“Serie A new boys Venezia have won the race for Celtic target Thomas Henry who is set to complete a £5.1 million move to Italy this week.
Celtic were interested in the 26-year-old OHL striker, who netted 24 goals in 34 league starts for the Belgian club last season, but was left out of his team’s weekend defeat to KAS Eupen.”
So says Scottish Sun, the media outlet that broke the “Exclusive” story that Celtic were apparently interested in signing the French striker from the Belgian side. Unsurprisingly nothing concrete ever emerged from any of the clubs involved in this story to suggest that Celtic were participants in this transfer race that they ended up losing.
The tabloid newspaper was correct in stating that the French striker was attracting interest from clubs around Europe and they also possibly got a tip-off from a football agent keen to generate further coverage for the player to stoke the fire as far as creating an auction for his client, in what is a fairly depressed transfer market.
Calling Henry a “Celtic Target” is nonsense, the headline reads: “ITALIAN JOB Celtic lose transfer race to sign Thomas Henry with Serie A new boys Venezia set to complete deal for OHL ace.” But Celtic were not in the race so couldn’t lose it!
There’s a photo of the striker with the caption: “Celtic were targeting the striker” so we thought we’d put that one to the test by asking a senior person at the club for a simple “Yes or No” answer to a very simple question. Were Celtic targeting Thomas Henry? The Answer we got has two letters and not three.
OHL apparently will make almost £5 million profit on the sale of Henry, after they bought him for just £200,000 from Belgian minnows Tubize two years ago. Good work from the Belgian club and the player’s agent who no doubt will be happy to play the same trick of throwing Celtic’s name into the mix in future transfer windows.
Other outlets claim that Henry was an Odsonne Edouard replacement. Odsonne Edouard is a Celtic player until the club receives a bid that is acceptable or he runs down his contract and leaves as a free agent. And while Celtic are right to anticipate that something may emerge on this situation their potential replacements are to be found elsewhere, in Holland or perhaps even Edinburgh…who knows for sure.
Good luck to Thomas Henry in Italy, he’ll probably do well and his goalscoring videos will be posted to point out how Celtic missed out on his signature.
French striker Thomas Henry, 26, arrives from OH Leuven of Belgium’s Jupiler Pro League.https://t.co/JbIvMrJgEZ#ArancioNeroVerde 🟠⚫️🟢 pic.twitter.com/mLH1dnsHe7
— Venezia FC (@VeneziaFC_EN) August 24, 2021
It looks like Thomas Henry to Gent could be off with the Belgians turning to Serbian striker Darko Lemajić of FK RFS in Latvia.
I personally still don't think this means anything for Celtic, I've certainly not seen anything concrete linking us to him.
You never know though.
— Everything Celtic (@aboutceltic) August 19, 2021
