Duran Brings Hope After 17 Months

On 27 January 2025, Celtic sold Kyogo Furuhashi to Rennes for £10 million. Since that day, the club has gone more than 17 months without signing a recognised long-term replacement. For a club of Celtic’s stature, that simply should never have happened.

Now, with Camilo Durán set to arrive in Glasgow, supporters can finally allow themselves a flicker of optimism. The hope is that the Colombian striker is not just another signing, but the man who finally fills the void left by one of the most influential forwards in the club’s modern history.

The frustration among the Celtic support has never really been about one transfer window. It’s about a pattern.

In that time, Celtic have seen Kyogo Furuhashi, Adam Idah and Nicolas Kühn all leave the club. Yet no established striker has been brought in to lead the line on a permanent basis. Instead, Martin O’Neill has been forced to patch things together.

We’ve seen Daizen Maeda asked to play through the middle despite his strengths lying elsewhere. Johnny Kenny has been handed opportunities before many supporters felt he was ready. Kelechi Iheanacho also featured as Celtic searched for an answer, while Osmand, Václav Čvančara and Adamu were all tried as the club desperately looked for someone capable of filling the enormous void left by Kyogo.

Yet after all the experiments, short-term fixes and constant chopping and changing, the one thing Celtic supporters were still waiting for was a genuine long-term successor to Kyogo.

The responsibility for that lies above the manager.

How does a club that dominates Scottish football, plays European football every season and boasts one of the healthiest bank balances in Britain go more than 17 months without replacing its first-choice striker?

This wasn’t an unexpected injury crisis. This wasn’t a player suddenly leaving on deadline day. Celtic knew Kyogo was leaving. They knew the importance of his movement, goals and relentless work rate. Yet supporters were left watching transfer window after transfer window pass without the club delivering the replacement everyone knew was needed.

That is why the arrival of Camilo Durán carries so much significance.

He won’t just be judged on goals. He will inevitably carry the weight of months of frustration that should never have been placed on the shoulders of one young player. That isn’t his fault.

Durán deserves patience, support and the chance to write his own story. He should never be compared directly with Kyogo every time he steps onto the pitch. The failures that preceded his arrival belong in the boardroom, not with the player.

If Celtic truly believe Durán is the answer, then they must give him every opportunity to succeed. Surround him with quality. Give him service. Allow him to settle into life at Celtic without expecting him to erase 17 months of recruitment failings overnight.

For too long, one of the biggest clubs in Britain has operated without a recognised long-term successor to Kyogo Furuhashi. That failure has tested the patience of a support that has invested emotionally and financially in the club year after year.

Now the waiting is over.

Camilo Durán arrives carrying the hopes of an entire support. Every Celtic fan should get behind him from his very first kick of a ball because none of this delay was of his making. The burden of replacing Kyogo should never have rested on one young man’s shoulders after 17 months of waiting, yet that is the position Celtic have placed him in. If Durán goes on to become the striker Celtic have been searching for, he won’t just have filled a gap in the squad—he’ll have restored belief to a support that has waited far too long for the club to correct one of its most glaring mistakes. Hail Hail.