Fishing For Talent? – This summer, leave Australia And Japan Alone Celtic…
Yet another goalkeeping name has been thrown into Celtic’s prospective melting pot, but this is not one I hoped for. Tom Glover has been superb for Michael Carrick’s Middlesbrough this season and his stats are worthy of merit in the ultra-competitive Championship down south.
With theRangers, Newcastle and Copenhagen allegedly vying for the net-custodian’s services, one would assume we should automatically follow-follow, and potentially usurp the Ibrox club amongst others. However, not for me. It may well be that the 26-year-old Sydney man has the credentials to hold down the No.1 jersey at Parkhead, but as Glover is an Under-23 cap for Australia, the problems lies right there.
Writing from Brisbane, I’m a big fan of previous Aussies who have been deemed worthy of wearing the hoops, Mark Viduka, Tom Rogic etc, but, just like our Japanese heroes who have lit up Paradise, they are likely to be selected for their country at the most infuriating times, in particular the Asian Cup qualifiers and Finals.
This is different to World Cup/European Championship participation as all the top players are called up from all the top teams, with Celtic being represented at every level, and in every position during these tournaments, normally.
The Scottish season takes a mandatory break for these matches, even friendlies therefore this is less likely to provide feeder clubs with a headache, injuries aside.
Not so the Asian Cup which has frustratingly left us bereft of our most important players at an important time of the season. Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate, Yang Hyun-jun and Oh Hyeon-gyu are testament to this. And don’t forget about Kyogo Furuhashi who could have been away and Marco Tilio who was!
It is not only missing a Glasgow Derby we should concern ourselves with as the players are gone for up to a full month should they be selected for the Finals, depending on their progress of course, and qualification for the final stages is practically a given for players of this quality.
I’m a firm believer that Celtic scouts, despite Ange’s insightful success in the Australasian market, should focus on countries closer to home, nations who’s footballing calendar aligns with Celtic’s.
Australia and Far East Asia have some wonderful players, but Eastern Europe and Scandinavia (in particular) are the ponds I feel we should focus this summer on trawling for talent when we cast our talent nets, for practical and sustainable reasons alone. Henrik Larsson anyone?
Eddie Murray
Asian cup was played this year- won’t be around for another 3 1/2 years, seems silly to say no to a whole continent of amazing talent for 1 month every 4 years! 😂😂😂😂 the bloke is a brilliant keeper and would do great for us. We should have been looking at him before he moved at the end of last A-League season.