There appears to an element of shock among some Celtic fans that Liam Shaw and Osaze Urhoghide could be sent out on loan in January.
For a week or two back in July the former Sheffield Wednesday duo were all over Celtic’s social media as they discussed their exciting move to Glasgow.
With no other new signings at the pre-season training camp in Wales there was a lack of content available. Liel Abada became the first real signing under Ange Postecoglou when he arrived on July 16 with Kyogo Furuhashi quickly following.
Sceptics of Celtic’s ‘project signing programme’ aren’t hard to find. Jeremie Frimpong has been the only success from with Luca Connell, Lee O’Connor and Jonathan Afolabi discovering that there is no development path beyond the round of media calls that accompany a signing.
EXCLUSIVE: Celtic summer signings Liam Shaw and Osaze Urhoghide are already fighting for Hoops futureshttps://t.co/JP7rYoGfwI pic.twitter.com/VLKqIydyrA
— Scottish Sun Sport (@scotsunsport) October 25, 2021
Coming through the ranks Celtic had an outstanding group of players born in 2000. Jack Aitchison, Robbie Deas, Daniel Church and Kerr McInroy have all left with a solitary goal from Aitchison to their name, Stephen Welsh has bucked the trend but could be down to fourth choice central defender when Chris Jullien returns from injury.
Shaw and Urhoghide find themselves in similar situations, further down the supply chain than Welsh.
Last season Shaw started 12 Championship matches for Sheffield Wednesday, Urhoghide started one more. If it hadn’t been for serious financial issues at the Yorkshire club it is unlikely that they’d have got so much game time in The Championship.
Kicking on from that this season was vital, the reality is playing regular in League One would have been more beneficial than hoping to do a Frimpong at Celtic.
On July 4 former Celtic scout and Wednesday assistant manager Mike Trusson had a very telling warning for the new bhoys in the Daily Record:
Fair play to Celtic and the recruitment department I know well. They identified the pair and did their homework, talking not only to me but Pulis and others. Now it will be interesting to see what the policy is.
Having worked there, the worry I have is that Celtic have signed good young players and there wasn’t a real plan how to progress them.
If they’re not going to play in the first team then where do they play and gain playing experience? By training with the first team? Not really.
It may be the manager sees them doing that in three months and, within six, they’re regular in the team.
But the pressures of playing and managing are huge at Celtic. And what’s really important after last season is getting off to a flyer.
So it’s going to take a brave manager to put in a lad like Osaze who has played half a dozen Championship games. You’re trusting him to learn the game at your expense.
So it’s unlikely, given the Celtic squad I know, that Osaze or even Liam starts straight away. I’d like to see it happen. I worked for Celtic, I’m an admirer and fan and we all like young players coming through but the biggest thing is results. Managers get paid the big money, though, to make these difficult decisions.
It is now five months since Shaw and Urhoghide were playing regular competitive football, two matches in the SPFL Challenge Cup against Annan and Morton aren’t going to get them any closer to a first team place.
Postecoglou is starting to deliver results for Celtic- loan moves to League One in England during January would probably be in the best interests of Shaw, Urhoghide and Celtic.