Celtic’s recruitment has been on point since the appointment of Ange Postecoglou last summer. Since the arrival of the manager, the club have been successful in discovering stars like Jota, Kyogo, Reo Hatate, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Matt O’Riley, Giorgos Giakoumakis, Josip Juranovic, Liel Abada and many others. And what is remarkable is the fact that all of them were signed within the space of a couple of transfer windows.
This summer, the club made a number of additions as well and might have their hands on a couple of more stars, with Sead Haksabanovic and Alexandro Bernabei starting to impress in recent weeks, after slow starts.
Celtic seem to be following the ‘We Never Stop’ mantra when it comes to the transfer windows as well though and already seem to have plans in place for January and are expected to do their business early on, just like last time around.
As reported by The Herald, Postecoglou said:
"“We are well underway with our planning for January.“It was really beneficial for us last year to do our business early in January. I think that helped us in the back half of the season.“I think we are going to have to do something similar this January. Our strategy is already in place and hopefully it all comes together.“We are looking everywhere in terms of our recruitment. Mark Lawwell is in the building now and the reason I brought him in is that he knows what I am looking for. The brief is to scour the world for that.“The Japanese and Asian market is one I am really familiar with and I still think there is value there for players, and I know how they would fit into what we do.“But we signed Alexandro Bernabei from Argentina, so South America is also an area we are looking at.“With Mark now working and knowing how we do things, we know exactly what we are looking for.“There are some parameters financially that we have to work with but the key criteria is the kind of characters they are, and how they conduct themselves.“Whether they are from Europe, Asia, South America or Africa, we factor that into any player we bring in.”"
Postecoglou delivers brilliant Celtic transfer update ahead of January window
That is brilliant news to say the least. One thing that Celtic have done since the arrival of Postecoglou particularly well is look for talent all over the world.
Nobody can say that the club would have signed four players from Japan in the space of a couple of transfer windows if not for the appointment of Postecoglou and his knowledge of the J League, where he had been managing Yokohama F Marinos before his arrival at Celtic.
Also, one of the most striking aspects about Celtic in these recent transfer windows has been their efficiency and how quickly they have gotten deals done.
For years, the club had a reputation for dragging their heels when it came to transfer business, and missing out on key players because of it, but that seems like a thing of the past now.