On Tuesday, I wrote a piece giving my thoughts on players that are in our squad and who I think we should be keeping and who should be moved on.

From the comments left, I think it’s safe to say that a new keeper is a must. Most folk, like myself, wont be overly concerned if big Forster ends up staying down at Newcastle. He’s decent but is guilty of hesitating when he should be off his line quicker in some situations.

The rumours today, and not for the first time, are that we could be ready to make a move for Shay Given. At 35 years old, we would get a few years out of him and if things don’t work, we’d not be very likely to sell him on so perhaps a bit of a gamble? Not for me, I’d like to see him back at Parkhead.

On my last post, I mentioned that I don’t think players should be allowed back when they’ve left. Given left when he was 18 years old and probably didn’t have much of a say in the matter so I think he is one of the exceptions to that rule.

A couple of other suggestions are Julian Speroni (former Dundee keeper) and Keiren Westwood (Coventry). I fear that cash could be the stumbling block for Speroni and although Westwood is out of contract he will be expecting a king-sized signing on fee.

Where else do we look for a new keeper and more importantly, who could that new keeper be?

Some fans forums are saying we should go for Artur Boruc, as much as I liked ‘the holy goalie’ I’m not 100% sure that bringing him back would be the best idea in the world.

Is sticking with the ones we have too much of a gamble? I think so.

Overall, opinion is pretty mixed regarding the defenders that we have. For the SPL, our defence (regardless of how they look at times), have proved that they are capable of doing a job but in Europe we were all over the place.

Part of me wonders if last seasons European disasters were simply a case of us playing against that level of opponent too early under Neil Lennon.

With Kelvin Wilson coming in from Nottingham Forest, I still feel that we need a new centre half. With West Ham relegated, could we tempt Matthew Upson up to play for us and would any fans want him?

He’s maybe not everyones cup of tea but at 32 years old he could walk through the SPL and has experience of playing against top players in the Premiership. Maybe him along with Kelvin Wilson would be an option.

In midfield, I don’t think we need to tweak very much and judging from the comments left and from speaking to other supporters, not very many other folk think that we need much change here.

If anything, I’d think that we could do with a player who can play a similar role to Joe Ledley because I feel that next season, he could be as important a player to us as what Paul Lambert was a few years ago. If he is injured, we don’t have anyone who can do the same job as him and the midfield isn’t the same without him.

Up front, John Carew has fallen out of favour at Aston Villa. So much so that he moved to Stoke on a loan deal- which has now expired. Now, maybe I’m being a bit sentimental but I remember Carew playing against us for Valencia and I have always rated him since then.

I don’t think there are any hoops fans who actually want Georgios Samaras to stay on and hopefully he wont. I’m sure he is a nice enough big guy but as a footballer he’s nowhere near good enough for us.

When he signed his new contract I was hoping that it was only done on the basis that he could have been sold on for a fee instead of just released for nothing.

As I said in my last post, the jury is still out on Daryl Murphy but I don’t really hold out much hope for him. To date, the guy has played 252 games and scored 76 goals – 53 of those have been for Waterford United.

Another player that I would have liked to see at us is John Sutton but he’s signed for Hearts so hopefully he isn’t going to turn into the one that got away.

Blackpools DJ Campbell is a guy that I’ve been impressed by, the guy has proved that he can score goals against good oppostion so why not spend a few quid to get him up?

Some folk might be thinking why would I want someone from Blackpool as our ‘marquee’ signing but I’m afraid it’s a sign of the times really.

Long gone are the days when we could compete financially with teams in
the Premiership or over Europe for that matter.

Of course a big part of a successful team is consistency, of the new guys this year Emilio Izaguirre, Biram Kayal and Gary Hooper will probably attract a few bids. If someone was to come in with a £10m+ offer for either of these guys, it may be hard to refuse it.

Look at how good Lee Naylor was in his first season, the same could happen to any of these guys.

I know a lot of people will hate the thought of Celtic being a ‘selling club’ but if that’s the only way we can survive then I suppose we may have to consider any big offers even if it is for some of our better players.

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