Marian Shved has told a close friend that the Celtic side is too good for him to break into.
The Ukrainian joined Celtic in January 2019 but only after speculation about a move was dismissed by Brendan Rodgers who claimed that his squad already had a million wingers.
A month later Rodgers left for Leicester but by then Shved had already been loaned back to Karpaty Lviv.
The 21-year-old featured in most of Celtic’s pre-season matches but has been restricted to three brief substitute appearances under Neil Lennon.
After almost a year of minimal involvement it looks harder than ever for Shved to make the breakthrough with Karpaty chief Oleg Smaliychuk remaining in contact with the winger.
He told The Sun:
Marian has very strong qualities as a player and as a person. He never looks for excuses.
If you asked 99 per cent of Ukrainian players why they weren’t playing, they would say the manager is bad, their agent was rubbish, or the pitch isn’t good enough. Anything but when I asked Marian about Celtic he just told me he was trying as hard as he possibly could, but there are so many good players at Celtic.
He told me they are a big club and have an excellent selection of players. When the time came for him to move, he had an offer from Belgium too.
I gave him a list of pros and cons of moving to Genk or Celtic and told him to make a decision, along with his father. I thought he made the right choice, but how was he to know Brendan Rodgers would leave straight away?
Celtic were also going to loan him to another club in Scotland, but changed their minds too. Genk actually offered more money than Celtic, but we gave him the choice and he chose Celtic. Looking back and knowing what we know now, he may have made the wrong choice.
Jonny Hayes and Moi Elyounoussi are out of contract at the end of this season but after just three substitute appearances it seems unlikely that Shved is closing in on a first team opportunity.
The winger’s only appearance of 2020 was a five minute run in the 3-0 Scottish Cup win over Clyde.