Maik Nawrocki’s stay at Celtic has come to a halt, whether that is on a permanent basis remains to be seen.
On Saturday he completed a loan move to Hannover 96 that includes an option to buy, presumably if they gain promotion to the Bundesliga with the defender playing a key role.
Alongside news of his arrival Hannover mention that the Polish u-21 internationalist is one of 14 new signings, that suggests a complete overhaul of the squad.
In the summer of 2023 Nawrocki was one of seven new signings at Celtic, that seemed a high number at the time with subsequent events suggesting that the club badly misjudged what was required to improve the team and squad.
Over two seasons Nawrocki started 10 out of a possible 76 SPFL matches, he made three more substitute appearances and never played a single minute in the Champions League.
Rückennummer, Reisen und Co.: Hier gibt’s fünf Fakten über unseren Neuzugang Maik #Nawrocki. ??#H96 #NiemalsAllein ?????https://t.co/W29M6xyFuX
— Hannover 96 (@Hannover96) July 5, 2025
Nawrocki told the Hannover website:
I’m incredibly happy to be here and now part of the team. I think we have an exciting journey ahead of us with many new players and a new coach. We want to attack the coming season with renewed energy. Now it’s time for me to quickly settle into training, the team, and the club.
During Nawrocki’s two seasons at Celtic Liam Scales has been the most regular defensive partner for Cameron Carter-Vickers.
When Celtic lost at home in the March Glasgow Derby Nawrocki was the defender to emerge with most credit from the match but he only started two more matches, at home to Hearts in a 3-0 win and scoring in the 5-1 win away at Aberdeen.
Many fans are claiming that he deserved a chance but the fact that he has gone out on loan to a team that finished ninth in Bundesliga 2 suggests that interest from other clubs was minimal.
Hopefully a good run of games shows if he can or could become a first team regular, good luck to him anyway with his loan move .
I think big Maik’s a pretty decent all-round defender who’s comfortable on the ball and displays a wide range of passing. Lack of pace would be his main weakness but I think he was given a bit of a raw deal at Celtic and deserved far more opportunities to play. I hope he does well over in Germany and helps get Hannover promoted at the first time of asking both for his sake and also because that would give us a great chance to recoup a substantial chunk of what we splashed out on him.
Looked like he might have had something on the rare occasions he played – albeit more at the level of Simunovic than Van Dijk – but too right-sided to play with the equally right-sided CCV, I had the impression he was signed as CCV’s replacement in anticipation of the big man’s sale rather than to play alongside him. I expect he will do quite well at Hannover and we’ll probably have set the option to buy fee too low again, like with Jack Hendry.
BR made a ” vague” reference to. ” fitness levels “…Found that very strange.
A manager commenting on the lack of ‘match fitness’ on the part of a player he doesn’t pick is what you might describe as a classic ‘chicken or the egg?’ type of situation….
That’s what I found strange Captain…
I’m very pleased for Maik and I really hope he gets a proper chance at Hanover.
A lot depends on the support you get a a club and I have the feeling that somehow Celtic was the problem here, not Maik. It’s a shame, but maybe the future is bright for him. I hope so.
I agree with the very much with the 3 very decent comments above and I hope he does well at Hanover and achieves success. I will be keeping an eye on his progress as I thought there was a good player there who didn’t get the support he deserved.
I’m very pleased for Maik and I really hope he gets a proper chance at Hanover.
A lot depends on the support you get at a club and I just have the feeling that somehow Celtic was the problem here, not Maik.
It’s a shame and I wish him all the best and really hope that the future is bright for him.
I agree with the very much with the 3 very decent comments above and I hope he does well at Hanover and achieves success. I will be keeping an eye on his progress as I think that there was a good player there who didn’t get the support he deserved, for whatever reason.
great news for the young boy who is one of my 6 or 7 who were never given the opportunity to get a run of games, even after scoring against aberdeen he was dropped the next match, how on earth is that good management.
We have been found badly wanting when key players are injured as rodgers, in my opinion, will stick to plan A with some plyers having a terrible game yet they never seem to be subbed off, perhaps some figures in the background are playing moneyball, i sincerely hope not as nawrocki could have been developed into better than what we have in central defence rather than wasting on the touchline.
Yes nawrocki should have got more game time,I still say he is better than scales and trusty but Brendan liked them two no matter how many bad games they had,as for Joe’s thoughts on how a bigger team than Hannover would have moved for him,is it not the case that not many teams actually got to see him play as he was never given an extended run in the team thanks to Rodgers,I’ll bet this guy will show up at his new club and maybe they will give him a good run in and we’ll see how good he can be,I wish him well because he was treated abysmally at Celtic,I hope he proves Rodgers wrong.
Aye – Just another move that simply didn’t work out for whatever reason !
And we’ll never know Clach…Again..!!