Celtic's Midfield Woes Amidst Hassan Transfer Buzz
The noise around Celtic Park is growing again. Not about a title race, not yet, but about a winger.
Haissem Hassan, Egypt’s World Cup livewire, is edging towards becoming Celtic’s third signing of the summer. The deal is not over the line, the photos with the scarf are not yet taken, but multiple reports have him on the brink of a move to Glasgow. Only when he is standing in front of the Jock Stein Stand will the doubts disappear, but the direction of travel is clear.
If Celtic get it done, they will suddenly look loaded in the final third. Kasper Hogh is already in. Camilo Duran is through the door. Add Hassan to that mix and the front line starts to look like a manager’s dream: pace, movement, and a variety of profiles to work with.
That is the exciting part. The worrying part lies just behind them.
A squad tilting out of balance
Celtic know they cannot stop at Hassan. The recruitment drive has to move away from the glamour of forwards and into the hard, less glamorous work of rebuilding the spine.
A new goalkeeper is on the agenda. A back‑up left-back too, with Greg Taylor the likely reference point for that role. Those are important boxes to tick, but they are not the ones that will decide whether this team can step up from domestic dominance to something more convincing in Europe.
The real issue is the middle of the park.
Arne Engels is expected to move on this summer. Reo Hatate is also set for the exit. Paulo Bernardo has already gone. Strip those names out of the squad list and you are left with a midfield that looks alarmingly thin: Callum McGregor, Benjamin Nygren, Luke McCowan and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Four players. One of them the captain whose legs have carried this club for years. Another, Oxlade-Chamberlain, a big name but no longer in the explosive phase of his career. Nygren and McCowan are in their prime, but neither is built on raw speed or relentless pressing power.
For a club that wants to play front-foot football, that is a problem.
Energy gap in the engine room
Celtic’s midfield has lacked edge for some time. The absence of real energy and bite in that zone has been more than a talking point; it has been a recurring theme in their worst performances.
Domestically, they can often get away with it. The structure, the technical quality, and the gulf in resources usually compensate for a yard lost here or a duel lost there. In Europe, that margin disappears. Opponents run harder, press higher, and punish every loose touch.
That is where Celtic’s Achilles heel has been exposed. Not at centre-back. Not even at full-back. Right in the middle.
McGregor remains the heartbeat, but he cannot be the legs as well as the brain forever. Oxlade-Chamberlain brings experience and quality on the ball, yet he no longer covers the ground like a 22‑year‑old Premier League flyer. Nygren and McCowan offer craft and intelligence, but they are not the kind of players who will rip through a midfield with sheer athleticism.
So Celtic find themselves in a strange position. The defence, on the whole, is not in crisis. The attack is being aggressively upgraded with Hogh, Duran and potentially Hassan. Between those two lines, though, the squad looks fragile, vulnerable and, with departures looming, on the verge of being undermanned.
Recruitment priority: the heart of the team
The pressure finally lands on the recruitment department and the manager’s desk: the next decisive move cannot be another winger or forward. It has to be midfielders.
Not just one body to pad out the numbers. At least a couple of players with exactly the qualities this team lacks – legs, aggression, stamina, the ability to press and then play. Celtic need someone who can close spaces as quickly as their forwards open them. Someone who can turn a loose ball into a counter-attack instead of a scramble.
The club has done the fun work up front. Hogh has already added a different dimension to the attack. Duran brings his own threat. Hassan, if and when he arrives, will add another line-breaker to the wide areas.
Now comes the hard, essential work.
Celtic’s main priority, from this moment on, has to be clear: reinforce a midfield that has been stretched, dulled and is about to be weakened further by exits. If they get that part wrong, no amount of attacking flair will mask the cracks.
If they get it right, Hassan and company won’t just be exciting signings. They will be the finishing touches on a side built to run, fight and finally stay with Europe’s pace.
