‘I Remember Looking’ – Celtic Star’s Statistic Raised Alarm For Former Bhoy | OneFootball

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Former Celtic winger Aiden McGeady has admitted that he was baffled to see the Bhoys pay a hefty transfer fee for Haissem Hassan, who has scored fewer than ten goals in his career.

In the summer, following the departure of Daizen Maeda, Celtic were looking to strengthen their winger department and the Bhoys secured the signature of Hassan from Spanish side Real Oviedo for a fee rising up to £9m, beating off competition.

The 24-year-old attracted the attention of the Scottish giants with his performances at the World Cup for Egypt, where he assisted a goal against Argentina in knockout phase.

Hassan was also keen on joining the Bhoys after rejecting an offer from Saudi Arabia carrying a ‘salary far beyond the reach’ of many European clubs.

However, the 24-year-old winger has not had the best start to his career at Parkhead as he is yet to score a goal for Celtic and former top-flight star Tam McManus has suggested he does not track back to help out defensively.

Hassan has only netted nine goals at senior level in his career so far, a statistic which McGeady admits left him baffled by when he saw Celtic paying such a hefty fee for the Egyptian.

Martin O’Neill did not put Hassan in his starting lineup in the last three games and the ex-Bhoys star stressed that the winger is expected to start games with the amount of money Celtic have paid for him.

He admits that he was a big supporter of Hassan when he joined Celtic and pointed out that he is still a raw player with a lot to learn, but believes that despite his qualities, he has no end product to show for it.

“You bring in Hassan for what £8m and I like Hassan”, McGeady said on the Go Radio Football Show (17:35). 

“I think he has got qualities at times.

“But I remember looking at his output and going, ‘he has scored like eight goals his whole career and he has got like seven assists and you are paying £8m for a player [like him]’.

“You would [expect him to start games] because you have paid big money for a player who is 24, still raw and obviously got a lot to learn, but obviously Martin has not seen enough from him.

“And again, over the last few weeks I was a big fan at the start, saying, ‘he is really direct and I like him; he gets the ball and takes players on every single time he gets it’, but now you are not seeing any end product.”

Last season, Hassan featured 37 times for Spanish outfit Real Oviedo in La Liga, but he failed to find the back of the net throughout the season.

Celtic boss O’Neill is under increasing pressure following a string of poor results.