

But here’s the thing; Sevco’s much hyped central defender Leon Balogun has had 228 domestic appearances in his career.

Souttar is 23. Balogun is ten years older than him.

That’s both a measure of how injury prone the Ibrox club’s new centre back is and a tribute to the talents and staying power of young Souttar, who broke into the Dundee Utd first team squad at sixteen and has never looked back.

I thought he made a mistake going to Hearts, who were never going to allow him the full expression of his talents, but aside from last season, when they were dreadful, he has been solid and dependable. The time is clearly right for him testing himself on a bigger stage.

He is wasted in the Championship, and no question about it.

Souttar has become a full international at Hearts, and is young enough that he has years of his career – the best years – in front of him.

There is no question that he would be available for a modest enough sum, and that, initially anyway, he would be provide good cover … but I like this kid and he has a lot of talent, which has been lamentably underdeveloped.

I think this would be a half-decent shout.

Ryan Porteous

I like Ryan Porteous. Like Souttar and McKenna, he started young and he’s still young.

He has nearly 80 games for the Easter Road club, all in the SPL, and he is still only 21.

His contract at Easter Road runs for three more years; he’ll be gone long before then.

He is one of those footballers who has had to grow up quickly and he’s done so.

We aren’t going to know how good he can for a couple more years yet, and Jack Ross is not going to want to let him leave no matter the price … so he may even cost more than McKenna.

But we’d be getting a kid at an important stage of his career but who has already improved out of sight and is going to get better and better … this might be our last chance to grab him before the English clubs start sniffing around for real.

I am a huge fan of this kid, and think as a long-term prospect he would be a fine signing.

But as his experience proves, he can also do a job for us in the here and now, and would be a fine backup to our central defence as it stands.

Hibs would be tough to deal with … but I think if we wanted the player we’d get him, and we certainly have the money to go and do it.

Allan Campbell

When Motherwell dropped points in midweek, their manager was scathing at the attitudes of many players of the team, saying at one point that they had been playing the match with just seven men.

He praised David Turnbull, who was the man of the match, but the man he singled out for the most praise, for his hard work and endeavour, was Allan Campbell.

He is 22. He has over 100 appearances for Motherwell.

He is a solid defensive midfielder who has been capped for Scotland at Under 21 level.

There is a lot to credit Campbell for. He is a grafter, the sort of player Lennon likes, and he’s at that age where he could be moulded into a long-term replacement for Brown. He is the only defensive midfield player on this list; it’s a hugely specialised position.

We have Soro, newly signed, for that role and before him we had Eboue.

Aside from that, only Scott Brown has been a natural there for us, which is one of the reasons he’s been so hard to replace.

The focus of this piece is on Scottish players because I think our club needs to always have a core of home grown footballers in the first team squad … and European regulations make that a necessity anyway.

Campbell is capable and talented, but is he at the Celtic level?

Not yet, but neither was Brown himself when we signed him and turned him into the best combative midfielder in Scotland, and one of the best battlers we’ve had in that role for eons.

This is a player worth watching … and one we should consider getting in early for.

A Scottish Core

These footballers are not the finished article, none of them.

Of the seven, Boyle is the oldest and Hickey the youngest.

One plays for Aberdeen, two for Motherwell, two for Hibs and two from Hearts. The Tynecastle choices are somewhat controversial because they played as part of a defence that got relegated … but look no further than the geniuses running the club for that.

All of them are capable of slotting into the squad. None would be guaranteed to start games, not yet, but aside from Boyle every one of them is young enough to develop into a very good footballer who could be at the centre of our club for years.

And that’s what we should be looking for in Scotland; longevity, the kind of footballers we can mould and grow and who are already proven in the SPL but who we could turn into international talents with immense re-sale value or the potential to anchor the side far into the future.

None would cost the earth; indeed, the financial crisis which is gripping football means that all could probably be picked up reasonably, with only Hibs likely to put up the kind of fight that might see the values spiralling to daft levels.

Aberdeen tried that once before and it didn’t come out very well, and with McKenna facing a major ban it might be a good time for them to do business.

Celtic is busy behind the scenes, and there’s no indication that their targets play in Scotland, but it stands to reason.

When you consider the players we’ve bought from Scottish clubs down through the years – Griffiths, Armstrong, Brown, Christie – you can see that our management teams have been ever aware of the need to sign the best domestic players.

And if we’re looking in that direction, these are the seven who stand out.

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