I wasn’t surprised yesterday when I heard that Celtic might be interested in signing a winger from Lazio. I don’t know whether that story is true or not; it’s already been the subject of counterclaims from Italy, and I suspect it’s just agent talk, but you never know.
What is clear is that there is interest from Celtic in bringing a wide man to the club in this window, and that player will probably be on the left side.
Like most Celtic fans, I have a complicated history in relation to how I feel about Michael ‘Mikey’ Johnston. I’ve been a believer and not been. I’ve been a fan and not. I’ve been a critic and not. I’ve been adamant that he should never put on a Celtic strip again, and at times I thought, “Give the boy one more chance.”
This is an article I’ve been sitting on for about a week now, and I didn’t want to drop it into the debate pool until we were in these closing stages.
The subject drains me. It’s a bit like everything else that’s happened in this transfer window; it’s all been a bit exhausting this summer. But I know this: the two have collided in this last week, and now we’ve got decisions to make.
I know Brendan likes Mikey. He likes what he can do with the ball, and he likes how he reads the game. Brendan is also a pragmatic man. He knows that we need consistency this season and that Mikey has been a little inconsistent at times. He knows Mikey wants regular football, and Brendan probably doesn’t think he can guarantee him that.
Yet this is a long campaign we’re involved in here, with two more Champions League matches at a minimum to play and we need all hands on deck.
Brendan also knows that if a player is talented and keen to learn, will listen, and lets you aid in his development, and if he’s willing to be patient, then you persevere with that guy. You hope that you can, and you hope that he does. Then you make a decision and convey that to the player so both parties have clarity and certainty, and then you can move forward.
It’s time for this club to make a final decision on Mikey Johnston, and I’ve arrived at a point where I’m ready to accept whatever that decision might be, with just one caveat; this can’t be another sticking plaster solution, another temporary balm on this. This decision has to be final, and it has to be backed up in full. No more extended loans, no more half-assing around with it.
If the decision is that Mikey has the talent to stay here and make it, I trust the manager, and as he trusts the player, I’ll trust the player. This time, all of us have to be flexible, all of us will have to give the guy proper support and time to fit into the system, that system we’ve seen emerge over the pre-season games, that system which might be suited to him.
The club will have to do its part too, and provide proper opportunities, and the boss will have to give him regular starts in the team—always out wide, in his best position—because he’s not a striker, and it’s been detrimental to him and to us trying to play him as one.
The one thing that has haunted Mikey since he broke through is the stop-start nature of his Celtic career. If this is decision time—and it is—and he’s going to be part of the squad, then he has to be a real part of it, a permanent part of it, and everyone involved needs to be crystal clear on that and on what the expectations are of him.
This whole affair needs closure now.
That’s what this window can and should provide—a final answer to the Mikey Johnston question and to the Mikey Johnston conundrum. Every one of us knows that this boy can do things with a ball that blow your mind. But we also know that he can be very frustrating to watch sometimes. Impartial observers note certain weaknesses in his game, which a good and patient coach can correct. And part of that is kind of down to us—the fans, the club itself, and the weight of expectation that we put on everyone who pulls on a Celtic strip.
The expectation is normal and it’s part of the club. No player can play here unless they can cope with that. But there is a way that fans can help make that easier and I am as guilty of judging this guy as anybody is and maybe more guilty than most at times. But it’s perfectly clear that he needs a definitive answer, and we as a club need to settle this once and for all. There can’t be any more doubts about what his squad status is. There can’t be any more loans to clubs with the promise of getting a better player back. There’s no reason he can’t be that better player—it’s within reach, and we can unlock it right here at Celtic Park.
See, I’ve been doing some soul-searching on this in the last few weeks. I’ve taken stick for giving Mikey stick, but I stand by my point. This is how some of us show the love. We beat the club with a stick when it needs it, and sometimes players and managers need it too.
We all have our own views on how best this club can move forward. The one positive outcome from this entire transfer window from hell is that so many players have left, and we know they aren’t coming back. Others have had their futures clarified and written in stone.
Guys like Nicholas Kuhn have come on leaps and bounds and are clearly going to be critical first-team players in the weeks and months ahead.
A lot of deadwood is gone. A lot of guys who weren’t getting games and were never going to get games, like Lagerbielke, have had frank and honest discussions with the manager, been told, “Listen, I can’t give you what you want here,” and have moved on or will shortly.
This needed to happen because we had too many backup players who were not going to contribute and who weren’t going to make the grade. I suspect that there are one or two more to come. There are questions, for example, over Tomoki Iwata, who I actually think is an excellent player and should be retained. But if he’s not going to play regularly, and if the manager genuinely can’t see where he fits in the plan, then decisions have to be made there as well.
But Mikey is probably the main guy who’s left whose future is still up in the air to one degree or another. To be honest, none of us knows to what degree that is, because for all we are aware, he and the manager have already sat down and talked all this out.
Maybe everyone’s already clear on what the future holds, and there are no more discussions to be had and no more questions to answer. We’re now either waiting for a club to take Mikey, or he’s part of the plan and his place in the squad has been spelled out to him.
If he’s here, then it’s time to make a proper go of it, to dig in for the long haul, and have everybody get behind it. If he’s not going to be here, then every person in the Celtic support should wish this guy well and thank him for the time he’s been here and his service to Celtic as a club, because I have no doubt that Mikey could have left a dozen times for a dozen clubs over the years, but he chose us.
And I always think of Patrick Roberts when I think about that choice and how it would have gone down. I think about Patrick Roberts because I always thought that Roberts was wasting the best years of his career waiting on something that was never going to come.
It was born of his conviction that he had the talent to unlock the door to Manchester City and become a permanent member of their team.
You can call that delusional, you can say whatever you like about it, but it’s hard to give up a dream like that when you’re not just in the zone but in the building and on the right floor, knocking on the door and waiting for someone to open it.
So, I get it. I get hanging in there.
And if you love a club the way Mikey Johnston loves Celtic, it must be harder to consider moving on. But I’ll tell you this: a guy with the talent that this guy undoubtedly has does not belong on the bench at Celtic Park, permanently eroding his confidence, permanently leeching his talent. If he’s ever going to realise his full potential as a player, he has to play regularly, and he has to play for a manager who has a plan for him.
There are a lot of ignorant people who accuse me of hating Mikey Johnston. The same people have accused me of hating Peter Lawwell. They’ve accused me of hating Neil Lennon, and some of them, bizarrely enough, were accusing me not that long ago of hating Nicholas Kuhn, even when I was praising his pre-season efforts to the heavens. I’ve been accused of hating Liam Scales. You know, I could keep going on and on. And all of that, of course, is nonsense.
I want what is best for Celtic. I want this club to be all it can be, and I’ve always known Mikey was too good for B-team football in that horrendous Lowland League. He’s far too good to sit in the stand and ponder his future every week too; that talent belongs on the pitch.
If he’s not quite good enough to make it here, there is no shame in that.
This is a pressure cooker club, and players with big names have come here and cracked. Players with big reputations have come here and melted under those floodlights. When your dream is to be here and play here, that’s more pressure again.
I said in the piece on Odsonne Edouard that I never think about a player all that much after they leave Celtic Park, and that’s true except in one circumstance: when that player came through our system and our ranks.
I hold a special place in my heart for those guys, and regular readers will know that amidst my outbursts about Mikey, there has always been a lot of affection as well. A lot of my losing the rag comes from frustration because we all want to see the next big player emerge from the academy, the guy we can tell future generations we saw, and it’s genuinely painful to see so much talent in a guy from our own system who keeps reaching for that next rung and just not grabbing it. It’s terrible to watch that happen over and over again.
At some point, you lose faith, and that’s why if Mikey is still here when the window shuts, I hope it’s to take that next step with the support of everyone from the manager on down, and that all involved have made a conscious and full decision to make him a first-team player and a regular pick, and then trust that everything works out.
If he isn’t here, I hope with all sincerity that it’s to go to a new club and pursue a new dream and to finally realise that immense potential which we’ve been waiting to see explode for years now.
And I won’t feel cheated if that happens. I won’t feel betrayed or let down if Mikey is the one who chooses to leave and goes on to become a superstar somewhere else. I won’t feel like we’ve lost out on something. Seeing him become the footballer we hoped for will be enough in itself, and I will enjoy watching him in a different jersey, and hope he blossoms.
This is decision time, though. The next few days will decide the next phase of Mikey’s career, and whatever that decision is, all of us should wish him well in it. Because this guy is not some mercenary who came in here, gave us two years, and then breezed out the door.
This guy is one of our own, and that makes it different, and we won’t forget it.
Great article. As much as I’d love him to become a regular at Celtic, playing well, and setting up/scoring goals, I just don’t see it happening. I can’t realistically see how he would get regular game time apart from 10-15mins at the end, and that’s not going to help him. I was delighted to see the adoration he was getting in his loan spell. I think he’ll be gone when the window closes, and I sincerely wish him well.
It’s time up, but I do wish him well
I remember wee Coco at ibrox noise putting it out there that Goldson and Tavpen had been on their way Saudi Arabia for a combined fee of £30 million, this was also backed up by the glue sniffing journalists at the daily sevco and other twobob Scottish journalists at the BBC.
Just remember the shite the ibrox klub peddled out there with SIMPLETON journalists running along with it that a think it was a Bayern player onloan to sevco and Bayern then had to pay sevco to get their own player back,and at the same time sevco had been entitled to a 10% sell of the player,who belonged to and was registered as Bayern player.
They will swallow any old shite over there,just think of King the CHISLER and his quote,one title loss by Celtic and the house will fall down.
They could have went for a few ton of sand, surely they have some to spare and a few ton of cement for the pair. Help out with the Steel from China.
Talk this week about releasing some players from their contracts, usually means they pay a big chunk of that contract also, must be desperate. Sounds like a legal nightmare.
Ah don’t think anybody holds anythin personal against the guy, tho that shouldnae interfere with how his playin is judged, or whether he improves the team or no. Ah think he’s had more than enough time tae step up and tbh, apart from the odd goal, it just hasn’t happened. Not for Celtic anyway. He’s too predictable. Some clever footwork with next tae no end product. He seemed tae dae better at west brom and sometimes its the case with players. That they find a club thats, for some reason, more suited tae their talents. Ah think (and no just imo) the club should let him go.
Think I possibly started the Eduard return potential a few blogs back and James noted you wrote on it too.
Is your blog becoming that influential Mr Forrest…. Kudos.
Let me leave you with João Mendes de Assis Moreira to Celtic. There ya go Scottish Hacks, get your laughing gear around that one.
Here’s to a fruitful week Celtic, Mikey swap plus £1,5m for big Trusty…. You never know.
HH
Hehe good shout actually 🙂
A real pity as he is obviously very talented but has had a number of chances.
Just a thought, he would walk in to the current Rangers team, if they could afford him.
Like Paddy, Mikey should go and find his level. Some players show up well on loan because the big club pressure is off them and they can concentrate on their game.
Paddy is doing well at a big club now in Sunderland, maybe unlike the pressure at Celtic and they hammered Sheffield recently, a match I took in. he is looking sharp.
Mikey will hopefully do the same and find a club that he can be comfortable in to find stability and his best game and I am sure he can do that with Scotland also when his full confidence and maturity kicks in.
All the best to the boy and if we can get a aswap del going also, even better. Win Win.!!
Another slight segway, with Hearts atrocious start to the new season, a spokesperson close to the action (Ahem!!) has suggested that Naismith’s jacket is on a shoogly peg and that Shankland has downed tools for not getting the big move to the rangers he wanted.
For tomorrow’s DR, SUN, GlasgowWorld, Ibroxnoise and Herald…..
Haha 🙂
Very magnanimous James. If Mikey is to stay we need to extend his, I believe short remaining, contract or we lose out on a decent transfer fee. Injuries through the years have done the bhoy no favours but I reckon BR knows there’s a player in that bhoy and will be prepared to give it another go particularly now the injury concerns seem to be behind him. Reminds of a younger James Forrest who just when you thought he’d made it he’d be out on the sidelines with injuries again. If the contract’s extended I’d like him to one more chance with this great club. Again haha