Mark Wilson questions Luke McCowan to Celtic with reasons to doubt transfer

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Celtic’s interest in Dundee’s Luke McCowan is one that has been grabbing the headlines this week.

Brendan Rodgers is said to be weighing up a bid for the Dens Park midfielder. With Hibs having a £750,000 bid knocked back this week, it’s thought it could take around £1m to secure the services of the 26-year-old.

With Celtic already securing the services of Paulo Bernardo this summer, Mark Wilson has said that Rodgers should only pursue McCowan if the can do one thing for the Hoops boss.

McCowan must take Celtic ‘to the next level’

The former Celtic defender was quite clear in what he thought about the ability of McCowan but when Wilson was asked if the Dundee man would improve the Hoops’ first team, the answer was quite blunt.

Wilson told Superscoreboard, “No, I don’t. The boy’s a good player. There’s no doubt about it.

“We see the effect he’s having on this league and we’ve not seen that from Holm, maybe Kwon. But Brendan Rodgers, I don’t think, needs to buy more squad players.

“He needs to buy players that will improve the squad, not just people who sit on the bench and come in and out here and there, and play a big part.

“They’ve got that already, so they really need to take it to the next level, and I don’t think he will.”

Current Celtic players better than McCowan

And therein lies the problem. Whilst Hyeokkyu Kwon is now at Hibs, Celtic already have the likes of Odin Thiago Holm, Paulo Bernardo and Tomoki Iwata at the club. And let’s not forget about Callum McGregor as well.

Even if Matt O’Riley does move on, would McCowan get in ahead of the three players above? It’s very unlikely.

However, the Dundee midfielder would help Celtic tick the homegrown box for the upcoming Champions League campaign but if that is the only reason for signing the player then Rodgers would be as well giving it a miss.

Unless McCowan is going to play, would it not be better to save that £1m and register a player from the Celtic B team for the Champions League squad because, what difference would that really make?

As Wilson says, any signings Rodgers makes for Celtic in the remaining weeks of the transfer window must be made with a view to improving the first-team squad. Anything else would just short change the fans.