Celtic: 3 stars who could struggle after new signings

Liel Abada

Early on in the season, it had looked like Celtic had pulled off an absolute transfer masterstroke as Abada was the club’s standout player in the first several weeks, after arriving at Parkhead in the summer.

Since then though, his form has faded away significantly and in recent weeks and months, he has failed to make the same impact that he did early on in the campaign.

While he has still put in impressive performances from time to time, overall, his recent displays have left a lot to be desired and there have been calls for him to be dropped.

With James Forrest and Karamoko Dembele both struggling with injury problems, that has not happened though and Abada has continued to play on.

With Daizen Maeda arriving at the club, that might not remain the case for much longer. With both Jota and Kyogo being the club’s standout players this season, it is hard to imagine either of them being dropped. Thus, Abada might be the one out of the front three who struggles for playing time moving forward.

Of course, it will very interesting to see if Postecoglou is able to fit Kyogo, Jota and Maeda all in the same line up and make it work.

Nir Bitton

For a long time, it had not looked like Bitton was in Postecoglou’s first-team plans. But that changed after Tom Rogic picked up an injury earlier on in the campaign.

Bitton came in and delivered some very impressive performances in the middle of the park while Callum McGregor was pushed further up the pitch.

With Yosuke Ideguchi arriving, Celtic appear to have another player now capable of playing in that role.

And it feels very unlikely that Postecoglou has brought in Ideguchi just for him to sit on the bench, especially since he is not a player who had a brilliant 2021 J1 League campaign and as a result, was an outside of the box signing. The manager must have a plan for him. That could mean less playing time for Bitton though.