More misery for on loan Celtic striker

Shin Yamada’s loan misery from Celtic to OE Leuven continued at the weekend.

The on loan striker was an unused substitute as Leuven drew 2-2 at home with Lommel.

Yamada’s last playing time was on September 12 when he came off the bench for 20 minutes in the 1-1 home draw against Cecle Brugge.

The on loan striker has started two matches for his Belgian club, lasting 67 and 72 minutes.

His four appearances off the bench have totalled 54 minutes which suggested that the Leuven management has decided that he isn’t solving any of their problems.

Nine matches into the season Leuven are third bottom of the table with six points and just eight goals scored.

?? 24 Oct 2026, 17:15- Oud-Heverlee Leuven (1.951) 2-2 Lommel SK (3.635) / X-3.85
?Leuven — ??Shin Yamada (unused) / Takuya Ogiwara (90+4′ off, score: 51)
?Belgium First Division A

— Bukume | Bookmaker Fan (@BookmakerBukume) October 26, 2026

THE SUCCESS RATE OF CELTIC RECRUITMENT

Yamada is just another example of Celtic’s scattergun approach to recruitment which comes up with one first team player out of every five or six bought.

Under the guidance of Paul Tisdale Celtic returned to the J-League to make two pointless signings in the summer of 2025.

From their first sightings it was clear that Yamada and Hayato Inamura were way short of the standards required.

With his hands on knowledge Ange Postecoglou found Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate from the J-League. Yosuke Ideguchi came in at the same time but a 75% success rate is exceptional.

During the summer 2025 Tisdale also brought in Sebastian Tounekti and Michel-Ange Balikwisha.

On the plus side Ben Nygren was also signed, the first in the door.

One success and four out and out failures is par for the course with Celtic twitter.

Inamura has already been sold back to Japan, Balikwisha is on loan to Gent with Tounekti drifting out the picture, absent from the last two SPFL Premiership squads.

With a contract running through until May 2029 it looks like Yamada could be returning to Celtic in January.