Celtic are heading into the January window with lots of work to do, but there’s one player who came in this summer that looks to have been a mistake.

James McCarthy has come into the club on a massive four-year deal. A deal that reliable sources have told Celtic was brokered and pushed for by our majority shareholder Dermot Desmond.

SalarySports has the player’s wages sitting at £14kpw for the Hoops. That’s 728k per year for a guy who can’t get into the first team.

James has had a stop-start time at the club through injury but he’s only ever got into Ange’s Celtic side when we’ve been heavily depleted.

During the draw against St Mirren, the Irish Republic international was kept on the bench the full game; young Liam Shaw being preferred as a late substitute for Nir Bitton instead of James.

It’s clear James wasn’t an Ange signing and the manager has been lumped with a player he really doesn’t think can play the way he wants. The former Palace player has only started three times for Celtic since coming into the club.

Given the longevity of the deal, there’s still time for James to prove everyone wrong and especially the manager. However, if there was somehow interest in the midfielder in January, if I was Celtic, I’d jump at it.

5 COMMENTS

  1. said before we signed him,he was a total waste of wages and signing on fee,be lucky if he plays 50 games over the 4 years and has shown nothing in the appearances he has made,whoever is responsable for bringing him in should be sacked.there needs a total overhaul of our backroom staff to stop us bringing in these duds,ajeti,barkas,mcarthy,kenny to name just a few as the list is endless.

  2. If you look back at earlier posts I said this was a bad signing. His best days are well behind him and his body can’t sustain a run of games. For too long people who know nothing about the game have influenced signings and this is yet another example of that. A complete waste of money and now we have him for four years. We have been short of a young quick creative midfielder for too long. The new manager has to sign his own players and be allowed to offload those that are frankly not good enough.

  3. Wishful thinking get rid of Desmond- nice thought tho – memo to ange tell the guys to shoot on sight this pass pass pass around the box won’t work + st Johnstone are well due a result so can’t say looking forward to Sunday…

  4. Scott Brown, Chris Sutton, Gary Hooper, John Hartson, George Samaras, Kris Commons, Lubo and Henrik Larsson could all hold a ball, spot a pass and run into space’s you would not think existed. They weren’t the fastest of players.
    They could read the game and when to up their pace.

    How many could play a high paced game, and continuously? And yes they all broke down and couldn’t remain injury free.
    But on their day they could move, pass and score. If they couldn’, they would pass it to someone else who could.
    James is just like this, but can’t even get a sniff of a first place, because he is quite slow to begin with, his downfall. Not Dermot’s worry really. He can spot a good horse. That’s why he chose James. Maybe he could imagine him in reins with a saddle on his arse

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