Just when doubts were beginning to emerge about Patryk Klimala, Celtic’s correspondent for The Athletic, Kieran Devlin, delivered an ominous verdict for the future in the aftermath the 3-1 win over Kilmarnock in February.
“Have heard people inside the club aren’t impressed with him so far but it’s also only been six, seven weeks.”
As Devlin alludes to, it would be naive and rash to write off the £3.5m striker already. Klimala has arrived at a club faced with the daunting prospect of trying to usurp not just one but two kings.
Odsonne Edouard is scoring with a regularity which has prompted suggestions from Chris Sutton that he could be a Scottish record-breaker this summer, with a £40m transfer valuation being touted. His emerging partner in crime, Leigh Griffiths, has emerged from a dark period and a prolonged absence from football and is beginning to cement his place in Neil Lennon’s starting XI once again.
Watch Celtic Videos With StreamFootball.tv Below
It will take more than talk of the 21-year-old eventually replacing Robert Lewandowski as Poland’s centre-forward to earn the young pretender the respect of both his peers and the Hoops faithful.
When his time arrives he will need to be prepared and ready to undermine the doubters inside the club who are yet to express their enthusiasm for his talent.
And there are acute lessons from Celtic’s recent transfer history which suggest Devlin’s admission could represent a prescient warning for how Klimala’s stint at Paradise will pan out.
Klimala has only been selected in one SPFL squad in the past four games and his only start came against third tier Clyde in the SFA Cup. The initial prognosis doesn’t look positive.
Peter Lawwell has displayed shrewd foresight down the years and brought players to the club with incredible resale value. A true stroke of genius, Moussa Dembele was signed for just £500k in 2016, Odsonne Edouard already looks like a snip at £9m and Kristoffer Ajer, though question marks remain over exactly how high he can rise in the game, was a cunning acquisition at £504k.
Ironically, Rodgers’ Leicester City have championed a similar transfer approach and enjoyed rich success by targeting players with high resale value in recent years. N’Golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez, Wilfried Ndidi, Jamie Vardy and Harry Maguire are some of the more high-profile players to move to the King Power Stadium. Of course, there have been flops along the way but largely their transfer strategy has been a resounding success and rightly revered in the British media.
But plenty of project signings at Celtic – young, unproven, relatively affordable players with resale potential – have faded into obscurity and failed to make the grade in Scottish football.
Eboue Kouassi, a player who Rodgers even tipped to succeed Scott Brown, is the most expensive of those at £3.15m.
He is joined on an ever-growing list which includes Vakoun Issouf Bayo, Marian Shved and Jack Hendry, who signed in £2m, £2m and £1.5m deals respectively. Lewis Morgan also failed to make the grade but at £300k he was a gamble worth taking.
Only real Celtic fans will get 100% on the Ultimate Hoops quiz. Test your knowledge below…
It remains to be seen whether Klimala will become the next story of unfulfilled promise and money wasted at Celtic. Equally, fellow January signing Ismaila Soro’s absence from first team action will naturally evoke concerns over his potential to make the grade at the club.
But the Poland international’s relatively mediocre record in his home country – he scored 11 in 50 for Jagiellonia Bialystok – coupled with Devlin’s recent revelation, do not combine together to create a thriving vision of his future.
£8.95m has already been wasted on a handful of failed projects. Klimala and Soro, who cost £2m, could end up taking the total of wasted finances to £14.45m if the early warning signs prove to be correct.
The examples of Dembele and Ajer prove Lawwell should not scrap Celtic’s policy of identifying talents for the future, but there is no doubt the strategy can be refined to prevent the list from escalating.