Maik Nawrocki’s move to Celtic was announced on Wednesday.
The Polish central-defender has joined the club on a five-year deal from Legia Warsaw. It is arguably our first statement signing of the summer.
Nawrocki is the fifth new signing at Celtic Park during the window, not including the formality of Tomoki Iwata’s loan deal becoming permanent.
Before him have come Odin Thiago Holm, Marco Tilio, Hyunjun Yang and Hyeokkyu Kwon. The quartet are all aged from 20 to 22. Nawrocki is also 22, yet his signing feels a little different somehow.
It feels like the Pole is ready to come in and take a first-team place pretty quickly, while Holm, Tilio, Yang and Kwon may take more time to stake their claim at Celtic.
Nawrocki also feels different to the likes of Yuki Kobayashi and Moritz Jenz who have joined the club as centre-backs in the past year.
Time will tell whether he can succeed where they have failed and break up the successful Carl Starfelt and Cameron Carter-Vickers partnership. It won’t be easy, but it feels like he’s here to become a big player.
This is the kind of signing that may be needed to take Celtic to the next level in Europe. The likes of Holm and Yang have every chance of becoming stars for us, but more first-team ready players were needed this summer.
Now Celtic could do with adding more before the end of the window. The squad is in decent health but there are still a number of positions where we could do with reinforcements.
Left-wing is an obvious one. Jota was a fabulous Celtic player, and one that won’t be easy to replace. But we must find a talented winger who can offer the same outlay as the Portuguese star.
Many supporters may also want to see a new goalkeeper signed. That’s something the club are said to be looking at. If we do sign one, it’s unlikely to be just to sit on the bench.
Many may also look at the need for a forward, especially when Kyogo Furuhashi, Hyeongyu Oh and Daizen Maeda could all feature in the Asian Cup at the start of 2024.
We’ve got five weeks of the window to make all of these deals happen.
In other news, the Italian FA have made changes to squad registration rules that could impact Celtic and other Scottish clubs
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