Tonight Celtic have managed to clear the decks further ahead of the new season kicking off, as perpetual misfit Boli Bolingoli has joined KV Mechelen. The Belgian side who also took Marian Shved off of our hands will now add another Hoops disaster signing amongst their contingent.
Boli arrived at Celtic Park during Neil Lennon’s ill-fated second spell in charge of the club. A £3 million signing from Rapid Vienna – whom we played on Saturday just past – had the unenviable job of trying to replace stalwart and new £25 million Arsenal signing, Kieran Tierney.
CLUJ-NAPOCA, ROMANIA, CFR CLUJ – CELTIC FC Boli Bolingoli of Celtic FC in action during the UEFA Champions League, Third Round Qualifying Round match between CFR Cluj and Celtic FC on 07 August 2019, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Photo: Alex Nicodim/Imago PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxROM Copyright: xALEXxNICODIMx
From the minute he played in a Celtic jersey he looked like a square peg in a round hole and it didn’t get any better from there on in. After some dodgy performances for the side and a lack of confidence in him from the manager, the Belgian was sidelined quite a bit. Greg Taylor and Jonny Hayes were the preferred choices to fill in on the left-hand side of the defence.
Then, in what was surely a moment of infamy, the much maligned Bolingoli decided to take a trip to Spain to see a girl – during the Covid crisis lockdown! He returned from abroad after breaking the restrictions set in place by the Scottish government and didn’t tell a soul about it. Then that weekend he was brought on as a substitute at Rugby Park and all hell broke loose afterwards.
He is another apt reminder of why football men should be in charge of the football operations and scouting networks.
However, the removal of more Dead wood means we may perhaps see more movement on the transfer front after it went considerably quiet recently, in comparison to our quickfire start of am the summer transfer window. Hopefully this moves things along a bit more and frees up much needed wages for Ange to reinvest in quality acquisitions.
Paul Gillespie
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