YUKINARI SUGAWARA: CELTIC’S NEXT JAPANESE STAR?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
There seems to have been something of a cultural change in how Celtic deal in the transfer market over the past few weeks. Whether this is temporary appeasement or a genuine move towards modernization at the corporate level of Celtic remains to be seen. The same rusty cogs remain in place in the boardroom, even if they are running a bit more efficiently than usual in terms of opening the biscuit tin.
It is in this climate however that I am happily able to read various reports this afternoon linking Celtic with a move for Japanese international right back Yukinari Sugawara and not just dismiss them out of hand.
Make no mistake, this is a player that, even about 6 weeks ago I would have said was well above the level Celtic usually operate in the transfer market.
Yukinari Sugawara is no “Club Signing”
Afterall, this is not a punt. Sugawara is, unlike last season’s disastrous duo of Shin Yamada and Hayato Inamura, a proven international player. He is a player who represented his country with distinction at the recent World Cup. He has also proven his worth in 3 different major European leagues over the past few seasons.
And before anyone pipes up in the comments, yes I said I believed that Yamada and Inamura would make the grade at Celtic, and yes, I was completely wrong.
Yamada simply never made the grade but I genuinely think Inamura can consider himself unlucky. He looked like a promising, if slightly raw, talent in the very limited glimpses we had of him last season.
I hope he gets another shot at playing in Europe in the future, because I think he could still make it.
Let’s face it, if you’d said to me 2 years ago that Yuki Kobayashi would come back to Glasgow and play an instrumental part in a Sevconian skelping for the ages, I would have said you were mad.
Stranger things have happened as they say.
Anyway, back on topic.
Sugawara is about to enter his seventh year of European football. He spent five seasons at AZ Alkmaar after leaving the J-League in 2019. He then moved onto Southampton and most recently enjoyed a productive year long loan at Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga.
The 26-year-old right back is certainly not short of both European and International experience. He would also, I believe, in the fullness of time, make a worthy successor to Alistair Johnston, if the Canadian international does what many of us expect and moves on in January.
In the meantime, Sugawara is definitely an upgrade on both Colby Donovan and Anthony Ralston. That is not a slight on either of those players, nor am I in any way trying to put down their efforts. Putting it bluntly, Sugawara is simply a superior player. He has a greater engine, he moves faster and he reads the game better.
Werder Bremen were said to be keen on retaining the player after they managed to stave off relegation last season. However, Sugawara will hope to move somewhere that offers European football as he seeks to build on his already impressive international record.
Celtic will be able to offer that, though it remains to be seen if it will be in The Champions League or the Europa League.
Indeed tonight’s performance against LASK could go a long way to deciding whether the move for Sugawara happens or not.
In any case, it is encouraging to see Celtic strongly linked with an established and proven European level Japanese international for the first time since we signed Shunsuke Nakamura way back in 2005.
The reported fee is “around ￡6 million.” Again, this would have seemed unthinkable at the start of this summer, but it’s relatively modest sum compared to what we have already spent elsewhere on the team so far.
The fee doesn’t seem to be a major issue, and the wages wouldn’t be outrageous either. If we assume that Alistair Johnston is for the off, whether its next month or January, then I think we would get a damn sight more than 6 million for him. This seems like the proverbial “no-brainer”.
Get it done Celtic!
