Celtic FC Women this morning announced the signing of Shen Menglu on a two-year deal, subject to international clearance. The 20 year old left sided wing back joins Celtic from Ourense having previously played for Sporting Lisbon and will be in the Celtic squad for the SWPL1 opener against Hibs next Sunday at the Penny Cars stadium in Airdrie.
This signing is very welcome indeed as Fran Alonso is clearly having behind the scenes frustrations regarding both recruitment and indeed retentions. With a half dozen departures from last season’s Double Cup Winning squad, the Celtic women’s side is in need of numbers being added and of course quality players.
Yet as things stand we are unsure on the status of the likes of Charlie Wellings, who scored an incredible 40 goals for Celtic last season and it would have been more had she avoided injury at the start of the year, Sarah Harkes, who set up the winner in the Scottish Cup Final, New Zealand international Olivia Chance and the tough tackling English right-back Jodie Bartle.
To look at the Celtic FC website right now you’d be very worried about squad depth. While there is still a while to go in the transfer window, its also only a week until the league kicks off
Hoping for some of those promised signings to appear sooner rather than later… pic.twitter.com/viLNI2yQ39
— Cynic Women (@CynicWomen) July 31, 2022
We’ll know this week if they are going to be retained for the new season but the uncertainly with just a week to go ahead of the new season is troubling to say the least. And it should be noted that Celtic’s main rivals, current Champions theRangers and former title winners Glasgow City have been been strengthening, the latter even signing one of Celtic’s players from last season!
Fran Alonso has always been so impressive working in the transfer windows, bringing in top performers to constantly improve the team. This is the first window where he’s not been able to do that while seeing players leaving and others in some sort of stand-off leaving themselves and the club in limbo. There’s been interest from Italy in Charlie Wellings and losing her would be a huge blow.
The signing of Shen Menglu is certainly a start and a welcome one at that. Today there is a game at a sold out Wembley that demonstrates the emergence of the women’s game as a major spectator sport. Celtic recently launched a season ticket campaign for the women’s team, aiming to build of the success of last season, but we need to have a squad that is able to compete, not a small bunch of first teasers supplemented by the teenagers from the Academy side.
That’s not going to put us in a position to win the SWPL1 title for the first time.
✍️ #CelticFC Women is delighted to sign wide player Shen Menglu on a two-year deal, subject to international clearance🍀🇨🇳
Welcome to Celtic, Lu 👋🤩 pic.twitter.com/nZlhA0Xn2E
— Celtic FC Women (@CelticFCWomen) July 31, 2022
🇨🇳 The 20-year-old left-sided newcomer joins from Ourense having played for Sporting Lisbon, and will now don the Green and White Hoops of Celtic 🍀
Do you want to see Lu line up against Hibs this weekend?#CelticFC pic.twitter.com/5z4mNzGrpn
— Celtic FC Women (@CelticFCWomen) July 31, 2022
— Celtic FC Women (@CelticFCWomen) July 31, 2022
