Former Celtic striker Chris Sutton reckons incoming signing Nicolas Kuhn looks like a project player, but he’s at least likely to be a regular performer for the Bhoys.
Kuhn is widely reported to be on the verge of transfer move to Celtic from Rapid Vienna, for a fee of around £3m.
The left-footed winger, who plays on the right flank primarily, arrives to hopefully add some creativity and attacking guile to a frontline that has struggled to break down defences at times this season.
Sutton isn’t wholly convinced and has raised concerns he isn’t exactly the beacon of quality that Brendan Rodgers wants in the door.
Writing in his Daily Record column on Saturday, Sutton said: “Let’s be honest, Reo Hatate was, at the time, a near project. He didn’t have a lot of game-time in his career, he wasn’t really known to fans here and available on a tiny fee in comparison to his talent because no-one else was looking where Ange Postecoglou was looking.
“Postecoglou was ahead of the game. Hatate was, and is, brilliant. Matt O’Riley. No-one was really looking at him either performing for MK Dons. Rodgers now needs to be ahead of the game in the same way and find this year’s versions of Hatate and O’Riley and not, with respect, versions of Jeremy Toljan or Oli Burke. Nicolas Kuhn feels project to me. And Rodgers has been quite clear he wants quality and not projects. So will the German be a Daizen Maeda or a Marian Shved?”
Nicolas Kuhn should get plenty of early Celtic chances
You can understand Sutton’s concern to an extent – Celtic’s January business outside of the Postecoglou years has been underwhelming in recent times.
However, realistically Celtic are always going to be signing players with potential rather than the finished article from big leagues. As pointed out, there’s not much wrong with a ‘project’ signing if the manager thinks they are the right fit for the team.
Thankfully, it seems as if Kuhn will immediately get a chance to show his stuff in a Celtic shirt. Hyunjun Yang has made 22 appearances this season, James Forrest has made 18 and Mikey Johnston has racked up 10.
If the German has anything about him, you’d expect him to immediately replace those contributions and get plenty of game time of his own in the second half of the season. So in that regard, there should be hope this is a first-team calibre signing.
Kuhn has been a big part of youth teams at Ajax and Bayern Munich, also making dozens of appearances for Rapid.
He’s considered one of the most creative wingers in Austria, per comparative FotMob data, so there’s little reason to be immediately down on this bit of business.
He’ll get his chance to show what kind of quality he has, undoubtedly, and only after that can verdicts be delivered.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
