It’s not often you’ll find us pushing for Celtic players to move on — but it’s time Stephen Welsh was given the green light to head away from Celtic Park so he can develop.
The Coatbridge bhoy has beven in and out of the Celtic squad for the past few seasons but never really held down a place in the starting XI. His game time got even more scarce when Moritz Jenz was brought in on loan back in the summer.
Jenz was the man tasked with taking up Carl Starfelt’s position in the side when the Swede suffered a longterm injury. Stephen not fancied to hold down a place.
Since then, Carl has made a full recovery and is back in the starting XI. Moritz Jenz is finding it tough to get game time and now Ange has brought in another centre back in Yuki Kobayashi. There’s just no way Stephen is getting any sort of meaningful game time between now and the end of the season.
It’s now time for Celtic to entertain bids for the players; both loan and permanent deals. Stephen has undoubtedly got talent, but he’s now stagnating and it would be good for the club to let him go so he can try and fulfil his potential.
This isn’t an article claiming the 22-year-old should be starting Celtic games. There are more developed players ahead of him in the pecking order. This is about Celtic allowing the defender to go out and get meaningful game time.
Stephen is a big Celtic fan, and it’ll be a tough moment when he leaves the club behind. But there’s certainly an exciting career out there for him if he chooses his next opportunity correctly.
Six appearances this season in all competitions says it all. There are clubs across Europe looking at Stephen, hopefully he can get a move this window.
Why is it that it appears because we bought a player they must play before a homegrown talent? Young S W is a good footballer who is now being forced out the door because we brought in M Jenz. Im not convinced he is better.
Look at Tony Ralston, talk was he would have to move on because we bought JJ, now, when given a proper run of games, he is a top class performer for us.