Whatever happened to Celtic striker Shin Yamada?

Across two transfer windows Shin Yamada was the only striker signed by Celtic.

In contrast Michael Nicholson was prolific at selling goal-scorers.

Getting rid of Kyogo Furuhashi, Nicolas Kuhn and Adam Idah brought in well over £30m earning the CEO high-fives from the Celtic directors.

The Idah and Kuhn sales will ensure another profit for this season and a bumper donation to HMRC in the form of Corporation Tax.

For a fee of £1.5m Yamada was signed in July, clearly a club signing.

Rodgers was offered Yamada in January as a replacement for Kyogo but turned it down. In July he was handed a Paul Tisdale signing.

Ahead of the formal signing the Daily Record reported Rodgers saying:

He’ll have a medical over the next couple of days and we’ll have a look at him.

We’ve lost a lot of goals so we need to replace that. Hopefully this can be one of a number of players we can bring in that aspect.

He’s got intensity and work rate. It’s something the scouts have seen.

In terms of the club, we will bring in players to develop and players for now. Even though he’s a bit older, he’s probably one of those that can give us that intensity and pressure.

I need to look and see him when he comes in and hopefully he can do well. The idea was to bring him in and assess him. He’s a strong boy – but we’d want to add to our front line also.

All the phrases are in there distancing Rodgers from the signing.

Celtic didn’t sign any more strikers. Instead Nicholson sold Idah to reduce the chances of Rodgers having a successful final season.

YAMADA THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES

Yamada started one SPFL match for Celtic and came off the bench seven times. He was left out of the Europa League squad.

Unbelievably going out on loan has had an adverse effect on Yamada.

Going to the German Second Division should have provided some playing time, maybe some goals and the prospect of a career somewhere in Europe.

Preussen Munster have sunk to bottom place in Bundesliga 2 with playing time for Yamada as infrequent as with Celtic.

So far he has played 105 minutes over five matches.

On March 8 the loan striker got 46 minutes in the 2-1 home defeat from Hertha Berlin.

A week later Yamada was left on the bench for the 6-0 defeat away to Dynamo Dresden. Last weekend he was left out of the squad entirely, Preussen lost 3-1 at home to Magdeburg.

The good news for Yamada is that his Celtic contract runs until June2029. Another classic from Tisdale and Nicholson Productions.