Fergal Harkin’s appointment as Director Football at Standard Liege is holding up the loan transfer of Mikey Johnston to the Belgian side.
With four wingers named in the matchday squad to face Aberdeen last Sunday Johnston is currently surplus to requirements with Ange Postecoglou keen to get Johnston out on loan to get a run of games together.
Since getting injured against St Johnstone in January 2000 the winger has struggled for game time with Liel Abada, Jota and Daizen Maeda all signed up by Postecoglou.
Celtic have recently been involved with Belgian clubs with deals for Osaze Urhoghide, Boli Boligoli, Jack Hendry, Vakoun Bayo and Marian Shved, with Ronny Deila now managing Standard Liege there is another link to build on to get Johnston back playing again.
Harkin, linked with a senior role at Celtic last summer adds another interesting link that could work both ways.
Discussing the transfer situation at Standard, Belgian publisher Sudinfo reports:
And this policy is reflected in the current transfer window where, if the club has indeed bought Noah Ohio and Jacob Barrett Laursen, it would be mainly interested in elements at the end of the contract or likely to come on loan as evidenced by the interest recently in Mikey Johnston (Celtic) and Stefan Strandberg (free).
It is in this context that, from this weekend, Fergal Harkin will fully take office in a post of sports director that he has never held before. To believe therefore that, without money, he will perform miracles in no time at all, is quite simply utopian. Especially since the results of last season do not encourage other clubs
By the sound of it Harkins has quite a few issues to resolve in the four remaining weeks of the transfer window.
His own experiences managing the pool of loan players at City should help but there is clearly pressures to sort out issues with Standard Liege.
