On-loan Celtic striker John Guidetti is a curious case. He is a player that has promised plenty over the course of his fledgling career but is yet to truly deliver on that potential and prove himself to be a forward of the very highest calibre.

Yes, he enjoyed a goal-laden season with Feyenoord back in 2011/12, but that was three years ago now and is the exception rather than the norm on a CV that has seen him largely flatter to deceive in British football and led to questions been raised on a regular basis as to his attitude.

Manchester City saw enough of him while in his teens to convince them that he was worth drafting into their academy system, and productive runs at U18 and reserve level suggested that they had unearthed a rough diamond ready to be polished into a Premier League star of the future.

His route to that level at the Etihad Stadium was always likely to be blocked, though, forcing the Swede to look elsewhere for important competitive minutes and a window in which to showcase his talents on the senior stage.

Guidetti has, however, rather fluffed those lines.

Burnley took him to the Championship in 2010, but got just one goal out of him, while Stoke City – excited by his showings in the Eredivisie – snapped him up in January 2014, only to then leave him rooted to the bench and unable to make any kind of impact at the Britannia Stadium.

Frustrated and still some way down the pecking order at City, a switch to Celtic last summer appeared to make sense for all concerned.

Delighted to have finally joined @celticfc ???? on loan … Can’t wait to get started and play in front those fans #TheBhoys

— John Guidetti (@superguidetti) September 4, 2014

A bright opening to the season bode well and sparked all kinds of ludicrous rumours regarding where the 23-year-old was heading and how much would be paid to get him there during the January transfer window.

In the end, no move materialised as his form dipped and he fell off the radar.

Guidetti has been unable to rediscover that spark, slipping down the attacking pecking order at Parkhead in the process, but he talks a good game and remains confident that he will be competing at a top level in 2015/16. Bridges back to Rotterdam appear to have been burned, if reports of excessive salary demands are anything to go by, but murmurs of a possible switch to Italy have been doing the rounds and would certainly appeal to a man who spent time training with Sampdoria at the age of fifteen.

Serie A is not the Eredivisie, though, and Guidetti’s efforts in England suggest that such a step up in class would be difficult for him to bridge.

Italian football may not be as defensively minded as it once was, but it is a division in which hard work and creativity is king – as the efforts of those leading Serie A betting markets in the top goalscorer stakes such as Carlos Tevez, Mauro Icardi and Paulo Dybala have highlighted – and any forward lacking in those qualities will be quickly found out.

Celtic have refused to throw in the towel just yet, with Ronny Deila recently claiming:

“He has to come and say he wants to play for Celtic and then we can talk about it. If not then he will go away. We have done everything we can and he wanted to wait. I speak with him regularly but we will have to wait and see what happens.”

Do Celtic need him though?

If not, is he good enough for the top-flights in Italy or Spain? Difficult questions to answer as his efforts to date continue to place in the ‘must do better’ category and, at the age of 23, that is a tag he needs to shake, and shake off quickly, if he is to become the player he once threatened to be… The next Zlatan!

Posted on May 20th, 2015 by scott
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