If we had any ambition at all, we would be looking at signing Toni Fruk to fill the gap that’s coming in the Celtic midfield this summer…
With Reo Hatate likely to end his four and a half year stay at the club, and Arne Engels also looking like the next big money transfer out of Celtic, we will be in desperate need of a creative player in the middle of the park. Not forgetting doubts over Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s future, so it really does intensify that need even more.
We should be targeting a player of proven quality, and not some project player. Someone who will cost in the region of £10 -£15 million, and that man in my opinion should be Croatian international Toni Fruk.
25 year old Fruk who is included in the Croatian World Cup squad, plays for HNK Rijeka in his homeland, and is a player who has the ability to reach a much higher level.
Technically gifted, Fruk creates numerous opportunities for his teammates, whilst also having a knack of finding the back of the net. The Croatian is a skilful player with an elegance about him, something that’s been missing from our side for quite some time.
His numbers last season make for interesting reading, with the cultured midfielder bagging 12 goals as well as providing three assists.
His overall career stats also make for impressive reading, 60 goals and 38 assists in 228 games, which is mighty impressive for a central midfielder.
With Arne Engels looking likely to leave, as is Reo Hatate and Paulo Bernardo, and rumblings over Benjamin Nygren’s future also, it’s imperative we replace their collective talents with someone not only in the same mould, but possibly better, and Toni Fruk is that man.
Although we would need to be quick about any possible deal (I know, I know!!) due to the player heading out to the World Cup finals, where a decent showing could price him well out of our reach.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
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4 Comments
There’s the vital bit of information, that tends to get totally overlooked, is we have no idea, if any such players have any interest in joining ourselves whatsoever?
The SPFL is becoming a harder sell for players, especially for the quality of player we are hoping to attract?
So our strongest attraction is the prospect of European football on offer, which enhances the players profile moreso, for our player trading model in existence.
The downside of course, if any such players don’t succeed with ourselves, then there careers can nosedive, and have to try and rebuild it again, with using the loan market, as we try to salvage as much as possible on our original outlay for them in the first instance. Balikwisha looks like being our current example at present?
So the bigger the fee, the bigger the risk involved, where we as a club, can tend to be to cautious within imo?
For the player’s themselves, they might be tempted with a 2 year approach, and hoping to use ourselves as a stepping stone for bigger contracts available to themselves, within our player trading model in existence.
But it doesn’t come with guarantees, especially with the risk factors involved, as a decision potential players have to consider imo?
Johnno beat me to it.
A couple of years ago this move would have resembled our purchase of Engels.
Fruk is now more of an established name and likely we would be competing with bigger leagues to get his signature.
It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, but at 25 (and in a World Cup year) he may well feel now is the time to try and get a move to the Bundesliga or EPL, and not make a stepping stone move. That’s the reality unfortunately.
But in terms of pedigree, I absolutely agree this is the type of guy we should be shooting for. The rebuild is significant and there’s no point scrambling around to fill the roster with more deadwood than we already have.
I agree Johnno and Lubo, when we start down that road we end up doing what Rangers did, spending big money (for our league) on transfers, agent fee’s and wages. We have a very good recruitment structure in place that has developed revenue (from player sales, international TV subscriptions and shirt sales) and has a great talent of spotting up and coming international talent and developing them which has made Celtic FC a very attractive club to come too.
I know there is certain members of our fan base that don’t like the board or Desmond for trying to pull them within the rules and regulations that all SPL and European clubs have to adhere too (resulting in bans which had to be done under SFA rules) but when you look at the financial health of our club compared to many others in Europe and World wide we are the envy of many (especially EPL and SPL clubs).
I don’t see many of the vocal fans that criticised the board this season standing up and giving them a round of applause for not giving approval to Rodgers buying the player for £10 million+ who ended up going to Ajax, he made 7 starts and not because of injury but because of his fitness and quality or the other player Rodgers blamed the board for not buying for £7-8 million who came out and said he had told them that he didn’t want to sign for Celtic as he didn’t think he was ready for such a move to such a big club.
And now comes to that frase that’s been thrown around for the last year LACK OF AMBITION. When you look at the start of the season and especially the Champions League Qualifier Rodgers refused to play Engles, Yang, Trusty or even look at Callum Osmond (just to mention a few), this didn’t just cost us Champions League qualification but in the weeks meant we lost CCTV who was carrying an injury and didn’t just cut his season short but also ended his World Cup too and this was a mirror of what Rodgers did the last time he was with us. The season before he was giving our biggest transfer budget to spend on incoming players so the lack of ambition mantra that’s been going around just isn’t true.
As both a Celtic fan, and also a Fruk fan, i hope for this marriage to be arranged because Fruk has all the physical and mental traits required for playing at Celtic and would make his teammates better players as he did everywhere so far. Definitely worth every penny and Celtic is most certainly an environment that knows how to appreciate players that always put up a good and striving performance and a fighting spirit.