'I have a strong desire to make it happen at Celtic,' Odin Thiago Holm

The 22 year-old, a £2.3m signing in the summer of 2023 from Norwegian side Valerenga, is around half-way through a bumper five-year contract with Celtic and is currently on a year-long loan with MLS side Los Angeles FC.  The midfielder has admitted that he’s now relying on a miracle cure of Botox injections in his leg to try and enable him to continue playing.

Speaking via an Nowegian podcast Odin has explained the reason why he has been missing from the Los Angeles side this season.

“I try to take one day at a time. But it’s easy to feel down. There is a syndrome I have in my legs that makes it a little difficult to play football, unfortunately, Holm said, as reported by Daily Record. “When I run continuously during a football match, my calf muscles expand and put pressure on nerves and blood vessels. It’s like blowing up a balloon in a narrow tube and there is a problem with a lack of blood supply.

“It’s painful and disgusting. It feels like I’m losing control of my ankle joint. I can’t seem to lift my ankle or my feet when I run. It feels like I’m half paralysed. Last year, I travelled to Wyoming to test a treatment where Botox is injected into the parts of the muscle that compress blood vessels and nerves.

“These points in the muscle will be paralysed, allowing normal blood circulation even during muscle pumping. But the problems returned and the treatment turned out to be just temporary.

“There are no treatments or surgeries that provide any guarantees, so we have tried a few different things. I tried half doses to reduce the side effects and then a full dose, which means three more months on the sidelines.

“I’m just moving around in uncertainty and hoping for the best. It makes it a little harder, but I still have hope that it will be good.”

Holm will return to Celtic at the end of his calendar year loan, there’s no chance in these circumstances of the MLS side being interested in any transfer option, and he’ll have a decision to make on his future after being assessed by Celtic’s medical team, who presumably have been in the loop during the player’s struggles in the States.

Darren O’Dea and his successor Shaun Maloney handle the situations with all Celtic players out on loans and are in regular contract with them, so this news will not come as a surprise to the club.

Odin explained what’s next: “The plan is to return to Scotland after the MLS season in the United States is over, no later than December.

“I have a strong desire to make it happen at Celtic. But the primary goal now is to get my body in order. As of now, I am not experiencing any symptoms during exercises that I have previously experienced symptoms with. That’s a very good sign, but I still need some time before the side effects of the injections wear off.”

Fingers crossed for this all to work out for him. I recall Brendan a few times mentioning him as having problems while he was at Celtic, dropping that into answers to team news or injury concern questions at media conferences, so this seems to be an ongoing issue.

The chances of a transfer happening are low to say the least, and even a further loan deal would be hard to foresee given the unusual circumstances and you would have to have a concern for the player’s well-being before he could ever look at playing again.

But if the injections are a success and he is fit to resume playing then he’ll have to look at doing that at Celtic. Best of luck to the Bhoy, who certainly looked like a very promising signing but has had no luck at all.

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