The curious Celtic Bundesliga trend as Ange Postecoglou January target gets set to join Josip Juranovic

By Hamish Carton

January 25, 2023

The Bundesliga seems to be the place to go if you want to see a former Celtic right-back in action.

In the past few days, well-liked Hoops defender Josip Juranovic agreed a switch to title chasers Union Berlin.

The German top-flight was also the destination for Jeremie Frimpong when he swapped Celtic for Bayer Leverkusen in a similar January move two years ago.

But while Juranovic and Frimpong exceeded expectations in Glasgow, three less successful Celtic right-backs are also now hitting it up in the league in what is a curious trend.

Former Everton man Jonjoe Kenny is Hertha Berlin’s first-choice right-back while fellow relegation candidates Bochum have two ex Celts – Saidy Janko and Cristian Gamboa – battling for the position.

In number terms, that’s 22% of the league who have a former Celtic player as their number one right-back. (Not including the currently injured Gamboa)

The party is about to get bigger too, with Moritz Jenz about to join Schalke, according to Football Scotland.

And the movement is even affecting players we’ve been linked with recently.

You may remember the name Aissa Laidouni from the World Cup. The Tunisian was linked with us by Foot Mercato around seven weeks ago.

Celtic were said to be interested in the player, as we reported at the time.

Now it seems like he is soon to become a team-mate of Josip Juranovic at Union Berlin.

Kicker report that the Germans are “ahead of the game” in their move for him and a transfer could happen “as soon as possible.”

So plenty of interest in the Bundesliga after all. Jenz and Juranovic could meet as soon as February 19.

In other news, Ange Postecoglou made a class prediction about Hyeongyu Oh on Wednesday