A KYOGO CELTIC COMEBACK?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 10 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Let’s be honest, we are all scrambling to try and find anything positive to say about Celtic at the moment.
We’ve got a manager failing, a team that seemingly can’t be bothered, a board who are asleep at the wheel and fans who are under fire from said board, our mainstream media and the police.
So, when I saw a few stories popping up on my timeline this afternoon saying Celtic are considering re-signing Kyogo, less than a year after we unceremoniously sold him, I perked up a wee bit.
Kyogo Celtic Comeback Unlikely, but Not Impossible
Unfortunately, despite numerous sites choosing to run the story this afternoon, the fact that it is Football Insider, that appears to be the primary source of the original Kyogo Celtic Comeback claims, makes me extremely pessimistic.
Football Insider is very much a “fling enough excrement at the wall and eventually something will stick” kind of site.
Yes, they love to play up the odd story they get right, whilst doing the best to gloss over the 95% of their output that was either gleaned from other sites, or eventually turns out to be complete b*llocks.
But let’s just say for a minute that Celtic actually have a genuine interest in bringing back Kyogo. Is he what we need, and would it make sense?
Well, there’s no denying we are painfully short of striking options at the moment. Kyogo hasn’t scored in 19 appearances for his latest club Birmingham City this season, after a similar barren spell at Rennes which lasted less than 6 months.
However, if there’s one thing Celtic love, it’s a comeback narrative. Cameron Carter-Vickers and Joe Hart both shone for Celtic after being rescued from the doldrums of Spurs’ reserves. Jota looked impressive upon his return in January, before injury cut him down in the cruelest way imaginable.
There’s also the fact that Kyogo’s main reason for leaving in the first place was, according to sources here in Japan, down to Brendan Rodgers not using him correctly, and playing a formation that negated Kyogo’s best traits.
There’s also the potential for a deal to be done here. Birmingham City do, by most accounts, still have an interest in signing Hyun-Jun Yang in January. Indeed, he would be there already if we had a CEO capable of answering his phone, allegedly.
So, the notion of Yang plus a few quid, perhaps only 1 or 2 million, in exchange for Kyogo does have a certain appeal to it.
Kyogo will soon turn 31, so his resale value at this stage, if we signed him, would be near zero. It would also mean the player finally accepting that he isn’t going to make it in one of Europe’s big leagues, having failed in both the French Ligue 1, and England’s second tier.
He also has a patchy injury record. Particularly, ongoing concerns with his should mean he may not even pass a medical at this point.
Still, when he is on form, Kyogo is one of the most accomplished goalscorers I’ve seen at Celtic for many years. It doesn’t often work out for players when they come back for second spell. But if anyone could do it, Kyogo could.
Perhaps the strongest argument from both his and Celtic’s perspective is the emotional one.
Kyogo needs to go somewhere where he will be loved, and supported as he rediscovers his talent. Celtic badly, badly need some kind of goalscoring spark, creative hope, and a bit of maverick unpredictability.
When he is on his game, Kyogo ticks all those boxes. Unfortunately, the last time he was on his game was the last time he wore The Hoops, almost a year ago.