Celtic brought in a number of players over the summer transfer window. Many of those have gone on to succeed so far in 2023/24, but others have not. A select few, however, seem to have gone missing.
One of those is Kwon Hyeok-kyu. The South Korean midfielder was signed from Busan IPark in the second tier of football in his homeland.
There were high hopes for the 22-year-old, although he has yet to make a competitive appearance for Celtic. All supporters have seen from him in his four months at the club so far is a first-half cameo against Athletic Club in a friendly. Even then, he didn’t impress.
No reports have surfaced over injuries for Kwon and his situation remains a strange mystery. It seemed as though the Hoops were taking a punt when they signed him, but one wouldn’t have expected it to come off this badly.
His situation is most certainly one to monitor in the coming weeks and months but at the minute, it doesn’t seem likely that Kwon is going to become anything at Celtic any time soon. Never say never, though.
We will always have a certain amount of players who won’t succeed at the club, especially within the financial markets we have to operate within?
Even goes on in a much higher scale within the EPL, but have far bigger incomes to cover the losses far easier, but also not guaranteed success either, with plenty of examples on show within it.
We still operate upon a totally different level in terms of the 8 homegrown rule that applies for CL football.
In return it can make the gaps between 1st choice and 2nd choice players far to big when trying to overcome the rule the 8 homegrown rule brings with it?
Especially in terms of quality for when injuries can have such an impact upon our squad?
Isn’t such an issue in the 2nd half of the season, especially if no European football is on offer.
So the 25 man CL squad should take preference over the course of the season, with those outside of it, have to work that bit harder to hopefully get up to the standards the manager is looking for.
With only 17 foreign players falling into that category currently, very few opportunities will arise to see if they’re worthy of the investment within them.
Thankfully yesterday showed that maybe the summer wasn’t as bad as many would like to claim, but overcoming the issues within squad building for CL level is no easy fix either with the rules within it.
Still huge progress is starting to show overall within the SPFL, even if CL remains as no easy solutions for curing either?
Getting the gap closed between 1st and 2nd choice players remains as possibly the best solution, and thinking its beginning to show at present in a number of positions now, even if someway to go for CL level yet.
But believe that is currently the process involved currently, even if not fully finalised.
Not all will succeed in making the 25 man CL squad, yet some will make the squad and hardly involved at SPFL level, such is how unbalanced the current situation remains?
Yet could the current situation have more varied options next season with the increasing number of games?
Think we might have already done a fair bit of planning with that in mind, but again no guarantees are granted either
His run out v Athletic Club wasn’t his sole appearance; I watched him v Ayr United a few weeks ago in a testimonial match and he did well given his lack of game time and against a fairly lively Ayr team. Fart too early for suspicions about his potential. Give the guy a break. It a big thing coming so far from home to try to break through in a big team.
OOPS! Unwanted fart in the comments section there!
If Turnbull didn’t keep scoring, he might have had a chance…also we signed Bernado on loan so there’s that