It has been announced that Celtic midfielder Eboue Kouassi has joined Belgian side Genk on loan for the rest of the season with a permanent deal clause inserted should he perform well as reported by The Scotsman.
Kouassi joined the Hoops in January 2017 for a fee believed to be just under £3m and was tipped to be Scott Brown’s long-term successor, however, after failing to adapt and a series of problems including a serious knee injury has led to the Ivorian becoming an peripheral figure at Celtic Park.
The defensive midfielder has made just 22 appearances for Celtic and none this term which is a fair reflection of where he was in Neil Lennon’s thinking as Callum McGregor and Scott Brown coped with the workload of playing almost every 3-4 days each week – the former breaking the 40 game barrier before Christmas – and yet he still couldn’t be trusted.
The final nail in the coffin of Kouassi’s Celtic career was the £2m signing of Ismaila Soro from Bnei Yehuda who is almost a direct replacement, the 21-year-old again seen as the man to fill Brown’s boots, a task that Kouassi found too big to accomplish.
Will Ismaila Soro make an impact in the second half of the season?
Yes
No
Fans of the Parkhead club will be hoping that Soro can be more productive than his countryman but won’t have much time to settle and get used to playing in Scotland given how tight the Scottish Premiership title race is this season, with Lennon playing an extra body in midfield since the winter break, it may be easier to squeeze him in without the added pressure of replacing such an iconic legend at the heart of the team.