Celtic manager Neil Lennon gave an interesting soundbite when it came to his potential January plans yesterday.
When questioned about Victor Wanyama at yesterday’s AGM, Lennon instead spoke about his potential desire for a striker. As reported by the Daily Record, this is what Lenny had to say on his January thoughts:
“We are looking at the forward area, that may be the one area we are looking to strengthen.”
So what makes this such an intriguing comment? After all, the idea of a striker in January has been a talking point for a while now thanks to the recent injuries to Leigh Griffiths and Vakoun Issouf Bayo.
Well, it’s the first time Lennon has spoken about it since Griffiths came back into contention. Celtic now have two reliable front-men and should hopefully have Bayo back in a couple of weeks. That is if he’s still on course for a six-week absence (STV).
Yet despite that, Lennon still appears to be interested in bolstering his front-line.
It’s an intriguing position to look to strengthen. If Lennon had been adopting a two-striker system this season, it would most certainly have made sense. Four strikers would mean two for each position.
However, considering Lennon has stuck with the tried and tested one up top, do we need four at the club?
You could potentially argue that this could be the club strategising for when Odsonne Edouard departs. Looking at our options, do we really have his replacement available? If we signed a talented young striker during the window, we could put ourselves in good shape for if Eddy leaves in the summer.
Of course, that also sends out a negative message to Bayo and Griffiths. It would suggest to them that they’re not good enough to replace Edouard when he departs. Regardless of whether they are or not, it maybe isn’t the message we would want to send out to them with half of the season remaining.
You can look at it from another perspective too. Lennon did say that he “may” look to strengthen up top. He didn’t say it was a cert. Therefore, he could be waiting to see whether Griff and Bayo can get up to speed enough to be able to hang our hat on them instead.
It’s such an interesting debate to be had at this moment in time. Combined this season, our strikers have scored a total of 17 goals with Edouard grabbing 13 of them (Transfermarkt). You can see why Lennon might see a need for some fresh firepower.
But when you look at the squad numbers, it just doesn’t add up. It’ll be seriously interesting to see whether there is a departure to go with any potential striker arrival in January. For now, however, Lenny doesn’t seem prepared to overly-commit. Everything remains in the air.
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