Whenever a player leaves Celtic to go on loan somewhere, we always wonder whether he’ll come back or whether the club which takes him will bother to submit a bid. Rarely do we see one go away and do so well that we literally have an auction on our hands.
Nobody thought Mikey Johnston would be one of those players.
Nobody. I refuse to believe that there is a single fan who thought that the young winger was sufficiently talented enough not only to be a hit at West Brom but one on such a scale that other clubs would come back to us and ask “Is he going to be available in the summer?”
And yet, the better he does down there the more likely it looks that this will happen.
West Brom are not the only club interested in his signature. By the time the season ends, we might even have a couple of Premiership clubs willing to take a punt, depending on how crazy we want to go with the fee. Depending too, of course, on how he does.
That’s going to be crucial. How will Mikey Johnston do? Can he continue to put together those big and impressive performances, or does this have a shelf life? We saw him occasionally play very well for Celtic. He even went on little runs of form which made people wonder if he’d finally clicked and we were on the brink of seeing the real player.
So, it’s not inconceivable that we might yet see Mikey Johnston revert to type as the saying goes, that we might end up seeing him fall all the way back.
I hope not. For his sake as well as ours, I very much hope that he’s got the bit between his teeth and continues to crack on, but that worry is always there, and it will swell massively if he suffers a drop in form. That would, of course, virtually wreck any hope of an auction.
Yet there are signs that this will not be so. He has been brilliantly for West Brom, and it’s not just in the scoring of the goals. He’s thrilled their fan-base. He’s got the confidence of his team-mates. The manager is a big believer in his ability to keep it going … and he’s not got the pressure there of worrying about how might be hanging on his shoulder.
He has made the position his own, and that’s a crucial psychological thing for him, and he’s talked about this himself.
He sounds more confident than he ever has, even if I do think that his comments where he seemed to blame people at Celtic for not having such faith were badly misplaced.
But in one way it plays into our hands; if people believe that there is an explanation for what happened to him at Celtic he is all the more likely to be judged based on what he is doing now … and that’s what might get us the auction, and bring in the an unexpected windfall.
We could offer a ‘BOGOF’ too…?
Whichever clubs buys Mikey,
they get McCarthy for free!
🙂
I think he has been treated abysmally by the Celtic fans they just pick on every slight error he made, it’s embarrassing listening to so called Celtic supporters shouting abuse at this young player, best thing he could do is leave and show his incredible skills elsewhere, good luck Mikey
The abuse he got from fans here bordered in the absolute disgraceful at times. Occasions when he was on the ball you could hear the groans from some of the more lower iq supporters. Hasn’t worked out for him here but deserves to be a success elsewhere. Certain irony that many of these fans now calling for us to demand a £15m fee for him
I have to admit to having little faith in our coaching team and I do think they have questions to answer. Mikey is likely playing against better opposition and putting on great performances. I always thought that he had a big talent but looked terrified and pressured in a Celtic shirt and that has to have something to do with coaches. Part of their job is to instil belief and confidence in players. We’ll never know how good he could have been for us if we had coaches with similar ability to West Broms’.
I look forward to going back to the days were fans talk about retaining good players rather than debating how much money we are going to get for them especially when we don’t spend it.
In relation to my previous comment, Maeda who splits opinion also looks more relaxed and free when playing for Japan than Celtic, and playing for your country should carry more pressure. I really think we need a total clear out of the coaching staff and just freshen things up
Delighted for Mikey, he’s certainly making the headlines!
Feels like he’s been around for ages but he’s still a very young footballer-best yrs ahead of him..
If he helps Wbrom to the Prem Lge surely they’d be willing to splash out a lot more than 3 mill..!!
He will go for a higher fee than oriley .injuries were his biggest problem.then the boo boys crucified him .good luck to him in the future.
If he`s going to be eyed by Premier league teams then Celtic should hold on to him. This talk about being able to play in certain leagues and not being good enough for Celtic is utter rubbish. The simple fact is that he had horrible luck with Celtic with injuries. If, as it has been suggested here, that there are deficiencies in the Celtic medical team, then he shouldn`t be discarded. After all, he seems to have reached a standard we were all wishing from him, so
why get rid of him, a Celtic youth project at that, when he would at least be better than the Honduran, Luis something or other Everyone wished him well and then when he came on as as a sub a couple of times and made a difference, he was out the door. As far as I can see,
this form he has at present is now a continuation of the way he played in those few games
Anyway, why didn`t they lend him out to a SPL team? He would maybe have won the league
for Celtic.
Sorry but Mikey Johnstone receiving interest from an Epl club is just crazy thinking.
Slow down for heavens sake.
He could do well and I hope he does for West Brom next to Kyle Bartley ex of sevco and Cedic Kippre ex of Motherwell, remember them. Good luck to him but for us the ship has sailed. He never showed consistently that he was good enough in the years he was here.
Looks like the Mikey Johnstone fan club are putting their comments in here. He had more than enough chances to show he was entitled to be in our first eleven and time after time he was found wanting. He just didn’t do it often enough. Playing well for WBA is different from playing well for Celtic. Our jersey doesn’t shrink to fit inferior players.