One of the themes I’ve returned to over and over again on this site is that we have too many players at Celtic who aren’t going to play regularly but who would walk into every other team in the league. This theory is about to be tested in a most unexpected way; Kwon is going on loan to St Mirren. That will prove or disprove this once and for all.
Actually, I think it’s an excellent move and if we’re going to let our players go on loan, I think it should be to fellow SPFL sides wherever possible. It has worked for some of them in the past, after all. Ryan Christie, Liam Scales and Kris Ajer are just three who come to mind; all went out on loan to teams in our division and it was the making of them.
This strengthens the other teams in the league, and that’s good in itself as any side which is better armed and able to play against the Ibrox club when they come up against them is a net positive.
I cannot understand why this is not a part of the club policy. I would have enjoyed seeing Tilio go on loan to a team in this league, and if Holm is going to sit on the bench at Celtic, he would be better off, by far, at a Hibs or Aberdeen. So would we.
This is a weapon we have scandalously underutilised and I have never understood why. Liam Scales not only played brilliantly against the Ibrox club for Aberdeen but scored a winning goal. Christie was a thorn in their side every time. We could get big rewards for doing nothing more than letting a guy go to a Scottish club who would otherwise be going elsewhere … why not?
I was really surprised by this move, and by the player in particular but I cannot help but think it is an excellent idea and one that could pay dividends.
We’re going to get a proper lesson in how good (or not) Kwon actually might be … I just wish we were going to find out about other footballers in our squad.
Mikey Johnston, Tilio, Holm and others would all benefit brilliantly from going out on loan here. Yes, Mikey too, because what he needs more than anything is regular games somewhere even if the end result is that he moves on at the end of it all.
I hope Kwon goes and has a storming time of it. I hope he proves himself to be a very capable player and I congratulate those at Celtic who got him this loan deal. More of this please, Celtic, a lot more of it going forward.
Said this at the start of the season James, too big a squad, players not hungry enough. Loan to other prem teams gives them game time and experience. Also they play out of their skill against you know who.
Maybe if we had been doing this since the success of Ajer then we might have turned the clear potential players like Shved, Bayo, Kouassi, karamoko Dembele, Bernabei and Vata clearly had into something more tangible. We waste far too much money on projects and the academy now only seems to produce players for other clubs. We have to face up to the reality that as a Club we simply don’t have the culture that would allow us to cultivate our own youth system- when, for example, can we blood young players when 95% of our matches are must win games? If we draw, or god forbid lose, then we have the Huns breathing down our necks.
We really need to do three things to change things around 1) the more promising players from the youth development squad need to go straight out on loan to other Scottish clubs, rather than stultify in the youth setup. 2) is that we should buy the very best of the young players in Scotland ie Hickey, Doig, Ramsay, Barron, Lewis Ferguson, Porteous, McGinn, Kevin Nesbit etc 3) the third part is probably the most important in terms of coaching- what is the point of identifying potential in players if we don’t improve them or eliminate their glaring deficiencies? Maybe, instead of wasting vast sums of money on projects, we should instead invest in a team of the very best coaches to improve not only our own youth players but those we identify and bring in from other clubs?
GM your last point is so obvious that you wonder why the ‘bean counters’ at Parkhead hadn’t thought of it before.
No they would rather have a Coaching set up that utilises ex-players, sons of ex-players etc. Kennedy, a defensive Coach that can’t coach Celtic to defend corners and set -pieces adequately.
Remind me, what did Gavin ‘laptop’ Strachan ever do in the game to qualify him to Coach at Celtic. If rumours are true he even has a brother on the payroll though what his name is or what he does escapes me such is his high profile.
There again it was even suggested to me once that his Da, the mercurial Gordon even has a gig in our Football Dept, Oh how I laughed at that one, chortle, chortle…
No keeping things in the Celtic family is the Celtic way. Just ask the Chairman / Acting C.E.O. or if he’s not available speak to his wee boy Mark the ‘no-mark’ Scouting genius with his Cittehh background in online Scouting content information.
Sorry James but imo MJ has had more that enough chances to prove himself,and apart from a couple of decent sub appearances has done nothing time to let him go.
I think what James was implying was that game time at a lesser team might benefit Mikey in that the lesser Club might be his level and he could still earn a living at that level allowing Celtic to move him on at a nominal fee. There’s no embarrassment in not being Celtic level. It’s the reality for a lot of players who still make a career out of Football.
Football is all he has known
Couldn’t agree more, these type of deals should have been in place far more frequently, why complain about squad size being too big for training when you could strengthen 6 other clubs and get our players the game time we need, what’s wrong with our club it’s a no brainer
Definitely good thing past trials proved that,,, the only thing(I think is sell Johnstone) I’ve seen him a few times not as much as most on here, but I really don’t see a celtic player in there, maybe just me,, I do think hibs or Aberdeen is a more comfortable fit for him,,
Totally agree James. Jackson Irvine had two outstanding loam spells with spfl and was ridiculously overlooked when he came back to Celtic. If you can cut it on loan to an spfl club you deserve a chance with the first team rather than a risky signing like Bernabei Bayo et al
good to see the “project players” getting game time elsewhere as you say so we can c if they actually will cut it. Along side that can we reduce this bloated squad by paying off the deadwood who are just hanging around for a wage. Still 34 in the squad is way to many
Loaning out players to Scottish clubs could, if they are successful, be just enough to nab enough points to win the title. If they could even get a couple of draws against OF Sevco it could be enough to take the pressure off.
The most interesting thing about this is robinson ‘spoke in great detail’ with brendan about kwon, so there’s a plan there for moulding him into the player we need. Couldn’t have gone to a better club in my opinion. Decent and tactically astute manager who improves players. Hopefully we’ll see a few more of these deals
It all comes down to money. The reality is St MIrren, Ross County, Dundee etc pay their players less than £2k/week whereas even our worst player is probably on about £8k/week. So how much is the other club able to pay to get one of our players on loan and how much of his wages are we willing to subsidise? In theory we could let them have the player for free but if the other club don’t pay anything towards his wages then there’s no opportunity cost to them if they don’t play him whereas we want them to give him maximum game time so we have to insist on as high contribution to incentivise them to play him but not so high that they walk away from the deal.
But clearly if we can get players out on loan to other SPFL clubs for some money its a win win all round.