James McCarthy was brought to Celtic this season in a move that raised plenty of eyebrows amongst the supporters. A few years back we would have been overjoyed by bringing the Irish international in especially as we all knew he was an excellent player and an avid supporter of the club.
To be honest we should have snapped him up for a reasonably low fee while at Hamilton in a situation that was closely mirrored a few years later when we failed to buy John McGinn from Hibs. We should never let the best Scottish talent slip through our fingers with such ease, especially when it’s predominantly due to penny pinching.
Alas, this summer we did finally sign McCarthy on a free transfer from Crystal Palace. The only problem is this time the fans weren’t overjoyed the way we would have been years earlier and there is a simple reason for that. Injury problems. The 30-year-old proved himself a more than capable player throughout his time in the EPL at both Everton and Crystal Palace but his career in recent years has been blighted by injury.
Once again this weekend he was missing due to a ‘small muscular problem’. He is also missing from yesterday’s game against Fenencvaros, not even making the bench. Ange Postecoglou has been talking about McCarthy’s injuries and making sensible comments expressing a lot of it could be due to not having a pre-season.
McCarthy’s contract expired at Crystal Palace in May and he didn’t start training with Celtic until August. He also had covid a while back too which didn’t help matters. So there definitely is an argument to be made regarding this but on the other hand these injuries have been a recurring problem throughout that last few years of his career.
According to the Scotsman, the Celtic manager said “It is difficult for him because he didn’t have a proper pre-season. The ones who came in late have found it hard because everyone else had already started and they didn’t have that fitness base. That means they have to catch up and push themselves at training and we train pretty hard here anyway: plus the games are intense.
“So it’s only reasonable, and he’s not the only one – a couple of others have struggled while trying to get up to speed. James had a good ten-day block during the international break so this is just a minor setback for him, nothing significant. We’re just erring on the side of caution. He trained [on Monday], but on his own. We didn’t want to rush him back so we’ll see how it goes by the end of the week. It’s just a small muscular problem, so we’re hoping he’ll be available.”
We are all hoping that Ange Postecoglou is right and this is primarily down to his lack of a proper pre-season although the more cynical of us will look at the players recent injury history and come to the conclusion that this is a more frequent issue that has dogged the player for some time. Let’s all hope he can get back to full fitness and play a vital role over the next few seasons and we can see the very best of him, because at his best he is definitely an asset to this squad.
On the other hand if the cynics are proved correct and he struggles with persistent niggles in the future we may very well regret handing someone with his injury record a four year contract.
Conall McGinty
