NO, ODSONNE EDOUARD CELTIC RETURN WON’T HAPPEN, NOR SHOULD IT
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 10 hours ago
- 2 min read
It’s been great to see first Jota, and now Kieran Tierney return to Celtic this year. However, such moves were to address key weaknesses in our team. They are not based on nostalgia or a desire to “relive the glory days”.
This is why any notion of an Odsonne Edouard Celtic return is, in my opinion, a complete non-starter. However, it hasn't stopped French football journalist Sebastien Vidal from raising the possibility in a tweet earlier this morning.
Odsonne Edouard Celtic Return Wouldn't Work for a Variety of Reasons
Now, we all remember the vast majority of Edouard’s time at Celtic with great affection and, as previously stated, nostalgia.
However, Celtic have moved on since then, and so has the player. He’s still only 27 and there’s denying Edouard is a striker of immense quality.
Unfortunately, like so many before him, the utter mediocrity that is the English Premier League outside the top 8 has once again dampened his footballing spirit.
Edouard’s contribution on the pitch hasn't kicked on since his big money move to Crystal Palace, though I’ll bet his bank balance certainly has.
Which brings us to problem number one. Even as a player surplus to requirements at Crystal Palace, he remains under contract and on a substantial salary. Both of these are stumbling blocks to a potential deal.
Much has been made in the press over the past few days of the tremendous financial sacrifice Kieran Tierney made to return to Celtic this summer. I don’t doubt that, but Tierney is a Celtic supporter.
If you or I were offered, for example, £70,000 per week to play in Spain, or perhaps £35,000 a week to play for Celtic, many of us, if not the vast majority, would probably go for the second choice.
That’s because, like Kieran Tierney, Celtic is part of who we are. This club is in our souls.
That’s not the case for a player like Odsonne Edouard. I’m sure he has plenty of happy memories from his time at Celtic, and he probably still looks out for our results. But when it comes to looking after number one, he’ll go wherever the best financial offer is.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Football is a short career and players need to maximize their monetary returns while they can.
At the end of the day, Odsonne Edouard was a superb Celtic player, but he never took the club into his heart the way someone raised as a Celtic supporter would. Again, that’s not a flaw on his part, that is simply human nature.
But it's also why he is a player whose connection to Celtic is best left in the nostalgia of past glories.
