Lagerbielke’s Lecce link aside, Lennoxtown’s surprisingly quiet

It’s been reported today that Gustaf Lagerbielke is wanted on loan by Serie A side Lecce. It’s no secret that the Swedish international appears not be to in Brendan Rodgers immediate plans so a loan move may be beneficial to both the player and the club.

Whatever the reason is anyone’s guess, as the Allsvenskan Player of the Year has looks pretty decent when he’s had the minutes on the field, plus don’t forget he’s also had a few starts for Sweden recently. But Brendan sees more than him than we do, so you have got to trust his judgement on this one. Some times managers just don’t rate certain players, that’s football.

Lagerbielke cost the club around £3 million and is on a decent wage so getting some of that salary off the wage bill and hopefully recouping the transfer fee later on will benefit the club in its task to bring in new players. I still can’t see Brendan going for another centre back this window as we have CCV, Liam Scales, Maik Nawrocki and Stephen Welsh all on the books for that department.

But we are needing fresh faces in other areas so getting Lagerbielke and a few others who are not in the manager’s plans off the books, would be a start as we aim to upgrade those areas. That’s us eight days into January and there’s been nothing much to report in terms of players coming in or indeed the January clear-out we were all expecting.

The players return to training later this week so maybe things will start to liven up shortly. Meanwhile Celtic have confirmed that five players won’t be returning to Lennoxtown this week as they are off the join their respective countries for the Asian Cup.

Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate are away with Japan, Marco Tilio has joined up with the Socceroos and the South Korean pair of Hyeongyu Oh and Hyunjun Yang complete the Celts heading to the Asian Cup in Qatar.

The tournament gets underway this Friday (12 January) and runs through to Saturday 10 February with all five Celts in with a realistic chance of coming back with a medal.