This Celtic Team Is Moving Forward Not Backward: Why Demand For Wanyama Return Is Nonsensical

Victor Wanyama has today announced that he will become a free agent at the end of next month. The Kenyan midfielder currently plays in Canada for Montreal Impact, whose season ends in November. Already the mainstream media are writing about his potential return to Parkhead, based on nothing but the player’s own desire to play for Celtic again. However, a certain contingent of the Celtic support seem to be lapping it up and hoping to see the combative midfielder in the hoops once more.

There’s no denying that Victor Wanyama was an exceptional talent when he dominated the middle of the park against Barcelona ten years ago, but there’s a reason the 31-year-old has moved from those heights and the heights of the English Premiership to a comparable footballing backwater (no disrespect to Canadian football fans). He is no longer that player, largely due to suffering a number of significant injuries.

This is a progressive Celtic team that aspires to play exciting, fast, attacking football. Ange Postecoglou wants his teams to relentlessly press high and have the technical ability to play risky passes at speed. Wanyama, for all his plusses or minuses, doesn’t particularly fit into that category of player.

We are now a team that is looking to move forward, rather than going back to the same old players, managers and coaches. We’ve moved on from that. We are now a club that wants to break new ground, with radically new ideas. Therefore, there is little chance of this transfer coming to fruition and it is nonsensical to think that Ange is the type of manager to look in the rear view mirror, rather than continuing his quest to take us in a new direction.