One Transfer Decision Has Been Made Easy For Celtic. Sign Adam Idah If We Can.

When you are going all-out to sign a player for your club you want to know a few key things; will he fit in with the ethos of the place? Will he embrace the challenge? Can he perform consistently? And the final question is perhaps the most important; can he produce when it matters most?

Well Adam Idah answered all of them this weekend, emphatically.

We know he “gets” Celtic. That much was obvious from the off. We know that he consistently gives the team something different. We know he can do it whenever he wears the shirt. But that last question was a tougher one to answer, and the reason it was is that you’re not going to know until that moment comes.

A goal at Ibrox, to put us in front with minutes to go, after we’d conceded at the other end, in a game of epic importance … it’s fair to say he has something.

He was excellent when he came on, and his goal was brilliant. The pass from Bernardo was exquisite as well, but he had plenty to do to put it in the back of the net. There are justifiable concerns over whether or not he rises to the level where we could say he improves the team … but he certainly does enhance the squad, in a big way, a way that Oh does not.

I think it’s the Korean who doesn’t have a future here after watching Adam Idah. It seems obvious who the better striker is, and the better football with it. I can’t imagine Oh coming on and scoring that goal, that’s the truth of it. Oh is clearly talented but does that talent rise to the level which would make him a first team striker for us? I see no sign of it.

The issue we would have to get around is the lack of a release clause; it’s not clear what sort of fee would have to pay for Idah, but it would not be cheap. Then the question becomes about whether or not there’s someone better out there within that price bracket; it might well be that comes in more expensive than Miovski should be, and then it’s a toss of the coin.

But there is no question of keeping Oh around in the hope that he blossoms into a better option than Idah because that’s not going to happen.

That Oh didn’t even make the bench for this game shows how far down Brendan Rodgers’ pecking order he is … the manager does not rate him as highly as this guy and so to think we can go back to a situation where Oh is the backup option is ridiculous. Oh shouldn’t even be third pick when this guy is so obviously a better player.

This is a fairly ruthless way of thinking, but that’s football. It’s a ruthless sport, one that does not allow players to coast and one which rewards those can produce. We’ve seen which one can handle these occasions and which can’t.