With the money they spent on new players during the last summer transfer window, Celtic’s board of directors demonstrated their confidence in manager Brendan Rodgers.
In an effort to expand their alternatives in the center of the park, the Hoops agreed to pay a club record £11 million to acquire Augsburg, a Bundesliga team, for central midfielder Arne Engels.
After Hyeon-gyu Oh made a permanent move to Genk, the team also needed a new center forward, thus they paid a premium to re-sign Adam Idah for Rodgers.
With eight goals in five Scottish Premiership starts during his loan term at Glasgow during the second half of the previous season, as you can see in the above chart, the Ireland international had a significant influence in the final third.
That persuaded the Hoops to accept a contract for an estimated £9.5 million, of which £8.5 million is guaranteed. If those add-ons are completed, he may become the second most expensive addition in the club’s history, after Engels’ £11 million purchase.
Yogo Furuhashi, a 6 foot 3 marksman, cost a lot of money, but he is still Celtic’s first-choice center-forward going into the season.
The shape of Kyogo Furuhashi under Brendan Rodgers
Before Rodgers’ return last summer, the Japan international scored an amazing 27 goals in 31 Premiership games under Ange Postecoglou’s leadership in 2022–2023.
In the Scottish Premier League, he had demonstrated his ability to consistently find the back of the goal, and the Northern Irish manager could have been thrilled about what they could do together at Parkhead.
Regretfully, Kyogo’s performance under Rodgers declined dramatically, and he hasn’t been able to repeat his 2022–2023 season-long form since.
Following his incredible performances the year before, as the table above illustrates, the Japanese forward was only able to score 20 goals in the 2023–2024 season.
Though Kyogo missed eight more “big chances” on route to scoring 13 fewer goals, it was not due to the kind of opportunities that were presented to him.
The 29-year-old attacker began the current season as the first-choice number nine, despite his difficulties from the previous campaign and the addition of Idah.
With a deft long-range finish beyond Jack Butland, Kyogo scored his first goal of the season against Rangers. In four games across all competitions thus far, he has contributed one assist and one goal.
Swiss failure Albian Ajeti, who Rodgers traded for last season, is the one former Celtic who is presently outscoring the Japan international this season.
Celtic’s nightmare with Albian Ajeti
Then-Hoops manager Neil Lennon moved quickly to capture the Switzerland international from West Ham United, a Premier League team, in the summer of 2020.
The £5 million sum was paid by the Scottish powerhouses to get the striker, who agreed to forgo his £60k weekly income, on a four-year deal at Parkhead.
Even though Ajeti had made just 12 appearances for the Hammers in all competitions when he was in England, neither Lennon nor Celtic hesitated to pay £5 million on the 23-year-old.
The teenage attacker made 30 appearances in all competitions in the 2020–21 season, giving the Hoops manager plenty of opportunity to showcase him.
Ajeti failed to live up to his £5 million price tag and did not do enough to persuade Ange Postecoglou, who joined at the conclusion of that campaign, that he was good enough to feature consistently, despite an ordinary record of six goals and four assists in those thirty appearances.
The Swiss attacker only had 17 appearances from the Australian manager in the 2021–2022 campaign, and he finished with three goals and one assist.
After that, Postecoglou sent him on loan to Sturm Graz, where in 23 games he scored four goals and provided one assist. However, when Rodgers came last summer, he decided to cash in on the striker.
Turkish team Gaziantep pounced to sign the center-forward in September 2023 for an alleged £500k sum, marking a significant decline from the £5 million Celtic spent for him.
The 27-year-old striker had a comparatively brief time at Gaziantep in Turkey before joining Swiss powerhouse Basel in his own nation.
Before being granted permission to sign a free transfer to Basel at the beginning of February of this year, Ajeti played for the Super Lig team for five games and scored one goal.
The £5 million Celtic failure had a difficult start to his second spell with the Swiss team, managing just one goal in six games during the second part of the previous campaign. However, he is off to a scorching start this time around.
In fact, because to his stellar start to the Basel season, Ajeti is presently scoring more goals than Kyogo Furuhashi both in the league and across all competitions.
After a trying few years at West Ham, Celtic, and Gaziantep, the Switzerland international has finally found his scoring and goal-creating groove.
Ajeti has outscored Kyogo by three goals and given up five ‘huge opportunities’ in the league this season, as the accompanying table illustrates.
In addition, he has contributed three more assists and five more “big chances,” demonstrating that the forward has been a more valuable member of his team as a creative threat at center forward.
In addition to his stellar Super League play, Ajeti scored two goals and provided an assist in one Swiss Cup encounter last month, bringing his total of six goals and four assists in seven games across all competitions.
Now, it will be intriguing to watch how Kyogo and Ajeti stack up at the conclusion of the 2024–2025 season and whether the former Celtic flop can keep up his excellent play.
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