The Celtic Board Finally Play Their Hand

Ross Hall takes a look at our 4 new signings

Poker isn’t about having the best individual cards in your hand, but about having cards that fit the strategy you want to adopt in order to try and win the game. You don’t always need the best hand, but you do need a sound strategy.

The Celtic board in poker terms went through each round of the game checking, checking again and checking again, and finally as we hit the final week of the transfer window Rodgers appeared to raise the stakes, calling for them to show what cards they were giving him to play with. I’m sure like every manager he was hoping for aces… did he get them?

Alex Valle – Barcelona (Loan – No option to buy)

Luke McCowan – Dundee (£1.3 million)

Auston Trusty – Sheffield United (£6 million)

Arne Engels – Augsburg (£11 million)

And we are going to have a look at each one, but before we do that, we are going to take our time machine back to what the clubs aims were according to Brendan Rodgers and this quote is from Dec 23.

"There's no doubt now that, one, the squad will come down in numbers and obviously we need to add quality.”

"There is no dressing it up, the group lost real quality players in the summer. That's something that over the coming windows we will look to improve on."

At the end of that window the club via a statement signed by Peter Lawwell apologised for not doing enough to help achieve that aim and so we went into this summer looking to put that right. Feels like it took a lifetime, god help those who were refreshing transfer rumour threads every hour because they’d have given a paracetamol a headache.

We’ve moved on a lot of players who had fallen out of favour or had been here a lot longer than some felt they should have been, and we also broke our record for a fee received with the sale of Matt O’Riley. So, it’s safe to say that the squad number has come down in numbers, but have we achieved our goal of increasing the overall quality?

Well, have we…? What do you think? (Feel free to comment below) or on our twitter account.

For me I feel like Rodgers got handed a decent hand, but he’ll need to use a bit of strategy to make the hand work. If I’m brutally honest I’d hoped for more and I hoped we’d have the team setup earlier in the window to allow Rodgers and his staff to get a lot of good sessions in before the season started.

When we signed Schmeichel I was delighted. Experience, good recent form and a player who has seen and done it and the highest level.

Sinasalo, good forward planning, that is as long as there is an actual plan for him that is more than just him sitting on the sidelines for the next year or two.

Bernardo and Idah. Both sensible signings that made good sense because we know what we are getting, they know what they are getting and if they show what they have done last season and improve then we have 2 good players. The only criticism they should have been done in time for the friendlies in the USA.

Then we move on to the hand the club have played in the last week and here they are 1 by 1 with my take on each player:

(Arne Engels – Played most positions, with those big hands it’s a shock he hasn’t played in goal)

Arne Engels

20 Years Old

Belgian

Central Midfielder (Right Footed)

Last Seasons Basic Data (Wyscout)

33 Games Played / 1676 Minutes Played (Average of 50mins per game)

3 Goals & 1 Assist

The first question most people asked me when Engles name came up was “what is he?”

Well, we might be quicker saying what he is not because if we took every comment on as gospel then he’s a defensive central midfielder, box to box midfielder, a 10, right back and right winger. Funnily enough all are true, so then it’s what does he do best… And the answer is Augsburg didn’t appear to know because his role in their team seemed to change way too often to see consistency and took in some of those mentioned above. The role he seemed to play a bit more than others last season tended to be on the right of a 3-man midfield and if I’m being honest having flicked through his highlights, I wasn’t all that taken with his performances, but the same could be said of Augsburg as a whole and it’s a fine balance of understanding how much input he has in that, and how much the constant change of role or position had on him.

Heatmap Bundesliga 23/24:

So, the next question is why sign him and break a club record to do so?

The why is in what Engels could be, at 20 years old he’s had 18 months of top flight football in the Bundesliga with Augsburg and he’s done ok. His skillset is one that I think will suit a team that does have more control of games, which we do and one that will need work. 

His main strengths for me are his energy, ability to move on the ball and he has a good range of passing with a real ability to open up the play with his right foot when he lifts his head and see’s spaces and runners in behind. 

The standout games I seen when watching him were away from club level. He was on under 21 duties for Belgium where he played in the centre of the pitch in a 6/8 role. Belgium had a double header vs Scotland (2-0 loss) and Spain (1-1). All his strengths were on show over the 2 games and it was on these games I’d have said he was very good, borderline outstanding against Scotland despite the loss. He helped Belgium dictate the play vs Scotland (he’ll still be wondering how they lost). Against Spain he had to be more defensively set and help them be more solid on the right side of the pitch vs the talented against Fermin and Diego Lopez. In the game against Spain his long passing helped Belgium relieve the pressure and move up the pitch and he was strong in his duels vs a very talented Spanish attack.

I think if I had to place Engles in our team right now it would be with a view to what he could be as a number 6 sitting as the deepest of the 3 midfielders we deploy. His strengths could fit that role nicely because we look to dominate games, he has more power in his running than Cal and is bigger physically so he would bring a different dynamic in that area. Now before anyone panics, no I’m not dropping Cal. I’m moving him up one in this scenario or in the Champions Leage we could potentially look to play a little more secure with 2 players in a 6/8 type role and then allow Reo or Bernardo to stay higher. It was clear in the game vs Rangers that our defensive shape for a lot of that game was 4411 or 442 with the wide players dropping and Reo pushing up closer to Kyogo.

Engels by no stretch is the finished article, if he was chances are he wouldn’t be here and he has a lot of improving to do. Part of that improvement will hopefully come with consistency of idea and role. The framework Rodgers gives him to play within and then Engels understanding it and looking to improve in areas that will help him move from potentially good to just good old good, good will decide what he becomes.

Those areas of improvement for me are his ability in the air and in his 1vs1 duels. He needs to master what he can do with his shape and size, at times be a little more aggressive with it. Positionally, I think he’d be ok in that role today, but he will have a lot more of the ball than he’s ever had at Augsburg so a masterclass from McGregor in how to be a constant option and how to become stone cold under intense pressure won’t do him any harm. As above he does have a good range of passing and in his footage you often see him drifting over to the right and then looking to get players in behind with his ability to drop the ball into good spaces, but as we all know in the league those opportunities will be less due to the way teams tend to setup up against us but if the chance arises then we have Daizen, Kyogo and Kuhn who all like to go in behind.

Lastly, he will need time and patience because his price tag might scream that he should be a world beater in the world we play within most weeks, but he’s still raw in terms of experience and the demands we will put upon him to win, win and win well. 38 league games, cup games and the rest, it isn’t easy and very few clubs face those demands. It’s something that almost all of our new signings are going to have to face up to and embrace if they want to succeed. If he can do those things then he will become a real asset to us.

And to answer the last part of is he a player we should have broken our transfer record for. Yes and No. 

Yes, because Brendan Rodgers appears to have a real belief in this player and has absolutely earned the right to make this call. Only he and those within Celtic know what they are looking for Arne Engels to be, and that judgement needs to be trusted. No, because I want to be honest and say that on the evidence of performances over the past 18 months at Augsburg I watched, I didn’t see enough that would have made me put this name on a sheet and say must sign no matter what. I see a player profile that is good, has some real standout positives and some areas to build upon. Please remember the club watch a lot more of the individual than I will so are far better placed to make that call. Maybe one day….

Auston Trusty

26 Years Old

American

Central Defender (Left Footed)

Last Seasons Basic Data (Wyscout):

34 Games Played / 3135 minutes played (Average of 92mins per game)

2 Clean Sheets

I must admit I heard the Stone Cold Steve Austin Shattered Glass (I won’t do what you tell me) as the theme tune to his media video and it brings out a smile. I haven’t watched wrestling for years but back in the day loved it. Good times.

Will Auston Trusty prove to be Stone Cold in our defence and deliver Stone Cold Stunners to any strikers who come his way (without giving away fouls of course).

First off, the obvious elephant in the room is anyone who watched Sheffield United in the EPL last season would be doing well to find 1 positive word to say about them. They were awful and it was a situation that made it extremely difficult for any player to shine, especially defenders who at times were so up against it that their heat maps could be reduced down to 20 yards in some games.

Heatmap EPL 23/24:

What I would say about Trusty first and foremost is he showed he was adaptable throughout the season. Sometimes playing on the left of a back 3, then over as a left back / left wingback and having that versatility is of great value to us because finding left sided defenders has not proven to be easy for us in recent times with Greg Taylor and Liam Scales having had to really carry that side of the defence over the past year.

In terms of what Trustys strengths that were on show last season. I have to be honest and say they were few in what I watched, but in almost every game I’ve seen and clips I’ve looked through I just go back to the same thing over and over again and that is the Sheffield Utd team were awful, I think you could have stuck Franco Baresi at his peak in that team and his head would have been spinning. So, I had to go back a little further and look at his loan spells with Birmingham (Championship) and with Colorado (MLS) to see something else and what I found was a player who was far more competitive, showed a decent ability to read the game and play higher up the pitch. Was night and day when compared to Sheffield United, even in a struggling Birmingham team.

I can actually see having watched him in both those loans why Sheffield United figured having him on the left of a back 3 was the way they wanted to go because he does cover over well on that left sided which you need in a 3-man defence and he is willing to go up the pitch and press. It just didn’t work out that way for him at United.

Now I have to be aware of my own bias in that I have a preference towards a CCV type central defender, someone who looks really strong on their feet. Trusty isn’t that, he is taller than CCV and has a slightly lanky look in how he moves and everyone can be guilty of judging a player on simple things like the way they move, but he covers the ground well, and as above he is more than capable of going higher and pressing the game.

The areas where I think he needs to work on and it’ll fast become apparent when he plays in the first team will be things like having the confidence to carry the ball knowing how high up the pitch he is and that unlike most of the teams he’s played for before there won’t be a big safety net behind him in terms of numbers. It is vital his passing is on point or he will end up causing himself a world of trouble. In terms of his aerial ability and how aggressive he is in duels, for me they need to go up a notch. Like any defender it’s a fine balance but what he will find up here is that teams main threats often come from set plays, so he’s going to have to ready for that and at the other end he wants to be looking to get himself a few goals as well. Use that height of his to make sure he’s getting on the end of the odd set piece.

In terms of pace, I again go back to the way he moves and I can’t really judge it based on the video footage I’ve seen. He’s got that long stride that can cover ground, but I wouldn’t say he looks exceptionally fast yet at the same time I’d bet if he was in a race over 10 to 20 yards, he’d been competitive because of that long stride.

I think that what is quite interesting when we look at Engels and Trusty is we have taken players from 2 teams who didn’t perform particularly well last season, so a big emphasis has been put on what we believe they have as opposed what was on show over the last 9 to 12 months at club level, as opposed to players who were maybe at a lower level and flying. 

I also wonder if both players were added to the squad based on what might be a more defensive outlook at times in Europe. Rodgers potentially looking at the odd game and thinking a double 6 to try and control spaces where we were often exposed in the Champions League last season. Maybe Trusty playing at left back, a bit like Man City do with Ake. Playing a player who is central defender first, in his secondary role of left back to add a bit of extra height and security in particular situations.

Alex Valle

20 Years Old

Spaniard

Left Back (Left Footed)

Last Seasons Basic Data (Wyscout):

28 games played / 2429 minutes (Average of 85mins per game)

7 Clean Sheets

This move I believe caught almost everyone off guard. I’d been told time and time again by a few people that Owen Wijndal (Ajax) was the likely option for a loan deal so Valle was not on my radar and what I’ve seen of him is limited so I can’t give the sort of well rounded response I would like to but I’ve seen a few games from his loan spell at Levante (La Liga 2) along with various highlight clips, had a good look at his data, and I watched the games he played for Barcelona in pre-season as a right back which was a little odd but he done well.

The biggest thing I took from Valle at Levante was the style of play that he was playing within. Levante had a fairly solid structure and to me that allowed them to be defensively quite good, but offensively maybe a touch rigid. Valle within that was left back in almost every game I seen and my takeaways were that he was quick, very competitive and as you would expect from a graduate of La Masia technically sound. His ability to move with the ball at his feet is strong, I think his delivery is better than the stats show when you see he didn’t register any assists. Levante were joint lowest scorers in the top 10 teams in La Liga 2 and often just weren’t getting numbers forward quickly enough. When he was getting the ball into the box, he often found a Levante player, and the stats in terms of crossing accuracy are good at over 30% so I’d like to hope in a team like ours that would pay out in high value chances and goals for our attackers.

In most games I seen he, more than most in the team he was allowed an element of freedom. His primary role was to get up and down the left side, but at times to move into the inverted role that we often see Greg Taylor do so well and his technical ability and stamina ensured that you seen a good level of consistency from the first minute to the last in his actions.  Where as the right fullback was just a straight up and down the line player.

Heatmap La Liga 2 23/24:

In the Barca friendlies he played this summer at right back he had the natural instinct to bring the ball inside as he is left footed, and they got some joy from that with a lovely whipped in-swinging cross that Pau Victor nodded in vs Real Madrid, but what it did make me realise and I went back and looked at his footage at Levante is he’s incredibly one footed(left). I haven’t seen it cause him any issues up to now, but I would hope that even though he’s only here on loan that it is something we’d actively work on with him because good teams will exploit that. A good example of where it could have gone wrong was in a Levante game late on and a fairly simple ball was dropped in behind him, no major pressure and an easy 20-yard pass back to the goalkeeper if he used his right foot. He didn’t and the opposition attacker started closing in as Valle adjusted his body, opening up his upper body to allow him to use his left foot. That movement instantly weakens your ability to block a challenge coming in from the side because your left shoulder opens up your stance . Thankfully in that instance the attacker wasn’t close enough, but in Champions League games you don’t get that sort of time and freedom to make those adjustments because you want to use your stronger foot.

All in all, I think this is an interesting move that obviously was needed as Greg has been holding things down on his own for far too long. However, the loan with no option does feel a bit like kicking the can down the road. I wonder what the strategy is if Greg Taylor doesn’t sign a new deal and Valle goes back to Barca. We then go from having 2 left backs who will have been active in the first team squad this season to none. Risky and if Kieran Tierney is the play, then while I love Kieron as a player, I don’t know how we could risk hanging our hat on a player who has had so many injuries in recent times, a fabulous player on his day but those days of late seem a lot less frequent.

Luke McCowan

26 Years Old

Scottish

Central Midfielder (Left Footed)

Last Seasons Basic Data (Wyscout): 37 Games / 3598 minutes (Average of 97 mins per game)

10 Goals & 4 Assists

Luke McCowan. Picked up for free by Dundee from Ayr United in 2021…. A Celtic supporter who probably did see this in his wildest dreams but I bet there were few moments in the last few years where he genuinely thought the club he supports would spend over 1 million pounds on him.

Now I’ll say this straight off the bat, put aside balance and everything else a scout should and would consider. As a supporter I love this signing because it’s a storybook situation. I know nothing about Luke McCowan as a person but to say I’m delighted for him would be putting it mildly. Living the dream and I hope he loves every second of it and what I will say from the off is he’s earned this move on merit because his form last season was excellent.

Last season he stepped up into the league having played in the Premiership before in 21/22 as a left winger, this time round he was a central midfielder and a giant pain in the ass for most teams who faced him, especially Hearts where one of my best mates spent most of last season saying he would have loved him at Hearts because ever time he seen McCowan he gave them problems with his industry and end product.

What I really liked about McCowan having sat back and watched a few hours of him is that as the season went on you seen him grow as each game went by. He was looking for options in the final third and making good decisions, he was willing to try and win games for Dundee. Taking risks on the ball that a lot of players shy away from in modern football and in doing so he was getting eyes on himself, ultimately getting himself this move. Then you add in his industry and effort and what you got in the end was a really good seasons work from him as is shown below. He was over 60% for defensive duels won which is not something you instantly expect when you see a goalscoring midfielder.

Heat Map SPFL 23/24:

He does like to play over into the left side which you would expect given he’s been a left winger, but he’s like so many players now have understood the value in being able to drift over on to the opposite side from your strong foot so you can open up more options and a bigger target when you are shooting or making that final pass into the box. It’s in this area where I felt he really excelled last season. He was good at finding those pockets around the edge of the area as Dundee attacked and was making himself an option for the wide players to pass to, link with and then make a decisive action.

Of the 4 players we are looking at here is the player who comes in carrying the best form, so while he openly admits he knows that he will be behind players I think he is a player we over time be able to use to good effect over time.

The biggest issue he has and will face will be adapting to the level which is a big step and being in a place where he’s no longer one of the main men in the team and not getting away with quite as much in terms of taking shots every time he gets a glimpse at goal because Rodgers wants to make sure that where possible we are creating high value opportunities, not just taking pings from all angles. It’s not a bad thing to be able to do, but it has to be about picking the moments. Mental elements in general will probably be the biggest challenge, things like fear of making mistakes that you can get away with at Dundee and Ayr but I do think he can step up.

I would hope he will look back to guys like Barry Robson and Paul Hartley to see that if the application is there then you can make the step up. 

I’m not expecting him to come in and pull up trees instantly as I think learning what his role will look like will be key and then just making the most of his minutes when they come, which I think he himself acknowledged in his media interviews. All I want to see from him this season is for him to step on when he gets the chance is to express himself, and look to build on what he gave Dundee last season. Look for the right pass, let fire when he has a good chance and keep being that hard-working leader who earned this move.

Overall, we have 4 players signed late on. All of whom have some clear qualities to their game, a few areas to work on but all the signings if nothing else made sense in terms of areas where we needed players. The next part is can they along with Rodgers find the recipe to get them on the pitch showing why he wanted them. Reality is it doesn’t always work and if it doesn’t it’s not because they are shite players, all of them are more than capable of being Celtic players but the acid test for anyone is coping with the demands and I’ve said this many times, we are one of a few clubs who expects to win every game domestically and win it well and even though Europe is tough that expectation extends to those games as well. 

The fact some come from teams who were struggling isn’t that big a deal because sometimes even the best players go places and it just doesn’t happen for them. Trusty I think is an example of a player who needs to play in a specific setup to allow him to demonstrate the best of what he has.

Engels has lots of elements that if pulled together will result in a very good player, the key for him is how he adapts to the demands that will be put upon him.

Valle was needed and has talent. I’m just curious to see what the end game is with the left back roles with no sign of a new deal for Taylor who in my opinion is far better than he gets credit for, and has earned the right to expect a very good offer from the club.

McCowan, I just hope it lives up to his expectations and that he embraces it. If he does that then he might just find himself having a few moments that he thought would remain as dreams. Think about how you always dreamed of celebrating a goal wearing the Hoops…. He’s now got that in his hands, ideally, he’ll be stood edge of the box at Ibrox ready to turn it into a reality.

Thanks for reading.

RH