Celtic seem certain to lose Daniel Cummings with the Daily Mail reporting that the teenager has yet to be offered a new contract.
The striker has been in eye-catching form with five goals from five appearances in the UEFA Youth League naturally catching attention.
It would have seemed wise to get Cummings signed up onto a new contract before the start of this season but with every passing week the player and his agent move into a stronger position.
It is becoming an increasingly common position for Celtic to be involved in with Rocco Vata, Daniel Kelly and Ben Doak all running down their contracts and moving on to English clubs.
The Daily Mail reports:
Celtic have yet to offer a contract extension to coveted teenage striker Daniel Cummings.
Out of contract this summer, the 18-year-old scored his fifth goal in five UEFA Youth League games to sink Club Brugge in last week’s 1-0 win. The teenager has also scored 22 goals in 20 games for the Parkhead youth team this season.
Brentford, Wolves, Fulham, Ipswich, Sunderland and Burnley feature among a posse of English clubs who have run checks on the forward.
After losing Rocca Vata to Watford and Daniel Kelly to Millwall last summer, Celtic moved to tie up Francis Turley and Colby Donovan on new deals.
Despite his prolific scoring and interest from down south, however, Cummings has yet to receive the offer of an extension to stay put and is free to speak to interested clubs from January 1.
If there was an English based striker in the situation that Cummings is in Celtic would almost certainly be showing interest.
Since scoring against Brugge, Cummings has started the matches against Gala Fairydean Rovers and Clyde on the bench.
At the recent Celtic AGM Michael Nicholson was unable to name the last Academy player to start a competitive match, the answer is Owen Moffat when he started away to St Mirren in December 2021, his last ever Celtic appearance.
I sometimes wonder if things would be different if these players had been named in the squad and then brought on when we are 5 up. Having said that, I think young Dembele was brought on early and got a serious injury.
On the face of it, our cash rich club can choose to ‘neglect’ the Academy route for first team players.
But in contrast, the cash poor sevco should be looking to put ever more emphasis on nurturing and developing
their own Academy players to reach the first team… if only because it’s the cheapest option?
Will be interesting to see how both clubs’ youth development compares over the next few years?
The players who have all
“Stepped Up”
recently were all deemed not to be good enough for the First Team.
They got a chance but couldn’t hold a first team place. They have nowhere to go!
I think they all got a chance but you’d have to be a very outstanding twenty year old to keep a place in the Celtic first team.
Somebody should have solved the problem before it raised its ugly head.
It is what it is!
Seems pointless for Celtic to run a youth system. We just lose the best players, so why bother. Young players just don’t get a decent chance at our club. The days of blooding young players are gone. Save money, we wouldn’t need facilities, coaches or wages to young players, just bin it now. No player has made it since Tierney which backs my view.