Fulham striker Callum Osmand is due to have a medical with Celtic ahead of a proposed move north of the border for a nominal fee.
The Welsh youth international is out of contract at Craven Cottage this summer and has been lured to the Scottish giants after a personal approach from Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers. The 19 year-old, who scored a hat-trick in last season’s Premier League Cup final against Tottenham Hotspur at Craven Cottage, has enjoyed an excellent season for Fulham’s under-21s – scoring eighteen goals in 31 games.
Celtic website Celts Are Here broke the news of Osmand’s impending medical earlier this afternoon. The teenager is expected to become part of Celtic’s first-team squad for the new season and will only cost the Bhoys a development fee – in a similar sort of deal to the one that saw them sign former Fulham academy graduate Moussa Dembele in 2016.
Osmand’s decision represents a blow for Marco Silva, who had included him in first-team training several times this season, and leaves the Whites with just Raul Jimenez and Rodrigo Muniz as recognised senior strikers.
What the hell are we playing at. Saw him score that hatrick last year in the final. Left foot, right foot and header. A terrific prospect and we let him slip away to go and play in the Mickey Mouse league.
Why and how we let this young gem leave ! A good young promising striker !!
Can’t be very ambitious has trained with first team knows he’s not good enough to get in, can’t count hatricks in u21s to premiership it’s very low standard I’m afraid just proves how poor Scottish football is if he’s gonna jump straight in first team. U21s not only ours struggle when they play 1st and 2nd division sides good like to him got chance of men’s football
Of course…Ousmane joins a sad list of youth players who just slip away after not being advanced and encouraged by the club…this one is bitter though…a genuine striker…we all know the list but we don’t know why this keeps happening…as we sit on our hands waiting for acquisitions that will only come on deadline day we lose Osmand…where’s the rationale for Marco to stay?
sorry for not checking the post for spelling
He was obviously a good prospect why did we not give him a contract and send him out on loan for a season. Another opportunity for a young player lost Whose responsibly is it to make these crazy decisions
Sadly your a smaller team in a big league …he’ll never play in Europe either for Fulham…Celtic will pay him more and give him Champions league…its a no trainer really for the lad.
He was offered a contract but turned it down so I’m not sure why the club is to blame. He’s presumably been promised some first team football at Celtic which he won’t get with us probably because he’s not actually good enough. Maybe in time he would be but when I saw him play for the U21s he seemed way below the standard we require – not that I’m any sort of judge of course.
Most SPL games are probably of League 1 standard. We need much better for our first team which makes it ultra tough for kids who may not have the confidence and patience to stick with us.
My question, do we need an academy?
If so, what purpose does it serve?
As there seem to be no pathway to the 1st team squad.
Sadly, this Club has no intension of using the development players and Josh King will be the next on our leavers conveyor belt.
league 1 standard
eh haha Celtic have beat man utd , Liverpool Blackburn and Barca ,, benfica , juventus ac Milan and the rest …. all in Europe over the years spl standard is higher that all yous think down there .. so some stats for you clueless Muppets
Contract offered he turned it down so what more can the club do?
The lure of champions league football is why he’s going to celtic who might play in an average league but are a far more successful team than a lot of English Premier league teams including an average team like Fulham
Play them so they get a chance.
Progression from academy to 1st team is limited to just a hanfall
I hope that Josh, Godo and Luke De F get chances next year. What is going to happen to Luke Harris? This year
What’s the point of an academy?
We invest a lot of money bringing on young talent, only for them to jump ship at the earliest opportunity.
This must be the fifth or sixth promising young player in the last 10 years or so who’s been coached and then declined a contract.
It doesn’t seem like we’re getting value for money.
I agree with Martin why do we have an academy since we never bring the youngsters into the first team and then we end up losing them and buying 30 year old players who have seen better days.
Here come the OTT comments from the doomsayers because a youth player they’ve never heard of is going to another club. If he was good enough for the first team he would have been given minutes last season as Josh King was. As Carvalho was when he was good enough. As Sess was… Bet you are all the same people moaning we didn’t spend a load of money on another striker.
Even with players leaving on a free the income generated from the academy has helped us spend our way out of the championship a few times. None of them have gone on to better things yet really.
Chill out, relax and moan about it if he becomes the next Gareth Bale.
20M for Stansfield and £25M for Sess 6 years ago must have paid for the academy for many years.
There’s this ridiculous rule that limits a side to 11 players and if you want to do well in the EPL you can’t just chuck kids into the team. There isn’t room. The management has to cherry pick and favour those they really think to be good enough. Even then they have to be at least as good as the senior players they’ll be replacing.
Look at any England youth team from the past. There’ll be players who went on to have great careers but most won’t have. Osmond has the opportunity but I’ll bet that hardly any of the kids who have left this summer will go on to have EPL careers – that’s the way it is.
The lad has ambition ,he is joining one of the biggest clubs in the world playing in front of 60 000 fanatical fans every home game and playing Champions league football.
I know I’m an old fart but I want to know what happened to the Football Combination League and Cup. It was where the reserve players and youngsters had regular competetive game time and 1st teamers coming back from injury could get back up to speed. It was a place where you could see if the youngsters could cut it playing against men.
What we have now is the likes of King, Godo, Luc de F and Cuenca endlessly sitting on the subs bench and getting little game time or experience.
When I was younger and poorer I could watch the 1st team at home one week and the reserves the next.