We sent two players out on loan to Celtic this year - young
Belgian centre-back, Jason Denayer and
his EDS team-mate John Guidetti. Both highly rated, talented players, but both at potentially differing cross roads in their City careers - It was interesting to see how
they’d fair north of the border at Hampden Park with one looking to resurrect a stuttering career and the other looking to launch one. Denayer was coming off the
back of a season where he starred as captain for Vieira’s u21 team. A
technically proficient centre-back, skilful and composed and with a confidence
that defies his years, Denayer had stood out at every age group. This was to be
his first season as a professional however, and the Scottish league, though some
would argue lacking in technical quality, is a physically demanding
environment. A real muck and nettles league, where teams throw everything but
the kitchen sink at Celtic – its dogged stuff, but exactly the kind of thing a growing
defender needs to experience. Denayer being no exception.
Guidetti of course had already seen a fair bit of first-team
football in his fledgling career. Only aged 22 at the start of the season, he’d
become something of a veteran of the loan system already. Short term moves at
IF Brommapojkarna, Burnley and Stoke were all topped by a spell a couple of
years ago at Feyenoord where he scored 20 in 23 cementing his reputation as of
one Europe’s most exciting young forwards. Sadly for him, a bizarre virus
struck him down towards the end of that year causing him to lose all feeling
in his right leg and miss the end of
Feyenoord’s season. In the eyes of many it ultimately cost the Eredivise
team the title. He’s since struggled to regain true fitness or form and the
earlier mentioned loan to Stoke last season under Mark Hughes, a former manager of Guidetti’s
at City, was a frustrating experience for the Swede. He spent more or less all of his
time on the bench, and unsurprisingly he wasn't too happy about it. On paper this move seemed pretty interesting for both
players, for very different reasons.
I spoke to two Celtic fans about their time with the Bhoys.
First up was Steve Jackson, an admin from the Celtic fansite
kerrydalestreet.co.uk and James Forrest from www.onfieldsofgreen.com followed...
The immediately obvious one - how have Guidetti and Denayer faired this season? Have the loans been a success?
Steve - I'll give my thoughts on both of them separately.
Denayer
A very mature defender for one so young, some feel he lacks a bit of height to
make it at the top level but i don't agree and as long as he was partnered with
someone who could dominate in the air then this wouldn't be a problem. On his
debut (in which he scored) he looked as if he had a tendency to dive in to
challenges and get on the wrong side of attackers but this disappeared very
quickly. One of his greatest strengths is his ability to defend standing up. He
will often force attackers out wide where he can dispossess them rather than dive
in straight away. He only received one yellow card in 29 league games which backs
this up.
Clearly the Elephant in the room when discussing Celtic defenders is that they
are untested in many domestic games but two things stand out about Denayer in
this respect, his concentration is very good, in fact his more lauded partner
Van Dijk is probably more prone to switching off and overdoing things, the
other is that arguably his best performance for us came in the San Siro against
Inter Milan after the aforementioned Van Dijk received a red card, Denayer
really stepped up to the plate and marshalled the defence brilliantly, great to
see from a young player in his first full season. He also provides a goal
threat. 6 this season. Always a bonus for a CB.
Guidetti
To cut to the chase he has absolutely no chance of making it at City. He has
some qualities, he can be an explosive if wasteful finisher and has a great
first touch. He takes a great free kick and has a cockiness about him that fans
like to see. He is however slow. I don't mean lacking in pace I mean he is
visibly slow. At first we put this down to him having missed a lot of football
over the last season or two but it didn't improve as the season went on. A lot
of fans accused him of being lazy but i tend to think he tried to get to places
as fast as he could. He had a great early spell with us in the Autumn but even
then free kicks and penalties enhanced his goal tally.
Any obvious flaws/strengths? Do either remind you of anyone stylistically?
Denayer - A young Kompany, obvious maybe but it seems as good a comparison as any.
Guidetti - A slower Nicklas Bendtner.
There's a sense that Delias style really suits city loanees. Fast technical attacking football. Do you think city will utilise the loan link up with Celtic again? Perhaps even as a long shot... But would even Deila himself be on city's radar one day?
Guidetti - A slower Nicklas Bendtner.
There's a sense that Delias style really suits city loanees. Fast technical attacking football. Do you think city will utilise the loan link up with Celtic again? Perhaps even as a long shot... But would even Deila himself be on city's radar one day?
Steve - I think it has worked out well for both teams. From City's point of view Denayer
is now a Belgian international which increases his value even if he doesn't
establish himself at the club. There are all sorts of links between
City/Celtic/Stormgodset - i'm still not entirely sure how i feel about it all
but we can't be too precious if the chance to sign quality players comes along.
Hopefully Deila does end up on City's radar as the only way that will happen is
if Celtic enjoy some European success.
There's some talks amongst City fans that perhaps Denayer one day could move
into midfield given his technical ability - what do you think to this?
Steve - He reads the game very well and his ability, along with Van
Dijk, to step forward into midfield with the ball was a huge part of our
success this season. I could definitely see him moving into midfield at some
point, if not permanently then certainly as an option in some games. In fact it was something i was calling for
this season before the re-emergence of Nir Bitton in our midfield.
Do you personally think either has a chance at City? Would you use them if you
were Pellegrini next season or another loan move for one or both of them?
Steve - I think Denayer has a great chance of making it, Whether he is ready for the City first team i don't know, City would maybe want him to gain more experience at a higher level first, hopefully with us if we make the CL group stages or possibly with another EPL or Championship team. He is definitely too good to just hang around making up the numbers. There is a player in there somewhere with Guidetti, and he could go on to have a decent career but i would be astonished if it were to be at a club with ambitions to win one of the big leagues or do anything in the Champion's League.
Are you happy for the potential loan link up to be used again? Do you know of any players from city's academy you'd like for a year?
Steve - I would be happy enough to use it again. Last summer we changed managers so
loan deals were a way of getting players in quickly with little risk. Now that
Deila has settled in I would probably rather we thought more long term but if a
player of Denayer's quality became available again we would be daft not to look
at it. I heard a rumour last autumn that Jack Byrne was being discussed for the
2015/2016 season, this could well have been someone putting 2+2 together though
as Celtic seem to be linked with every Irish player at some point.
How do they compare to other standout players in the league?
Steve - Denayer is probably as good as any defender in the League, Van Dijk maybe has a
wee bit more class but is a few years older and far more experienced. Take away Guidetti's free kicks and he would struggle to get a start for Aberdeen
or Dundee Utd at this stage although there is potential there to be a lot
better.
What happened to Guidetti? Incredible start but he appeared to burn out...
Steve - Probably flattered to deceive at the start, there is a line of thought that he
thought he had made it and took his foot off the gas thinking he just had to
turn up and the goals would follow. Personally I think the free kicks at the
start disguised his flaws. There was also a feeling that he was "not as good as he thinks he is"
and that he was saying a lot of things the fans wanted to hear but not really meaning
it.
Steve - Denayer at a top club, if he can't break into City's first team he may have to
take a step back but he has everything needed to make it. Guidetti will be at a mid table Bundesliga club, on the bench at Sunderland or
if he knuckles down and works at his game he could reach the heady heights of a
Sporting Lisbon or similar.
James Forrest, author and blogger for ‘On Fields of Green’, forwarded me this splendidly worded collection of thoughts on our two loanees...
James Forrest - I am often wary of loan signings, because we’ve had so many who’ve blown hot and cold. My initial reactions to the two were very different; one I was pleased as punch about and towards the other I felt indifferent.
Funny how things turn out, right?
Guidetti
The one I was excited about was John Guidetti, of course, a player I’d been hearing about for a couple of years. He had gone to Feyenoord and scored a truckload of goals, and he was clearly a talented footballer, capable of magic all told, and Swedish with it, so he needed no-one to tell him what was expected of a striker here. A certain other Swede had already set the bar pretty high on that score.
And you know what? For a while there it looked to me as if he might be the first player in the Hoops in many a year who actually had the goods to rise to that level. In his early days here he was scoring, literally, for fun. On top of that, he showed a tremendous ability to strike a dead ball, one Celtic Park hasn’t seen since Nakamura was firing them in from acute angles and impossible distances.
This guy looked as if he had everything … but it wasn’t to have a happy ending.
I think the very worst thing a talented footballer can be is a “confidence player.” We famously had one of those in the Hoops for a goodly time until very recently, Georgios Samaras, who I thought had all the skill in the world but was always hampered by a tendency to go off the boil and stay in a rut because, frankly, after a while his confidence just went. Guidetti was like Samaras at times. Without the work ethic. After missing a few chances in a game, he tended to drift out of it completely. He never hid – another hallmark of big Samaras – but there were whole sections of the game where he may as well not have been there. Sections of the season, if I’m being honest.
I think most Celtic fans were also highly unimpressed by his attitude towards contract talks. All told, we’d agreed a fee with City around December when he looked like a player we’d wanted to keep. Those talks went nowhere, and instead we were treated to a drip feed of stories about how other clubs wanted him and how he was talking to them. True or false, real or imaginary, the contract Celtic put on the table remains unsigned and at least one club who's people claimed to have been in advanced negotiations with the player were spooked by pay demands which he simply isn’t worth. If he had been he’d have been in the Man City first team in the beginning.
In short, John Guidetti isn’t one Celtic fans are going to miss terribly. In flashes he showed brilliance – real brilliance, no joking; his goal against Milan, for example, was sensational – but it wasn’t there enough and there were issues which left a bad taste in the mouth.
Denayer
Which brings me to the other Man City loan player, and there my initial lack of enthusiasm soon went away because his attitude was excellent and his performances were stellar and I would have badly liked to keep him at Celtic Park for another year at least, on a loan deal or not. Because Jason Denayer does have all the qualities necessary to be a top, top player.
Yes, I admit that I was less than enthused by the idea of bringing in a young, untested, central defender on loan, especially as he came with the kind of reputation that sounded too good to be true. People have been comparing Jason to Vincent Kompany for the last few years and that kind of comparison hasn’t been good for a lot of kids, talented or not.
But I’ll tell you what … he could go far, and fast, because he does have the tools. Put bluntly, Jason Denayer is a class footballer. He was the one unqualified success of Celtic’s five loan signings and City are right to want to keep hold of him. Some will knock him because he was playing in Scotland, but not only did he perform effortlessly in the SPL, but he also did it on the European stage, where he and Virgil Van Dijk formed a quick, and easy, partnership which I wish could have lasted longer.
For one thing, he has that most central requirement of a good defender; positional sense. He has good feet. He reads the game very well and he can pass a ball. I think everyone at Celtic Park was hugely impressed, and I know we made a big effort to keep him beyond the duration of the loan.
Jason also has the right attitude towards the game; he's not flashy, not big headed and he doesn't think he's better than he is. He has a healthy self-regard and self-belief, but that's not arrogance. He bonded very well with the Celtic supporters, who would have adopted him as a real hero already if he was a permanent member of the first team.
Over the piece, the signing of John Guidetti didn’t make the impact myself and others had expected, and hoped for, but Jason Denayer played so well that my misgivings over him didn’t last long. They were certainly not justified at all. He will be very hard to replace.
It’s hard not to get the impression that Guidetti’s time at
City has slowly come to a dissatisfying end. His contracts up, there seems to be very little
indication that the club will offer him a new deal, and even if by some twist
of fate they did, he most likely wouldn’t sign it. I fully well expect he’ll be
on the release list when its announced soon. It’s a shame – he clearly has
talent, and he’s showed on occasion that he has it in abundance too. He's a clinical finisher, when confident, and there is a potentially powerful traditional number 9 in there waiting to give someone, somewhere a handful. With a
little more fortune he could have taken a pretty quick and direct trajectory to
the top. He’s a goal scorer and they’re worth their weight in gold, but the illness
that struck him down during his spell at Feyenoord has clearly proved so
degenerative to his development. If not for its timing he might have even had a crack at the first team
the following pre-season. There’s time for him to build a name for himself in
the game still, but at 23 he has a long way to go to reach City’s level. Ambrose, Iheanacho and others breaking through would only arguably make his life harder too. He'll move on and it'll be for the best...
Denayer on the other hand won't. He has absolutely
everything to be a potential world star – it’s as simple as that. Technically
excellent, confident, composed, versatile and a natural born leader with a
maturity and intelligence that is simply astounding for one still only 19. He
could arguably play anywhere and excel due to the fact that he appears to be a quick learner, studiously reading the game and honing his craft. I spoke in my last piece about how our academy should at least produce squad players and maybe produce the odd star. Like Lopes, Denayer will at least meet the former criteria, and potentially the latter. He's a must for the squad at very least. If we let him go he'll only end up at Bayern or somewhere like that within a handful of years. Guardiola would surely love him too... and what more could City have expected or
asked him to do during this loan move?
He’s done everything possible, and then some. It’s been a truly incredible season for Denayer. He won the Scottish Young Player of the Year, a phenomenal achievement for any player, never mind one playing his first professional season. While on loan. He made the league’s team of the year too after forming a formidable partnership with Van Dijk, often out-shining his much lauded partner. One game at the San Siro against Milan stood out in particular - he almost single-handedly held the fort that day after his partner was dismissed early on. Valiant and brave. A real leader's performance. He made his full international debut for Belgium, Marc Wilmotts describing his potential as ‘world-class’ after choosing to bring him on for his full debut with Belgium down to ten men, instead of moving experienced internationals like Toby Alderweireld or Jan Vertonghen into the middle. Like Lopes, he’s one of the poster boys for the current academy set up and you do wonder if he hasn’t done enough to earn a chance, then who ever will? Given the struggles of our centre-backs this year, and with Demichelis not getting any younger (plus Boyata heading the other way to Celtic) there is a spot for another defender in the ranks. It'd be criminal if Jason doesn't fill it. In fact at the rate he's developing I wouldn't be surprised if he found himself in the starting eleven permanently within a year if he was given that chance. He's that good.
previous loan reviews -
Marcos Lopes || Seko Fofana || Jordy Hiwula
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He’s done everything possible, and then some. It’s been a truly incredible season for Denayer. He won the Scottish Young Player of the Year, a phenomenal achievement for any player, never mind one playing his first professional season. While on loan. He made the league’s team of the year too after forming a formidable partnership with Van Dijk, often out-shining his much lauded partner. One game at the San Siro against Milan stood out in particular - he almost single-handedly held the fort that day after his partner was dismissed early on. Valiant and brave. A real leader's performance. He made his full international debut for Belgium, Marc Wilmotts describing his potential as ‘world-class’ after choosing to bring him on for his full debut with Belgium down to ten men, instead of moving experienced internationals like Toby Alderweireld or Jan Vertonghen into the middle. Like Lopes, he’s one of the poster boys for the current academy set up and you do wonder if he hasn’t done enough to earn a chance, then who ever will? Given the struggles of our centre-backs this year, and with Demichelis not getting any younger (plus Boyata heading the other way to Celtic) there is a spot for another defender in the ranks. It'd be criminal if Jason doesn't fill it. In fact at the rate he's developing I wouldn't be surprised if he found himself in the starting eleven permanently within a year if he was given that chance. He's that good.
previous loan reviews -
Marcos Lopes || Seko Fofana || Jordy Hiwula
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