Time for the second installment in our new series looking back at the seasons of every member of Celtic’s first-team squad.
We’ll go through each individual and give an analysis of their season as well as looking at what the future may hold for them. Today we’re looking at Jeremy Toljan.
A big let down
There was huge anticipation when Celtic sealed a six-month loan deal for Jeremy Toljan on the final day of January. The full-back, who could play on either side, was seen as the man to finally end our defensive woes. He came with a good pedigree too.
At 24 he’d been capped by all German age groups. He’d featured 18 times for the under-21s and was on the fringes of the Borussia Dortmund side. The only apparent downside of the Toljan deal was that there was no option to buy. Or so it seemed.
Toljan played 14 times for Celtic all in. He started relatively well, making his debut as a half-time substitute in the victory over St. Johnstone. He looked like he could offer something different at first but as the weeks went on his level seemed to dip.
Mestalla disappointment
The full-back will be best remembered as being the man who killed off any faint hopes we had in the Europa League. Celtic had made a positive start to the second-leg against Valencia and looked the more likely to open the scoring before Toljan let us down. He was booked twice in 11 first-half minutes and our hopes were over.
Toljan started Brendan Rodgers’ final game and Neil Lennon’s first but was only seen occasionally after that. He appeared in just two of our final nine matches of the season and has now returned to Germany.
The defender will almost certainly never be seen in a Celtic shirt again and not too many fans will be unhappy about that.
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