Celtic told how they can avoid striker panic buy as January transfer raid on rival urged

Celtic have been told to look close to home for a remedy to their striker woes.

The Premiership champions face Hearts this weekend and defeat could leave them nine points off the current leaders at Tynecastle. Martin O’Neill is back as gaffer and he is keen to sign a striker with criticisms of Celtic not replacing Kyogo Furuhashi or Adam Idah in the last 12 months.

Paul Hartley has watched on over his former side and reckons another could hold the key for Celtic’s transfer need, in the form of Hibs striker Kieron Bowie. The forward is reportedly on the radar of both sides of the Old Firm and Hartley says that to avoid darting around in the build-up to deadline day, he’d be one worth raiding a rival for.

Celtic transfer window verdict

“Celtic have not been playing well for a while. The squad’s obviously pretty weak in terms of the personnel. Everybody knows that they are looking at strikers, but not one striker, I think they need more than one and that’s probably been the case for more than a year now. You can see the frustration with Martin, every presser he’s getting asked about recruitment and they’ve been pretty slow in getting people in.

“But I think that’s been the case for a wee while now. How do you put somebody into that type of game? The centre forward area has been a problem for them for a long time now. They’ve not really replaced Kyogo who left a year ago. And they seem to be dashing about at the last minute to try to bring players in.

“You can see the frustrations with the supporters also. The atmosphere at Celtic is not quite the same, not what it used to be. It’s getting pretty close to the window shutting. Hearts and Rangers have acted pretty quickly in terms of getting their business done.

Who could Celtic sign this January?

“I think it’s just been the case with Celtic that they’ve always been very, very slow. You saw the last window they brought the guy in - Iheanacho- the day later or the last kick. It tells you where they’re at. It’s astounding with the size of the club and what they’ve done over the last number of years that they are still searching for players.

“And I think getting an attacker in at this stage is going to be very difficult - who are they going to get? It’s hard to get a top end striker in within 12 days. Good strikers are not available, it’s people who are not playing or out of favour. And are they going to cost a lot of money? Celtic are stuck.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if they brought one striker in, someone on loan, at the last minute. Bowie is definitely a player who has impressed me over a period of time. I’m sure the Hibs fans won’t want to hear that. He should be a player that Celtic are looking at. But I also think there are a number of good Scottish players playing in the Premiership.”

Charlie Adam, Paul Hartley and Barrie McKay were appearing on The Warm-Up, the SPFL’s weekly preview show. Check out the full episode here.