‘Surplus’ Celtic flop now on fire after leaving

Given Celtic’s business model of buying young players cheaply, giving them a platform on which to perform and ultimately selling them at a profit, the Hoops experience more squad changes than most.

Matt O’Riley is an excellent example of this transfer strategy, as he arrives from Milton Keynes Dons for just £1.5 million in January 2022, before being sold to Brighton & Hove Albion for £25 million last summer, a joint record sale for a Scottish club, along with Kieran Tierney’s move to Arsenal in 2019 and jota that added Al Ittihad in 2023.

This merry-go-round has seen many top forwards sport the famous Hoops over the last decade, including Moussa Dembele, Odsonne Edouard, Giorgos Giakoumakis and current starting centre-forward Kyogo Furuhashi, to name just a few.

Celtic often get their recruitment right, particularly at the top end of the park, but this is certainly not always the case.

The worst transfer window in Celtic history?

After the 2020 summer window, Celtic posted this now infamous tweet: “Just sitting there thinking…what a window”, mocking former striker Charlie Nicholas. who had criticized the club’s hiringbut it turned out he was right.

Of the players pictured, Vasilis Barkas, Shane Duffy and Albian Ajeti were big flops, Diego Laxalt was disappointing, David Turnbull was decent, if not living up to his potential, and Mohamed Elyounoussi was sporadically impressive, but without much consistency.

The Hoops’ poor recruiting in 2020 actually dates back to the pre-pandemic January window as well. paying 2 million pounds for The services of Ismaila Soro came from Bnei Yehuda, while Patryk Klimala arrived from Jagiellonia Białystok for £3.5 million.

With the world shut down and football suspended just weeks after his arrival in Glasgow, Klimala only made four appearances. totaling 101 minutesduring his first half-season at Celtic, but there was optimism that he could make an impact the following year after an impressive performance in pre-season, most notably scoring the late goal against Nice.

He then scored on the opening day of the Premiership season as the Bhoys defeated Hamilton Accies 5-1, scoring shortly after being introduced as a substitute.

However, this was not the start of something, as Klimala scored just three times in 28 appearances during what turned out to be a catastrophic campaign, as Neil Lennon’s side finished without trophies, finishing 25 points behind Rangers, with 20/21. It remains the only campaign since 2010/11 in which Celtic have not been crowned champions.

The Polish striker left unceremoniously in April 2021, described as “surplus needs” by Noel Whelan in Football Insidersold to New York Red Bulls for 4.8 million dollarsand Celtic remarkably recovered their money, despite his insignificant time in Glasgow, and Klimala subsequently became something of a globetrotter.

Patryk Klimala’s post-Celtic career

Like Celtic, the New York Red Bulls almost certainly regret paying £3.5m for Klimala’s services.

In fact, he was their top scorer with eight in 2021 as the New Jersey-based franchise finished 14th overall in Major League Soccer. Scoring only 14 goals in 63 appearances. overall, he will lose his starting job as RBNY improves in 2022.

As a result, the following January, he was sold to Israeli club Hapoel Be’er Sheva. score a measly four goals in 23 outingsbefore their contract was mutually terminated at the end of 2023 following the escalation of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Śląsk Wrocław, back in his native Poland, took a chance on Klimala, but it didn’t pay off. not scoring in any of his 11 Ekstraklasa games for the military, to the point that they did not take him into account in their reserve team, who plies his trade in the Polish fourth division and, as expected, scored four out of four at that levelincluding a hat-trick against Górnik Polkowice, but this would only be the beginning of his scoring streak.

In September 2024, Klimala joined Sydney FC of the A-League and, although he now plies his trade on the other side of the world, he seems to have found a home.

Now 26 years old, he has scored seven goals in 11 games for the Sky Blues, scoring the winning goal on his A-League debut, which happened to be a Sydney derby against Western Sydney Wanderers.

He also hit another win in the Sydney derby at the end of November, before continuing his scoring spree in the loss to the Central Coast Mariners on Sunday, as the Sky Blues sit sixth in the A-League standings.

As outlined in the table, the striker has flourished at the start of his life in Australia, so while this does not suggest that Celtic should have retained him, it does emphasize that just because a player does not train at a club, or four in this case, it doesn’t mean they won’t thrive at the right level and in the right environment.