Celtic are planning to have contract talks with Rocco Vata according to Anthony Joseph.
The Sky Sports reporter has a good track record on Celtic stories and has recently reported on interest from Bologna and Como in the teenage forward.
Vata is out of contract in the summer, while his contract has been running down playing in the Lowland League he has watched team-mates Ben Summer, Ben McPherson and Mackenzie Carse go out on loan to Championship sides.
It seems to have been a case of Catch 22 with Vata unwilling to sign a new contract without a realistic chance of development while Celtic won’t permit a loan deal for someone who’ll become a free agent in May.
UPDATE: Celtic are planning new contract talks with forward Rocco Vata.
His current deal expires in the summer and he’s in talks with Bologna & Como.
The Hoops remain open to offers but would like to open talks about the possibility of extending his stay beyond the summer. https://t.co/p4zCpGrZJJ pic.twitter.com/7wQrnc0uLv
— Anthony Joseph (@AnthonyRJoseph) January 19, 2024
A move to Italy has been touted several times this season, perhaps those options haven’t been quite as appealing as imagined.
With Daizen Maeda and Oh Hyeon-gyu both involved at the Asian Cup there is certainly an opening at Celtic over the next couple of weeks for a striker with Vata notching 10 goals this season in the Lowland League.
This saga about the future of vata has been dragging on all season now.
However things can change very quickly especially within the footballing world?
Could understand Rodgers opting for forrest and Johnston in the CL squad this season, with being so limited on options available to him, within the 8 homegrown rule?
However, is that still the case within the planning and thinking of Rodgers, for next seasons CL in mind?
We know forrest best days are long behind him now. Johnston with all the promise once shown, still has failed to deliver, and remains doubtful that it will ever materialise now at this stage imo?
So weighing up everything, I believe vata may well have become favourite now between the 3 available to Rodgers with making up the numbers that the 8 homegrown rule brings about for CL imo?
But vata is a proper project of a player currently, and so many within our support are getting obsessed with project signings?
Still believe Vata would be a decent investment to ourselves by upgrading him to development status within the 1st team squad for next season imo?
Also with the potential of being able to offer him a CL squad place also?
May not be ready to play much of a part within CL next season, but with a 3/4 year contract offered to him, it potentially could help resolve a problem with the homegrown rule as things stand imo?
Fail to see how any other club could potentially offer a better opportunity to vata at this stage within his career?
So overall, I would be very happy to potentially get vata signed up on a contract.
Weather vata sees that as the best career opportunity available to himself, could well be a totally different matter altogether?
Liam Miller, Karaoke Dembele.
What about them?
The lad deserves a shot, It would also show there is actually a pathway to the first team otherwise just bin the entire academy system as it’s a money pit. Why find great youngsters for other teams to then flourish and make them millions. It’s crazy.
Ben Stoakes another genuinely talented player allowed to leave and snapped up by bigger clubs. I have no idear why Vata has not been given a decent run out in the first team and can appreciate why he’s pissed off. Personally, I would like him to stay but I have the feeling he’s not getting the recognition I think he deserves by the hierarchy.
I assume you mean Doak.
He had broken into the first team. He rejected a contract offer from the club and chose to go to Liverpool.
I assume you mean Ben Doak?
He had broken into the first team and was offered a contract by Liverpool and chose to leave. I’ve no doubt that had he stayed, he would be a first team player by now and would have received his first international cap.
As for Vata, I haven’t seen a great deal of him. If he was as good as we are told by the Timternet, he would be in the first team squad.
The support goes nuts if we don’t win a game. The pressure is enormous and playing an 18 year old youth player could potentially harm his development given the extreme lack of patience now evident amongst a generation of our support that have only known total dominance of Scottish Football.
Ben Stokes wanted to leave and was courted by Liverpool. There was no way he was turning that down.
The reason why there is no clear step from youth team to first team is there is no reserve league. In their wisdom, Scottish clubs scrapped the reserve league citing costs as the main reason. It wasn’t, we had won the reserve league 11+ years on the trot!
Young players mixing it with senior players getting much needed playing time or returning from injury would aid their development ten fold compared to the softly softly youth ranks and then the completely pointless lowland league experiment. None of that prepares any of these young guys for the first team squad.
Celtic (and any other club that cares about developing their own players) should be pushing for the return of the reserve league. It is the glaringly obvious gap between the youth ranks and preparing properly for first team squads.
Playing against other professional players will enhance their knowledge and physical capabilities much better than playing against Harthill Wrench Monkeys Athletic.
Look at the dearth of talented young Scottish players in the SPFL just now. There used to be two or three young guys that stood out that we would seriously look at or, indeed, sign. That’s because they aren’t producing first team ready stand outs themselves,
There are, without doubt, talented youngsters and many of them get seduced by the ridiculous money that English football clubs can offer them even at such young ages. Life changing money that we can’t offer them. The only way they would consider staying is if they saw a genuine route to our first team. That route was removed a decade or so ago and hence why we have seen less and less homegrown talent make it through the ranks.
It’s so blatantly obvious where the gap is.
Look at the size of our first team squad. Most of whom don’t get near the team and we are collectively paying them a fortune. If we had a reserve league then at least these guys would be match fit, playing regularly and the manager could see in proper matches what they were capable of, not bounce games at Lennoxtown. If they were playing well then they could step in when needed when injuries or suspensions kick in.
Personally I would much rather see a young Scottish boy get his chance compared to the utter garbage we import as projects and pay them good money to sit and do nothing other than train.
We have flushed fortunes down the drain in pursuit of the next Virgil or Moussa or Odsonne. Most of that money should have been spent on more talented first team ready “prospects”
The current fascination with the Far Eastern contingent is another source of frustration. They can’t all be Kyogo or Hatate.
We have chucked away a fortune on that particular fetish over the last couple of years.
I am an old grump who just wants the best we can get on the pitch and that includes our own young guys, with proper tutelage, too.
My last hero left two decades ago and I will never again see a player like him don our jersey ever again.
In the meantime I would like to see better recruitment, less of the “projects” other than our own and the shower scene from American Werewolf in London on repeat all day every day on its own dedicated channel!!!!
Woof Woof!