GlasgowWorld discuss the latest Celtic transfer murmurings after the first week of the transfer window.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Glasgow World's first round-up of the January transfer
00:05window. We will be filming a weekly round-up of the latest deals that have
00:10taken place both in and out of Celtic and Rangers during the month of January.
00:16My colleague Declan alongside me this afternoon to discuss what has
00:21been a fairly slow start to the window, it's fair to say Declan, there hasn't
00:25been too much deals being done already at this stage but there's been
00:30rumours about potential incomings and quite exciting ones. We'll kick off
00:34with Celtic and first things first Kieran Tierney, a player that Celtic fans
00:40obviously a fan favourite during his time at the club and currently not in
00:46favour at Arsenal, he has been like that for some time since returning from
00:49injury and there's talk about this being very close to being done, it seems
00:55as well at this stage that he's knocked back other clubs in the Premier League
00:58to return to Celtic, what are your thoughts on that? Firstly thanks for having me Lewis,
01:03yeah it's been a slow start, I don't know, it feels all a bit weird just now
01:07because obviously Scottish football usually shuts down, there's a couple of
01:10weeks off in January but we're still in the midst of a very hectic fixture
01:14schedule so I don't know whether that's got anything to do with it.
01:18Kieran Tierney, I think everybody's talked about this in Scottish football just now,
01:21everybody knows him, obviously a cult hero or whatever you want to call him at Celtic,
01:27he made the club a very rich summer money, £25 million going to Arsenal which is
01:32incredibly, it'll be six years by the time the summer comes around which
01:37seems like a lifetime ago but 2019 he departed, he obviously knows Brendan
01:41Rodgers very very well, everybody would say although Ronald Ireland gave him the
01:45chance at Celtic, it was probably Brendan Rodgers who took his game to that next
01:50level, it's going to be interesting I think, it might not be a question of, you know,
01:55it's really at this point in time I think Kieran Tierney is if and when it
02:00happens because in terms of the deal, I think pre-contracts have been
02:06mentioned, loans have been mentioned, it certainly doesn't look as if Arsenal's
02:09interested in renewing his contract in the summer which means he's going to be a
02:12free agent, do Celtic have the finances to pay a chunk of his Arsenal wages in
02:18January is probably a question, what kind of free are Arsenal maybe looking for in
02:22January to let him go maybe out on loan or even, you know, come in earlier than that
02:27pre-contract, we don't know, certainly I think if you look at this, Celtic would
02:32not be able to attract a player of Tierney's quality or stature if there wasn't
02:37just that natural Celtic connection there, I know there's a lot of chat around his
02:41injury record but Celtic to be, you know, they've got somebody reliable in Greg
02:46Taylor at this point in time, obviously Alex Valle is in the door from Barcelona
02:49until the end of the season, I think they don't need Kieran Tierney to play 40-50
02:54games a season, Celtic need Kieran Tierney for derby games, Champions League games,
02:58matches at Hamden if they get that far, certainly if Kieran Tierney comes back to
03:03Celtic, I don't think you're going to see him play, you know, 40-50 games, they may
03:07only need him for 20-25. That might benefit his body as well because he has had a lot of injuries.
03:13Obviously, you know, he is settled here, if he comes back up the road, with his family and his friends
03:19and all that around him, you might just see him fit right in, just like the old KT.
03:25What do you feel like that might mean for Greg Taylor because obviously we know
03:29Taylor's out of contract in the summer, you know, fans were chanting Tierney's
03:34name on the weekend there in the 3-0 win against St Mirren, Brendan Rodgers
03:39obviously quite rightly saying that that shouldn't be the case at this moment in
03:43time, he's still an Arsenal player, Taylor has been a top servant to Celtic, hasn't he, over the last couple of seasons?
03:47Very reliable, I think you only need to look at the fact that in the time Taylor's been here at Celtic,
03:52the club signed Bolly Bollinggoly for about £3 million, they obviously brought in
03:57Diego Laxall in a loan deal I think from AC Milan, I'm not correct at the time, and then
04:02Alejandro Bernabe who came in for about £4 million as well, so £3.75 bit of what it was, but
04:08you know, nobody's been able to shift Greg Taylor, he's been there since 2019, been
04:12very reliable at the club, he took his game again to another level under
04:15Postacoglu, you know, I don't think, I'm certainly not going to forget how important
04:20he was in that system with the inverted full-backs, yeah, he might not be the
04:25standard kind of left-back that Celtic fans are looking for that takes a ball and
04:28runs to the by-line, but he's been a great player for Celtic, and if the managers
04:33won't be both of them, as I say, just in Tierney, I think whoever's going to be that
04:37other left-back is still going to play a hell of a lot of games for Celtic.
04:39Interesting you touched on Bernabe, he is one player that seems to no longer have a future at the club,
04:45I think Brendan Rodgers made that perfectly clear some time ago, and it seems to me
04:50that he's very much likely to return to Internacional where he's been thriving
04:54out on loan since the summer, looks to me like they're very keen on a
04:59permanent deal and that one could be close to completion.
05:02Yeah, it's just not worked out for him has it, came in with quite a heavy price tag, you probably could say,
05:08I think a lot of Celtic fans would have thought, profile-wise, I think Alejandro Bernabe was the first
05:13Argentinian to actually sign for Celtic, it's just not worked out, certainly
05:18attacking-wise, I don't know if he had it, but big questions over him defensively, whether it's
05:24just the Scottish football or whatever, it doesn't work out, but he's certainly been flying at
05:29Internacional, and if he makes Celtic a decent fee, it's, you know, he called it quits, he's not really lost out on anything have you?
05:38No, that's it.
05:39He contributed with a couple of goals in his time too, so you just move on.
05:42In terms of the rest of the Celtic squad, Declan, you've obviously watched a fair bit of Celtic this year,
05:47there's been talk about potentially change on the wing, on the left side in
05:53particular, they've been linked with, I think it's correct in saying, Michel-Ange Balagwisha
06:01from Royal Antwerp, who has been a long-term target, one a player Brendan Rodgers knows well
06:08and that has actually spoken to, we're led to believe, about a possible move in the near future,
06:14he could become available for around £5 million, is the asking price I think the Belgian club have
06:20set on him at this moment, and that could have potential repercussions for Luiz Palma heading in the opposite direction?
06:28Yeah, much, you know, kind of similar to Alejandro Bernabeu, it's just really not worked out for Luiz Palma,
06:33scored a decent amount of goals and contributed with assists last season,
06:39you know, scoring the draw against Atletico Madrid and whatever else, but
06:43he just kind of seemed to, I think, you go back to that game, I think it was
06:47potentially mother well at home in it, he missed two penalties, I think maybe the end for Luiz Palma,
06:52after that, we saw him come in basically to paradise and just, you know, you're looking for
06:57something, you're coming off the bench for French players, which is what he has just now to do
07:01something and he just wasn't able to produce anything and I think for his sake, it's probably
07:05better that he seek somewhere else, but in terms of Sergio in that position, generally Luiz, that
07:11I felt in the derby game anyway, that, you know, if you take Koon and Maheed out of that team and in
07:15the game, they weren't very effective, Celtic at this point in time don't really have anything to
07:20come off the bench in that department. Obviously, we've saw flashes of Yang, who's still very raw at
07:25this point in time, I think Rodgers does see a player in him, James Forrest is injured and
07:30as we already mentioned here, Palma looks probably one step out the door already, so
07:36I think the priority in this window for Brendan Rodgers will certainly be to bring in a winger and
07:40just looking at it on paper, Celtic need it because it's so important and we just need to look at the goals
07:45and as I said, Koon and Maheed have brought the club this season, they need a bit of backup in that
07:49department. It'll be interesting with Luiz Palma's situation as well, with of course, James Forrest
07:53currently out through injury, so it could be a bit of a waiting game potentially there, but we
07:58know at this stage that Palma certainly has a lot of interest, Olympiacos at the front of that at
08:04the moment in time, he also has Italy interest and two clubs in the MLS as well. Which is the same as
08:10holding home as well for MLS, isn't it? Again, a player that arrived very early on with Brendan Rodgers,
08:16I think there was a whole story about them meeting up in Mallorca there at the same time and whatever else, but
08:23just kind of seems to have disappeared into the dark holding tag home, so again maybe a player
08:29that just maybe suits him better in the club, just to depart ways and Olymp got on with his career.
08:33First bit of business that could be completed within the next couple of days certainly is
08:39Stephen Welsh, certainly well down the pecking order at this moment in time, the centre-back
08:44looks like he will complete his lone move to KV Mechelen in the Duplet Pro League in Belgium,
08:51probably a move that most Celtic fans will feel probably should have been done in the summer,
08:57would you say that? I find it difficult to look at Stephen Welsh in terms of game time for his career to
09:04progress, Luiz, he needs to be playing games and he's not going to get that when he's got
09:08Cameron Carter-Vickers, William Scales, who was that dependable pair last season,
09:13bringing in £6m loss in trust in the summer, you probably thought then that Stephen Welsh
09:18was the fourth choice, centre-half, I know maybe the managers don't work on that but that's just
09:22probably how we look at it, but certainly for his career because he's still, he's not old,
09:28he's not 24 Stephen Welsh, he's still got a hell of a lot to go, it's a decent link
09:33and interest at CCL to obviously call back Iain Murray from Queen's Park to fulfil that quota
09:40going forward, but again a player who came in earlier in the post to Kogla in that Midgeland
09:45game that I think people would like to see, whether he ends up playing a game, you don't know,
09:50but obviously it's all Welsh, they're weak at Tannanese, they don't do anything wrong,
09:56and obviously another player in that department is Mike Naroczky who again has just
10:00came in, decent price tag too under Rodgers, played a couple of games at the start,
10:04can't really catch a break, I don't think fitness-wise, I remember the pre-season game
10:09doing it in Somerset early on, I think he was the captain actually, went off quite early injured,
10:14so again somebody who's probably not really got his Celtic career started right.
10:17And just finally on Celtic then, we'll touch on one player who's returned to the club in January,
10:22now back in full training, that is young Johnny Kenny who has been on loan at Shamrock Rovers
10:29in the League of Ireland, he's had great success over there as well, he's been banging the goals
10:34in the Europa League for Shamrock and much has been made about it just being between
10:42Adam Ida and Kyoko Furuhashi of course for the strike and berth, but it'll be interesting to
10:46see now if he does get rewarded for that. Do you think those conference league appearances
10:52have maybe swivelled that a wee bit, just because with respect to the league in Ireland,
10:57but just that kind of step up that he's obviously showed that he's got something about him taking
11:01to score at that level? Yeah, I think that's a good point, I think obviously when you're doing
11:06it on the European stage you're going to get noticed, this is a player that was signed
11:11at the start of the Orange Post to Koglu era and has never really had a chance to
11:15kind of really showcase his talents, so I think supporters will be intrigued to see if he can
11:21force his way into the reckoning and Roger's plans during the second half of the season,
11:25you'd imagine given that they are in such a strong position at the top of the table at the
11:29moment in time, it's probably a good time to embed him in. And you need squad rotation, we spoke at
11:33the top there about the fixture congestion, it only takes a player to be out injured, whether it's
11:38Ida or Kyoko and you're back to one striker, so I don't think there's any risk in giving Johnny
11:43Kenny a chance to let the manager have a good look at him, but again the way football works
11:48nowadays they'll have been keeping a close eye on him, I'm sure there's been plenty of conversations
11:52between him, Rogers, John Kennedy or whoever and they'll have an idea what they're going to do
11:56with him, whether that's bleeding him back into the first team or maybe seeking his future elsewhere,
12:01but it's going to be an interesting one because he's been pictured in first team training so
12:05we'll just wait and see. Exciting times, exciting times.