Celtic boss Martin O'Neill is backing late summer signing Shim Mheuka to be a hit for the Bhoys. The on-loan Chelsea forward has already shown glimpses for the Bhoys, coming off the bench and making an impact.
Mheuka had a goal disallowed on Saturday night, but he showed real pace and power to score it. With Camilo Duran playing out wide when Kasper Hogh is fit, Mheuka should get minutes up top, backing up Hogh and competing with Callum Osmand, who is injured and likely to be out for a few weeks.
Speaking on Saturday about Mheuka's impact and his hopes for the youngster, O'Neill said: "He could be a proper player in time. He could be. I could see him starting, very easily. This is the whole point, we’ve got a couple of players that deep down you don’t really know exactly what they can do. Of course we’ve studied them, we’ve got their things and they’re coming in.
“But until they’re throwing into these games, I was speaking to wee Mika Baur afterwards, I said, ‘Mika, these games are hard.’ He’s played in the Bundesliga second division, he just got into the big league. The games are hard here. Sometimes they don’t realise how hard they are. But big Shim looks as if he wants to adjust to it.”
Mheuka is just 18 years of age, so his development is not likely to be linear - his form may not be, either. But he really was a bonus signing for the Bhoys, who could likely have coped with the three strikers they have, even with Duran often playing wide.
That takes the pressure off for Mheuka as he looks to make an impact, and that can only help a young player looking to make an impact at a big club like Celtic. However he pans out, Mheuka already looks like a better loan signing than the poor loan strikers Celtic had to endure last term.
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