THERE has been plenty of upheaval at Celtic over the past week or so with Rodgers & Co sneaking off to Leicester City and Neil Lennon returning to the club. Numerous players are out of contract in the summer and look like moving on and of course the loan players currently at the club are all expected to return to their parent clubs.
Filip Benkovic will be heading back to Leicester City, Oliver Burke to West Brom, Timothy Weah to PSG and Jeremy Toljan to Borussia Dortmund. With Dedryck Boyata out of contract in May, he is also likely to leave and Mikael Lustig is still waiting to hear if Celtic wish to take up their one year extension on his current deal which also runs out in May. His chances seem to have improved due to the change of manager.
One or two of these loan players could return for next season – there has already been talk of PSG being happy to allow Weah to stay for 18 months in Glasgow but was working with Rodgers a factor in their decision and is the winger getting enough game-time to make him want to stay and his club, who were shocked in the Champions League last night by Manchester United reserves, happy to commit another season to Celtic? We’ll have to wait and see.
Will Benkovic get into the Leicester squad or will he be loaned out again and if so will Rodgers intervene to deny Celtic?
What will Oli Burke do in the summer as it looks increasingly like he doesn’t fancy it at West Brom but would be happy to sign for Celtic? But signing him would mean smashing the club’s transfer record which is the £9million paid to PSG for Odsonne Edouard. can you see that happening?
Jerry Toljan’s future looks the most clear cut of the loanees. He’ll return to Dortmund and the bigger wages he was on there. If Mikael Lustig is going to start under Neil Lennon then there’s little point in him hanging around.
Then there’s Olivier Ntcham, who has had a frustrating campaign due to continual injury problems. Porto have been very keen to sign him and so far Celtic under Rodgers have resisted the temptation to cash in on another of their French talents. Maybe Lenny will consider selling him to fund a deal to buy Oli Burke?
Ntcham is fit again and will be pushing for a place in the side this weekend. Given the injuries to other midfielders at the moment he’s surely going to get his chance to impress the new manager pretty soon.
If he is sold to Porto in the summer it’s unlikely though that Peter Lawwell would see any transfer money coming in as necessarily being available to spend on players – remember the Moussa Dembele £20million?
Scott Allan is going to Hibs so that’s clear cut and good luck to him too. He was given not one single kick of the ball under Rodgers.
There are other fringe players who will or should move on De Vries – a truly terrible Rodgers signing who incredibly was given a contract extension. Gamboa who was signed by Rodgers but never trusted, Compper who is on big money and has played 81 minutes of first team football against Morton. All are Rodgers era errors that should be shipped out asap.
With all of that to ponder there was one story this week that has been bothered us this week. Accordingly to an ‘exclusive’ in one of the red-tops, Scotty Sinclair apparently is sweating over whether Peter Lawwell will take up Celtic’s one year contract extension on the Englishman’s current contract and if he doesn’t then Sinclair could leave Celtic for free in the summer.
The only problem with this story is that is based on the premise that Scotty Sinclair signed a THREE year contract at Celtic with a ONE year extension when he arrived from Aston Villa in August 2016.
That is frankly a load of rubbish!
“Celtic delighted to sign Scott Sinclair,” wrote The Celtic View editor Paul Cuddihy on the official site on 7 August 2016.
“Celtic are delighted to announce the signing of Scott Sinclair, who has joined the club from Aston Villa on a four-year deal,” Cuddihy wrote.
“The 27-year-old attacker is the latest addition to Brendan Rodgers squad and he teams up again with the Hoops boss, having previously worked with him at Swansea City when, by his own admission, he played his best football.
“It feels amazing to have joined Celtic,” Scott said. “It’s a massive club and I’m looking forward to it. I’m here now and I’m happy to be here.”
So Scotty Sinclair is NOT sweating, waiting for news from Peter Lawwell about a contract extension, because he has a FOUR year deal at the club not a THREE year deal with a year’s option.
Just thought we should clear that one up.
