Reported Brandon Barker move would do absolutely nothing for Celtic

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According to the Daily Mail via the Daily Record, Celtic are interested in luring Brandon Barker to Parkhead in a cut-price deal.

Those in Scotland will know Barker from a fairly successful loan spell at Hibernian. He made 30 appearances at Easter Road, and looked a lively figure down the left. He has pace and directness, which is Barker’s main strengths. But his end product was usually poor during his time up north.

He was a constant in Neil Lennon’s Hibs side. He often caused the likes of ourselves and Rangers problems in big games. But he wasn’t consistent enough, and also only managed to score two goals from the left-wing position. To put that into perspective, Scott Sinclair has had a poor season yet still netted 17 this campaign alone. Barker can’t rival that.

And if Celtic do decide to make a move for him it will slap of a real lack of ambition.

It’s widely acknowledged that Celtic need genuine quality in the door this summer. Barker has a few traits going for him, but he’s nowhere near the calibre of player we should be going for.

The left-winger is heading into the final year of his Manchester City contract (Transfermarkt). Therefore, Celtic would clearly be trying to nab him on the cheap.

Not a season to be proud of for Barker

But Barker has also just come off a seriously poor campaign with Preston North End. He only made 20 appearances for the Championship outfit, with four of them coming in the EFL Cup. He wasn’t good enough to hold his own at Preston, but apparently he could be good enough to rival Scott Sinclair down the left for Celtic.

That makes for grim reading and a serious lack of ambition from the board. We haven’t had a high-quality left-winger ever since Sinclair’s first season at the club. His standards dropped substantially after then, and we’ve struggled for productivity down that side.

If Barker was to come in and be the man to change that then what on earth are we doing with the money we’ve earned from Europe over the last three years?

It’s difficult to have a go at Celtic too much at the moment. It’s not as though this deal has been confirmed, and it’s also not as if the club have come out and confirmed they’re pursuing the winger.

Neil Lennon also stated yesterday that 75% of names linked with the club will be nonsense (Daily Record). Hopefully this is one of them, as this isn’t the time in our history to be bargain-hunting.