Yesterday Olivier Ntcham found a new club and will therefore be playing his football at Swansea City this season in the English Championship. He was of course one of the group of Celtic Want Aways – along with Kristoffer Ajer, Odsonne Edouard and Ryan Christie who all got moves to England in the summer transfer window, moving to Brentford, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth respectively.
Ntcham clearly contributed the least in his final few seasons at Celtic, indeed he was sent out on loan to Marseille last winter but failed to make much of an impression there. He apparently convinced AEK Athens that he was going to be a free agent by 1 July but that dastardly plan was frustrated when New Celtic CEO Dom McKay attempted to secure a transfer fee – or at least a discount on any scheduled payment due from the previous summer’s purchase of Vasilis Barkas – from the Greek side. Sadly for both McKay and Ntcham they were having none of it and Ntcham had no choice but to turn up at the Celtic summer training camp which coincidentally was down in Wales.
Ange Postecoglou said all the right things but clearly had no intention of involving the former Manchester City midfielder, who Celtic purchased for £4.5m and once turned down a £12m bid from Porto for his signature. When McKay realised that there was no fee to be had a deal was cut and Ntcham was set free, released from his contract presumably with one final pay-off.
He’s clearly a talented player and if he gets his mind back onto playing the game he’ll be a very decent player for Swansea. Today we look back at one of Ntcham’s best moment domestically in a Celtic shirt. We’ll always remember him for Rome and for scoring that Scottish Cup Final goal against Motherwell but getting the winner against theRangers is always going to be remembered fondly.
And it happened on this day in 2018, enjoy the short highlights below. And have a look at the Celtic View’s Beautiful Sunday front cover from the next week.
