Questions rightly being asked of Michel-Ange Balikwisha, a summer signing for around £5m, and a player that Celtic chased for around two years…
Michel-Ange Balikwisha was by all accounts a player we tracked for two whole years, before eventually splashing out upwards of £5 million on the former Belgian under 21 international in the summer.
Balikwisha has failed to make an impact at Celtic
Unfortunately for Michel-Ange and the supporters, the now DR Congo international hasn’t even come close to justifying that time and outlay, as he’s struggled to make any sort of impact, indeed he struggles to even make it off the bench in most games.
Despite starting at Ibrox not long after signing, he has barely been given a sniff of first team opportunities, with most of his registered appearances coming as a substitute.
Martin O’Neill offered words of encouragement but not game-time
It was the same story under interim manager Martin O’Neill, and a familiar pattern looks to be emerging under Wilfried Nancy, as the former Antwerp man was yet again deemed surplus to requirements against Hearts, despite us looking for ways to get back into the game.
Raises questions over Celtic’s recruitment strategy
It rightly raises questions over our recruitment strategy, especially since THREE different Celtic managers don’t seem to fancy Michel-Ange. Okay , Wilfried Nancy hasn’t had the time to make his own mind up yet, but we’ll see if he backs the view of Brendan Rodgers and Martin O’Neill in preferring to go with our other wingers, none of whom are particularly impressing this season. So it’s a rather low bar that Balikwisha has failed to get over to win a starting place.
We’ve been unimpressed with him in the short moments he has played but you wonder what he’s like in training up at Lennoxtown? The 24 year old could well come good in time, but at the moment it looks very unlikely, and once again highlights our incompetence on the recruitment front.
Nancy may extract some value from Celtic’s £5m investment in Balikwisha
Maybe Wilfried Nancy will extract some value for the £5m invested in a player who has been fit but has failed to make any sort of impact at Celtic. He must be a good player because everything’s World Class at Celtic, is it not?
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
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Why not use a picture of Paul Tisdale in this article instead of using board members? Tisdale is after all Head of Recruitment.
Don’t have one of Tisdale from the weekend John.
Not even sleeping at the game?
There are screenshots of that but none of the photographers were pointing their cameras at him during the match.
Perhaps because he can’t sign anyone himself as he needs board approval, hence the pic.
I really have nothing personal against Balikwisha. He’s a pro footballer who turns up, trains and clearly aims to do his best. It’s not his fault he was pursued and signed for our club.
But I remember the last time we were linked with his signature, and he was out injured for a lengthy spell, and I thought “a red flag for any player” considering some of our history signing injured wastes of squad space.
But then fast forward to this year and we go in again, and this time including those quotes from Rodgers about needing “pace and power”. I took some time to review anything I could on YouTube (as I assume a lot of fans do) and I was genuinely stumped by the highlights reels on show. You don’t expect to see reels and reels of tape for a young players with potential. But I did expect to see “pace and power”. And I didn’t.
And I still can’t. I’m sure M.A.B. fits a role in a club somewhere that meets his skill set, and I genuinely wish him well, but for the life of me I can’t fathom why we’ve
1. Scouted this guy for so long
2. Still decided to buy him
3. Actually paid £5m
Sorry for the rant. This is one of the most disappointing signings in recent history and which appears to have been long in the making. And more critically, only serves to highlight a fundamentally broken system of scouting, targeting and evaluating talent.