Celtic’s busy transfer activity continues.
Japanese striker Shin Yamada is set to arrive in Glasgow this week, ahead of finalising a £1.2m move from Asian Champions League finalists Kawasaki Frontale.
He becomes the club’s sixth signing of the summer so far, after Kieran Tierney, Ross Doohan, Benjamin Nygren, Callum Osmand and Hayato Inamura; the latter has also arrived from the J League.
However, following Wednesday’s friendly victory over Sporting CP in the Algarve, while acknowledging that Yamada is on his way, Brendan Rodgers stated that he wants “to add [more] to our front line”, so could his number one target soon follow?
Celtic targeting more firepower
In that same aforementioned interview following the mid-week win at Estádio Algarve, Rodgers stated “we’ve lost a lot of goals” and he’s not wrong, as the table below outlines.
Daizen Maeda
43
Yes
Kyōgo Furuhashi
31
No
Adam Idah
29
Yes
Nicolas Kühn
24
No
Matt O’Riley
19
No
Reo Hatate
14
Yes
Callum McGregor
12
Yes
Arne Engels
10
Yes
Luis Palma
10
Yes*
*is expected to depart
As the table outlines, three of Celtic’s top five scorers from across the last two seasons combined have departed, after Nicolas Kühn was sold to Como for a reported fee of £16.4m earlier this month.
Meantime, Luis Palma, who spent the second half of last season on loan at Olympiacos, but did score ten times the year before, could be on his way to Lech Poznań, with the Ekstraklasa champions looking to take the Honduran international on loan with a £4m option to buy included, according to journalist Sebastian Staszewski.
Thus, new wingers have to be a priority, hence why Anthony Joseph of Sky Sports believes Celtic remain interested in signing Michel-Ange Balikwisha.
Speaking on Off The Underside earlier this week, he stated that the Hoops have “been monitoring [Balikwisha] for quite a while” and are currently “weighing up” whether or not to pay the £5m it would require to sign him, adding that the Belgian “would like to join Celtic”.
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Suffice to say, Celtic have a long-standing interest in the Royal Antwerp winger, with Sacha Tavolieri of RMC Sport reporting as long ago as 10 June that the Hoops were “in the race” to sign him and that “discussions regarding personal terms” had already begun.
So, will the Scottish Premiership champions, finally, land their man?
How Michel-Ange Balikwisha would improve Celtic
Since joining Royal Antwerp in the summer of 2021, Balikwisha has made 141 appearances for the club, scoring 29 goals and registering 17 assists.
He was a key figure in the Antwerp side that won the Jupiler Pro League two years ago, scoring ten times that season, claiming the club’s first top-flight title since 1957.
During that same year, Balikwisha scored in the Coupe de Belgique Final victory over Mechelen and the Belgische Supercup as they defeated the same opposition a few months later, also netting the clincher in the Champions League play-off round victory over AEK Athens, before also scoring against Shakhtar Donetsk at Bosuilstadion during the group phase.
Jacek Kulig of Football Talent Scout praises his “pace, dribbling and finishing”, describing these as his primary attributes, while analyst Ben Mattinson labels him “two-footed” and “capable of beating a defender”.
Now though, with only one year remaining on his contract, and with Antwerp having failed to qualify for European competition, they are surely looking to cash in while they still can.
The question still remains however: is he a bigger talent than Yamada? Well, let’s assess their respective career statistics to answer that question.
Jupiler Pro League
146
33
16
UEFA Champions League
5
1
0
UEFA Europa League
7
10
0
UEFA competition qualifiers
10
2
5
Belgian Cup & SuperCup
13
3
1
Total
181
38
21
J League
85
25
5
AFC Champions League
17
2
4
Emperor’s Cup
11
9
0
J League Cup & SuperCup
12
1
0
Total
121
37
9
As the table outlines, even though Yamada is a year older, Balikwisha boasts the greater high-level experience.
The Belgian has played in the Champions League, making 22 appearances in UEFA competitions for Standard Liège and current employers Antwerp all told, while scoring one more career goal in total.
Also, for comparison, according to Global Football Rankings, the Belgian top-flight is the eighth-strongest league in the world, with the J League down in 23rd, still 20 places higher than the Premiership, it must be said.
This is not to denigrate Yamada, nor suggest he won’t be a good signing, but Balikwisha, unlike the striker, has proven himself at a higher level, so would surely be worth paying the £5m fee, especially given the wide-attacker is such a position of urgent need.
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