A year ago today, on 23 November 2024 Celtic travelled to Edinburgh to take on Hearts in the Scottish Premiership and came away with an emphatic 4-1 victory…
The takeaway though looking back on this match is who scored the four Celtic goals. Three players got their names on the scoresheet and none of them are at the club today. Kyogo scored twice and by this time the club were well aware that he wanted to leave – he asked for a transfer in the summer window but to his wish to move to a Top Five league in order to realise his World Cup dream with Japan next summer.
Kyogo was sold in January after Celtic’s qualification to the Champions League playoffs after a victory over Swiss side Young Boys at Celtic Park. Celtic received around £10m for the transfer – not bad given Kyogo had just turned 30 prior to his transfer. In a separate deal Celtic purchased Jota from Rennes for roughly the same money, although reports at the time indicated that Celtic made a small profit on the two-way transfer we were told weren’t related.
Jota of course suffered an ACL injury at Tannadice back in April on the day Celtic won the title and is still a few months away from any sort of return to action.
Also on the scoresheet for Celtic at Tynecastle a year ago today was Nicolas Kuhn, who had enjoyed a real purple patch at the club scoring some crucial Champions League goals and generally looking like Celtic’s top performer and a leading candidate for Celtic’s Player of the Year.
Kuhn continued that form until the Champions League campaign ended in Munich with Celtic coming within seconds of taking to Bayern to extra-time thanks to the former Rapid Vienna winger’s excellent goal. Kuhn too wanted away and his form declined after the European campaign ended. He did score on the day Jota was injured and made a sign to his critics. By July he had got his move, with Celtic collecting £17m from Italian side Como, where he has so far struggled to make much of an impact.
The other goal scorer at Celtic at Tynecastle a year ago today was Adam Idah, who was sold to Swansea City for around £7m on transfer deadline day in the summer. Idah didn’t want to leave but seemed to have been affected by the constant criticism that came his way. He scored 20 goals last season and arriving in the previous season’s January transfer window on loan from Norwich City, he made a significant contribution to Celtic winning a tight title race against Philippe Clement’s Ibrox side. (The Belgian boss is now Norwich manager).
Idah rounded off his successful loan spell at Celtic by scoring the winner in the Scottish Cup final in 2024 against theRangers.
Idah’s confidence in a Celtic jersey seemed shot and afterwards, reflecting on his time at Celtic, noted that there was a lot of hate he had to deal with up here.
So Celtic have sold the three goalscorers from the game at Tynecastle, taking in around £34m, or if you delete the Jota cash, £24m. Last night at St Mirren we had a left winger/striker on the right wing before that place was taken by Luke McCowan, a midfielder. Johnny Kenny played 45 minutes for Celtic last night and other than one wild sliced effort contributed nothing of note. And Sebastian Tounekti had plenty of the ball but again created very little.
Callum McGregor’s wonderful strike in the closing seconds won the match for Celtic but it’s pretty obviously that goals have been taken out of the team, a point that Brendan Rodgers continually made before his own exit at the end of last month.
Celtic’s video played at the rowdy AGM on Friday morning at Celtic Park boosted that the team had scored a record number of goals last season, including of course the four scored away against Hearts. That goalscoring record is unlikely to come under threat this season.
In January this has to be addressed with ‘goals’ being brought back into the team with multiple quality signing in the attacking areas of the team and with a new manager arriving and being given the tools to do the job.
ON THIS DAY 23rd NOVEMBER 2024
Hearts 1 Celtic 4 – SPL
Goals – Kyogo 55′ Kuhn 80′ Idah 78′ 94′ 🍀🍀 pic.twitter.com/x0cqnyXOK1— Willie Collow (@CollowWillie) November 23, 2025
Last orders for Celtic in the Eighties by David Potter
Last remaining copies of Celtic in the Eighties – get your copy now before it’s too late! Here’s what you get…
- David Potter’s beautifully produced hardback book, the Celtic Historian final work before his passing. Your copy will also be personally signed by Celtic legend Danny McGrain!
- You’ll also receive a complimentary copy of another brilliant David Potter book – Willie Fernie – Putting on the Style.
Order Celtic in the Eighties from Celtic Star Books and we’ll automatically add Putting on the Style. Please note postage will only be charged on one book so there is no cost to you at all for the Willie Fernie biography.
These two books combined will make a brilliant Christmas present!
I understand that losing goals within a team, especially ours is a problem that needs to be resolved.
But looking at the 3 you named upon leaving ourselves, what seemed like the common factor involved within all 3 leaving?
Personally believe that all 3 were no longer enjoying their football whatsoever imo?
We got away with Maeda stepping up, and doing better in the role than kyogo was within our style of play imo?
Kuhn chucked it altogether after Munich, and that poor attitude seemed to rub off on idah also imo?
Can’t blame Rodgers for finally losing patience with idah, after the CL qualification games, yet it remains unproven if kelchi is going to be a worthy replacement still.
If reports are correct, kelchi can be a temperamental character by all accounts, so will be interesting to see how he manages for ourselves?
Still, we aren’t short of attacking options, despite missing 4 from 10 that was originally in place for ourselves.
Still looking for the right combinations, which are still struggling to form, which isn’t helped by an injury list as it is at present imo?
Regardless, it remains unknown if Maeda and Yang are still looking at the exit door?
Balikwisha and Shin don’t seem to have settled in whatsoever, which can’t be easy for them with our off the field situation in operation?
Kenny was very poor last night, but a youngster trying to find his way, at our club especially, is going to have the consistency factor to deal with, especially if question marks surrounding the quality factor?
Seb can continue to blow hot and cold, and hopefully he can start adding some extra to his game, goals and assists would be a great help for him to start with imo?
So plenty of challenges for our attacking options currently, to try and overcome, within there own game.
Personally don’t believe that our support can generate to much confidence within attacking options, especially as we can tend to write them off, very quickly.
So hopefully a management team can find solutions, to improve our goal return. January won’t be easy to find that prolific goalscorer that we are craving for, especially as Scottish football is becoming a harder sell for such players, that have a reputation at delivering the likes?
Will be interesting to see if we continue sticking with a front 3 attacking approach up until January, especially as the service from our wider areas, can be found missing on to regular or an occurrence, especially in our European games at present imo?
When it’s becoming a bigger issue within SPFL, then we can’t continue to ignore the growing situation either?