The boss has confirmed the worst kept secret in football; that Celtic are entirely satisfied with their work for this window, and so as far as incomings are concerned we’ve reached the end of the line. There are no major departures except for the end to the ongoing Giakoumakis situation, but we all expected that and we all knew that it was coming.
This brings an end to Ange’s fourth window, and whilst I’ll wait until tomorrow to do a full scale analysis of the squad strengths and weaknesses, I have to say that I’m really, really happy with where we are in terms of this team right now.
Ange also seems very satisfied, and what’s left of the window will be spent moving on some of the fringe players, the guys who genuinely aren’t going to get games, the guys who maybe need to be out playing first team football somewhere if they are to thrive.
You might see Welsh heading out as part of that, but only on loan. We need him for next season. But one of the reasons why he might go out on loan is that Ange wants to bring forth some of the kids from the development squad as this season goes on.
As the ever-excellent team at The Celtic Star have pointed out, Bosun Lawal might well be one of them. He has impressed the management team and it seems that he’s on the fringes of the first team at the very least, if not being thought about as a backup.
The last remaining departures will all likely involve guys who simply aren’t going to play here; McCarthy, Ideguchi, Abildgaard. Ange has already made it clear to these guys that their time is up. The loanee, in particular, has been a mighty disappointment as we all heard big things about him and he’s been unable to make his case for a place in the side.
Our business is done, then, folks and we brought in four players and all of them are already in the first team squad. None of these guys is going to be riding the bench permanently, all are here to play and all are here to make life that little bit harder for the players around them.
All at Celtic are to be congratulated for getting our business done in such a timely manner, and whilst we had to wait for the striker as I said on this blog repeatedly it was not Ange’s style to leave us a man short, even for one day. At the time of writing the big Greek hasn’t left yet and his replacement is already here.
That’s the Ange Postecoglou way, and that’s why today won’t be a disappointment.
One of the things that Desmond said in one of his rare interviews is that Ange shouldn’t be judged until after his deat4th transfer window. The squad he inherited from the end of the 2020-21 season needed to be completely rebuilt apart from maybe 3-4 players. Now that he’s had those 4 transfer windows, it would be interesting to go through the entire squad and compare with what he had on day 1.