West Bromwich Albion winger Oliver Burke has taken to his role at Celtic like fish takes to water. Ever since his signing, he looks like a player who has been at the club for the past few seasons. We were among the naysayers who questioned Celtic about a signing like this as they didn’t exactly need a winger. However, Rodgers went on to deploy him up front and with good results.
The departure of Rodgers though might make things more interesting in terms of the future of the player. Burke had earlier indicated that he would be open to staying (Daily Record) at Parkhead beyond his loan spell. He recently suggested that the departure of Rodgers doesn’t change anything and he would still want to succeed at Celtic Park.
He was quoted as saying, ”Personally, I’m still happy here. I’m enjoying my football. It’s a massive club with great fans and great people. I don’t think it [Rodgers’s departure] changes anything. I’m very happy. As long as I’m playing football and enjoying myself I don’t care who the manager is.”
So there might still be hope that the Hoops can pull off a signing like this even without Rodgers at the helm of the club. However, there is no doubt that he would cost big money as the Baggies had spent £15m to sign him from RB Leipzig.
Darren Moore had also indicated (Express And Star) that Burke has only gone to Glasgow to get some playing time under his belt and insisted that he would return after his loan spell ends. However, we feel Burke’s development will take place more rapidly with Celtic given the crucial role he is playing in the starting eleven. At the Hawthorns, Burke managed to play just 46 minutes of football in the first half of the season. The situation was so grave that the English club had to put him on a special training regime to get him up to pace with Championship football.
West Brom have some free flowing attackers, and scoring goals isn’t a problem for them as they currently have the second best scoring record in the division. Therefore one can understand why Moore was unable to give Burke much game time as their first team attackers are doing an excellent job.
We would like to say that there is only an outside chance of Celtic signing Burke as he might cost somewhere around the £15-20m mark. We don’t see Celtic spending that big but it is not entirely out of the picture. However, there is no doubt that the Hoops should let their interest known and try to negotiate the best possible price for this talented Scotsman.
