Today Celtic sent two highly talented midfielders out on loan to cinch Premiership clubs Hibs and Motherwell. Liam Henderson remains a Celtic player until the end of the season before his stats changes with a permanent contract with the Easter Road club kicking in.
Then after Ewan Henderson’s two tier move to Hibs was announced Liam Shaw completed the second loan move of the day, again staying in the cinch Premiership, joining Motherwell.
Both Motherwell and Hibs have aspirations beyond making it into the top six, both are pushing for European qualification. The Fir Park side are currently in fourth place in the league with Hibs just behind in fifth.
What Ange Postecoglou did today was effectively strength two of the most likely opponents facing theRangers to take some points from them – something we called on Celtic to do this time last year but that fell on deaf ears. Ange though needed no-one to point out the blindingly obvious and if other players are going out on loan then Celtic should look to get then out to the likes of sixth placed Aberdeen and Dundee United who are seventh in the league.
As Henderson and Shaw are loanees they will NOT be able to face Celtic so Hibs and Motherwell, everything else being equal will be stronger against the latest Ibrox side than versus Celtic.
Ewan Henderson will be anxious to do well at Hibs, working under Shaun Maloney who of course was his coach at Celtic Reserves a few years ago before Maloney left to take up his coaching role with the Belgium national side.
Henderson, speaking to Hibs TV said: “Shaun was my coach at Celtic Reserves so I know a lot about him. The move came about after I came on against Real Betis and scored for Celtic.
“My agent phoned me that night and told me Hibs were interested. The manager hadn’t been announced yet so I wanted to wait to see who it would be but as soon as I saw it was Shaun Maloney I said ‘one million per cent, let’s get this done.
“He’s a big influence on why I’ve chosen Hibs. When I worked with him at Celtic, he was a top manager. He made me a better player.”
Germán Pezzella of Betis challenges Liam Shaw of Celtic (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Meanwhile former Celtic View writer David Friel, now working at Scottish Sun reports that Liam Shaw has completed his loan move to Motherwell after visiting Fir Park today to finialise the deal that will see him go to the Lanarkshire club until the end of this season.
Shaw was also wanted by Callum Davidson up at St Johnstone but instead will be playing for Motherwell, having had just two appearances under his belt as a Celtic player this season following his £300,000 move north of the order from Sheffield Wednesday.
UPDATE: Celtic midfielder Liam Shaw has agreed to join Motherwell on loan until the end of the season.
He is at Fir Park this evening to complete the move. https://t.co/Y8reUtEasT
— Anthony Joseph (@AnthonyRJoseph) January 6, 2022
