This Celtic Boss Has Signed Just One SPL Based Player. Ryan Porteous Won’t Be His Next.

Celtic has always made sure that it has a hard-core of Scottish based players in the team, for various reasons the main one being that they’ve been good for us throughout our history and the Scottish born ones help us fill the home-grown quota in Europe.

No Celtic manager in living memory has failed to sign at least one. Ange has dipped into the Scottish market already; he’s not afraid to. That was for our big stand-in keeper. He has not yet signed an outfield player for this team.

There are some suggestions that we might be tempted to go for Ryan Porteous. He would have been on my list of targets a while ago. No doubt about it. He and others like Lewis Ferguson. But let’s be honest, the last true standout player in the SPFL was the guy we signed; David Turnbull. The last one before him was John McGinn, who we didn’t.

Greg Taylor was more recent, and it’s only now that he is growing into the player many thought they would never see. This signing, oddly enough, is the one that best demonstrates that there is still value to be found in this league.

But Ryan Porteous is no longer such an attractive prospect. We’ve come some ways since the days when he looked like a potential signing. He wouldn’t get near our team at the moment, and I don’t see any value in having the guy here unless he’s going to grow into that role.

Porteous makes too many mistakes. I enjoy players who are keen, but his disciplinary record is ridiculous and putting him in our team would increase the risk of sending offs and penalty decisions going against us to an unacceptable level.

VAR refs would love this guy in a Celtic shirt, and that’s reason alone for not pursuing his signing, even on Freedom of Contract. The idea that Ange might tame him and get to the player – and there’s definitely a player in there – who could rise to the top of the game is tempting … but the downsides seem to me to be a little too great.

This manager will sign an outfield player from Scotland before long, and one who can trace his career path back to where he’d count towards our home grown players. But right now there are probably better prospects in our youth academy than any outstanding talent who stands out that great in the SPFL, and that’s sad to write, but true nonetheless.