Would A Bombed Out “Project” Player Really Make A Good Celtic Striking Option?

Reports today from England interest me, and should interest all Celtic fans who believe we need to bring more than one striker to the club in this transfer window. The reports are about the Bristol City striker Tommy Conway, now a full international but dropped by his club team over a conflict over contracts. That will sound familiar to anyone following the Daniel Kelly story.

The question is; should we be looking at this kid as one of our three strikers?

Bearing in mind that right now we only have one, and the boss is well aware of it. Especially as we continue to drag out this scenario involving Adam Idah.

Is Conway the answer? No, not yet, but he’s got as much potential as any kid we’ve brought through our own ranks, and if the boss was ready to make Rocco Vata the third-choice striker, then why the Hell not? He’s certainly got something, and if we are smart, we will take advantage of the situation he’s in down there and make our move for him.

There are moves that just make good sense, and this is one of them. I’m not saying it solves all our problems, but when you play with just one player up front you need a lead striker, a second striker and a backup and as a backup option he has the potential to grow into the role as the second forward and one day challenge for the top spot.

And it might not even take as long as some people might think.

He’d have to come here well aware of what the scenario was, and he’d have to be well aware that he was being signed to play that role … but I think we could sell it to him if we were at all interested in making the move, and we’d be foolish not to be considering it.

We have done so much messing about in this window … can you imagine the change in the whole mood if we went out and signed an up-coming kid who has already made his international debut for Scotland? If we went out and said that he was a potential marquee player for the future? Nobody would even doubt the sense of that, and the gloom would lift.

There has been nonsense about how we might wait to January and get him on a free. Utterly absurd rubbish. If he has a stormer of a first half of the season we’ll be competing with half of the EFL Championship if we’re very lucky, and because he’ll be able to talk to clubs then they know they have to move him on in this window … and we have money to burn.

How much would it take to shift him? Not enough to justify the risk, if we do rate him, that we do as we’ve done before and sleep at the wheel and risk someone other side coming in and getting him at a knock-down fee either now or in the next window.

He has to be on a shortlist. His situation at Bristol City has a “point of no return” feel about it. So we should be testing the water with a reasonable offer, if we have any sense at all.