Having signed Aaron Mooy just over 24 hours ago, many will ask where does James McCarthy fit in at Celtic if at all.
The 31-year old midfielder arrived at Celtic last August alongside Joe Hart and both players careers under Ange Postecoglou have been contrastingly different.
Hart has been an integral part of Postecoglou’s team who was arguably the clubs best signing last summer.
Looking at the team last season, many fans wouldn’t have been too confident had Hart dropped out due to injury. This made the signing of Benjamin Siegrist a welcome sight this summer.
Whereas McCarthy could be described as a bit part player who only started for the club six times during the last campaign with majority of his appearances coming off the bench.
From watching a bit of Mooy during his time in the English Premiership with Huddersfield Town and Brighton, he was always a player who liked to get forward and bag a goal.
However, during his last outing for the Australian national side as they beat Peru on penalties to qualify for the World Cup, Mooy was used as a more defensive type midfielder – just in front of the back four.
Whether this was due to his lack of game time during his time in China because of the Covid shutdown is yet to be seen but the manager knows all about Mooy’s skillset.
The player will have his eyes on the World Cup in November and will be hoping for some game time before then.
With this in mind, if Postecoglou plans to play Mooy as a more defensive type midfielder it could mean even less game time for McCarthy.
McCarthy came on just before the hour mark but like many of the others substitutions didn’t do too much to impress.
Yosuke Ideguchi will also be a player who will likely get a lot of minutes this season meaning that barring an injury crisis the former Irish international may feature even less with just under three years left on his deal.
