ANOTHER CHAOTIC CELTIC TRANSFER WINDOW SLAMS SHUT：IS IT ENOUGH TO WIN THE LEAGUE?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Reflecting today on yet another needlessly chaotic Celtic transfer window, I’m reminded of a quip by the oft-quoted English manager Ian Holloway. During his time at Blackpool, Holloway likened a scrappy home win for his side to a night out “on the pull” in the famous English resort.
He said: “To put it in gentleman’s terms: if you’ve been out for a night and you’re looking for a young lady, and you pull one, some weeks they’re good-looking and some weeks they’re not the best.
Our performance today was not the best-looking bird, but at least we got her in the taxi.”
I think that last line pretty much sums up Celtic’s transfer activity over the past month.
This Has to Be the Last Chaotic Celtic Transfer Window
We have, eventually, strengthened in the areas we most needed. Personally, I still think we could have done with a combative central midfielder as well, but that’s something that might still happen if other current rumors pan out.
If reports by, among others Born Celtic yesterday are indeed correct, it seems Celtic certainly cast the net far and wide in their talent search. However, the problem was that not only was it a rushed job, but it was also a very poorly coordinated one.
I predicted that we would end the transfer window with a net gain of 3 players. After the dust settled this morning, that’s exactly how it has played out.
In the end, we’ve brought in 5 players, and sent two out on loan. To be honest, I highly doubt we’ll ever see Shin Yamada or Hayato Inamura in a Celtic shirt again, and that is a real shame. I place the blame for those flops more so on the people who brought them in than the players themselves. I don’t doubt for a second that they gave their all, but ultimately, it just wasn’t enough to break into this Celtic squad.
I like what I’ve seen from Tomas Cvancara over the past two weeks. He already has one goal and one assist to his name, and appears to offer a different dimension to any of our other forward options.
Likewise Julian Araujo has been a solid and dependable addition at right back.
Now let’s look over the three players who joined yesterday.
First up, there’s our new striker Junior Adamu. The Austrian international is a product of RB Salzburg’s highly regarded youth academy. He scored an impressive 26 goals in 49 games for Salzburg’s feeder club Liefering in Austria’s 2nd tier.
He made the step up to Salzburg’s first team in season 2020/21. Over three seasons he managed an impressive ratio of 23 goals in 84 games. Things haven’t gone so well since Adamu headed to Freiburg in 2023. His current record sits at 7 goals in 67 games.
However, this is a player who less than 2 years ago was one of the hottest emerging talents in Austria. He has played for the national side 5 times. He has been playing senior football at one level another for 7 years already despite still being only 24 years old.
Most of all, this is a player who is hungry. With a point to prove and still a very realistic shot at making the World Cup this summer. Celtic need a goalscoring hero right now, and Adamu needs 3 months of heroic, goalscoring performances to put himself back in contention for that flight to North America.
I’m less excited, if I’m being honest, about our new winger, Joel Mvuka. The Norwegian under-21 international is an alumni of the same Bodo/Glimt side that produced Sebastian Tounekti. The 22 year old, has, like many Bodo players, struggled after moving away from the highly successful Norwegians. His current club Lorient are struggling, as to is he, and a previous loan spell with Young Boys in Switzerland didn’t work out either.
This one is 50/50 I reckon. Mvuka has the raw talent, and his blistering pace matches that of Daizen Maeda at his best. However, as we have seen all too often with Daizen recently, speed alone often isn’t enough to make you an effective winger at Celtic.
Mvuka also, however, has to face the very public reality that he was not Celtic's first choice for this position. He appears to have been signed only because, yet again, our money men shot themselves in the foot whilst trying to conclude a deal for Frosinone's French winger Fares Ghedjemis.
The chaos was further compounded when Celtic announced Mvuka as a permanent signing, only to then backtrack as a "loan with an option to buy" amid rumors the player had failed his medical.
He could be our next Nicholas Kuhn, or he could be the next Michel-Ange Balikwisha. Time will tell.
To be brutally honest though, with his questionable form and even more questionable fitness, this deal has deadline day desperation written all over it.
I’m a bit more optimistic though still far from convinced, about our final signing of the window, the loan transfer of Brentford defender Benjamin Arthur. A big, powerful, no-nonsense center back, he offers the physicality and the height that our defense so badly needs right now. Despite having only made a handful of appearances for Brentford so far, he is already an established England under-20 international.
Comparisons will of course be made to Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, whose disastrous Celtic loan spell was cut short earlier this month. He was also an ambitious young English defender, with excellent potential.
However, questions have been asked about his attitude, and I doubt Martin O’Neill would tolerate such ego issues at Celtic, especially right now. Arthur is a short term solution to a problem that, in all honesty, I think dates back to when Carl Starfelt left Celtic a few years ago.
Whatever happens, I think all three of these players will along with the aforementioned Cvancara and Araujo will have crucial parts to play in the weeks ahead.
Are they enough to win us the league? I hope so, but time till tell.
