Scouting For Celtic – Right Centre-Half
New (old) manager, same old problems…
Well, this article originally started off very differently. I had wanted to do a scouting focus on the right centre-half position in Wilfried Nancy’s system because it was clearly a problem position with Ralston being the main occupier of it. But recent dramatic events mean that the role Ralston was occupying no longer exists, and my best guess is that Martin O’Neill and Shaun Maloney will probably implement some variation of a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1, so no more outside centre-half’s and wing backs.
Nevertheless, I didn’t want to let the research I had put in go to waste, and some of the players I was able to find would be perfectly capable of playing in a standard back four. The way Celtic should be playing - regardless of who the manager is - requires our centre half’s to be strong defensively, but also be able to progress the ball well and have some degree of technical proficiency.
Cameron Carter-Vickers is likely out until the end of the season, and in all honesty – it might be time for him to move on in the summer. Injuries keep stacking up for him, season after season and it raises alarm bells to how sustainable an option he is as our ‘first choice centre-half’. At the moment we are running with Trusty, Scales, and Murray as our only natural central defenders. It’s an area of the park that needs reinforcement.
As I was originally doing this research when Nancy was here, the filters I used to find players were
- Main position of either RB or RCB
- Right footed to offer the balance from Trusty/Tierney/Scales
- Minimum height of 182cm (just under 6ft) so there is a reasonable physical profile to cope with certain dynamics of Scottish football
- Aged between 18-28, ideally you want players in the 21-25 age bracket, but having a little bit of experience wouldn’t be a deal-breaker
- Played a minimum of 1013 league minutes in 2025/2026
So, while that may narrow the pool down slightly, I still believe it’s mostly applicable to our current situation. You ideally do want someone naturally right sided to offer a balance that we currently don’t have, and the rest I believe are suitable conditions for what we need.
Leagues included in this dataset were the top flights of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, and USA.
So, without further ado, let’s get into some of the names that could be a good option for Celtic.
My top choice – Oleksandr Romanchuk
I included a few other leagues in this search than I usually do, one of which being the Romanian Superliga – and that led to Oleksandr Romanchuk being one of the standouts in this set of over 300 players.
Romanchuk is 26 years old, 6’4” and has bounced around Eastern Europe in his career so far. Hailing from Ukraine, he broke through at Lviv and earned a move to Dynamo Kyiv – but he left for Debrecen in Hungary failing to make a first team appearance for Kyiv. He then moved back to Ukraine for a season in 24/25, before joining Universitatea Craiova in July 2025, where he has really shone this season.
Last month he was named as both Transfer of the Year and Defender of the Year in Romania, and the data suggests that it was well earned.
The standout metrics for him are in Progressive Runs, Passes to Final Third, Progressive Passes, and Possession-Adjusted Interceptions, being above the 90th percentile in all of these – but he is fairly solid across the board. You would maybe like him to rank a bit better in Aerial Duel success rate given his height, but he is still above average for this dataset. There is no ‘oh my god that’s really bad’ weakness of note among these numbers.
Moving to Celtic would be a big step up in his career, but this data would suggest he is ready to step up and be tested – and let’s be brutally honest, are the routine domestic opponents in Scotland of a significantly higher quality than those in Romania? I’m not so sure – with the greatest of respect to those in Scotland who have handed us our arses on multiple occasions this season.
The fee it took Universitatea Craiova to buy him last year is stated to be around €750,000 so if Celtic wanted to make this one happen, I have no doubt that they would be able to. It fits the model, which is oh so important and has nothing wrong with it as we’ve heard… but that is the annoying thing. There is nothing wrong with the model when it is implemented correctly. Signings in this vein would be (in my opinion) an efficient use of our transfer strategy.
A Very Well-Rounded Option – Oskar Agren
Oskar Agren has had a very interesting career pathway. Born and raised in Sweden, Agren moved to the USA to play College “Soccer” at Clemson University – while still playing football for LB07 in Sweden’s 5th tier during the summer. From there, he moved to San Jose Earthquakes in MLS, but headed back to Sweden to play for Brage in the 2nd tier; and after only a year, he found himself in the top flight with GAIS.
27 years old and standing at 6’3”, his main strengths appear to be his passing with the standouts being Short/Medium Passing Accuracy, Passes to Final Third, and Progressive Passes – but he is very well rounded, only falling below the 50th percentile in Crosses and Accelerations.
Question marks could be raised about his relative inexperience in top flight European football, but it is a hell of a journey he has been on and I can only have admiration and respect for that. TransferMarkt currently has him valued at €600,000 so again, this is definitely a transfer that would be possible financially.
Young, and Extremely Talented – Sergi Dominguez
This is one that I think is highly unlikely, but if Celtic wanted to operate like a serious football club they would be trying very hard to get done. Sergi Dominguez signed for Dinamo Zagreb in the summer of 2025 from Barcelona for a fee which TransferMarkt estimates to be around €1,000,000. So, you could already argue that if Celtic did want to be a serious club, they would have been trying to sign him back in the summer.
Since signing for Dinamo Zagreb, Dominguez has been fantastic. Only 20 years of age and standing at 6’2”, Dominguez has played almost every single game for Dinamo this season and it’s easy to see why. His success rate in Defensive and Aerial Duels is superb, and he is above the 90th percentile for Progressive Passes and Passes to Final Third. While not being exceptional, he also ranks very well for Progressive Runs, and 85th percentile for Accelerations suggests he can put the afterburners on when running with the ball - however this is a very low volume metric so take it with some caution.
He is pretty solid across the rest, however does see himself in the lower end of players for Short/Medium and Long Passing Success Rates – this may be a misnomer though, as he is still averaging around 90% accuracy for Short/Medium. This could mean that he generally is a risk taker in passing which I take as a sign of positivity and endeavour rather than carelessness.
As I stated, I think this would be a really difficult one to pull off. All the signs point to Dominguez being one of the next big transfer fees Dinamo Zagreb seem to receive with regularity, and having only been at Dinamo for half a season I think they would be really reluctant to sell. It’s certainly possible, but there are a lot of factors that make it unlikely. With hindsight, this is one we should have been all over back in the summer.
Bonus Option – Tino Jukic
I felt bad about leaving it on an unrealistic option that just makes you despair about Celtic’s recruitment, so as a bonus I’ll give you one more that I think looks like a very well rounded and experienced option.
Tino Jukic is 24 years old, 6’2” and currently finds himself at Lokomotiva Zagreb – not sure what’s so appealing about Zagreb to talented centre-halves… but Jukic is certainly talented. He does not fall below the 50th percentile in any metric other than Attempted Crosses and Short/Medium Passing Accuracy – although similar to Dominguez, it is still a high actual accuracy, around 90%.
His superpower so to speak certainly appears to be ball carrying, 97th percentile for Progressive Runs and 94th for Accelerations – watching him, he has a bit of the ‘Kristoffer Ajer’ about him in the way he’s able to just take off with the ball.
But he also shows up really well for passing metrics, above the 80th percentile for Long Passing Accuracy, Progressive Passes and Passes to Final Third. Defensively he doesn’t appear to be outstanding but he looks to be solid enough. Very well rounded with some real strengths.
What I find interesting is that despite being a right footer, he has predominantly played as a left centre back this season (don’t tell Brendan Rodgers). So, this possibly offers a little bit of versatility across the defense, and with his skill-set I would be confident in him doing so.
It is another one that I think fits Celtic’s model and therefore makes him “gettable”. TransferMarkt has him valued at €500,000, he has only joined Lokomotiva Zagreb fairly recently so that is possibly a mitigating factor, but again – if Celtic wanted to do this deal, they would be more than capable of making it happen.
Honourable Mentions
It really broke my heart when I learned David Krcik already had a move to Viktoria Plzen agreed, because across the board he was undoubtedly the most impressive in this dataset.
Oskar Agren’s teammate Robin Frej was very nearly going to be my bonus player, and looked like an equally capable option.
Ross Sykes at Union Saint-GIllioise was remarkably strong with his Progressive Passes and Passes to Final Third, but overall passing accuracy worried me. He was incredibly dominant aerially, and remarkably he was signed from Accringston Stanley. Tony Bloom eh?
Matte Smets of Genk looked like a fabulous young player, but Fotmob values him at £14,000,000 so eh, scratch that one.
There were many other talented players who stood out but these were the ones that I personally took a shine to. Obviously, whoever we do end up signing will probably not be anyone mentioned here (if it’s anybody at all) so as always I will try and analyse accordingly if and when that happens.
A big thank you to everyone who has read, followed, liked, subscribed – I’ve never done this for the clout but it’s very validating knowing that people are finding some value in the work I’m doing, sincere thanks! I do enjoy penning (or rather, typing) these longer form articles. It’s very cathartic being able to let loose and rabbit on after having spent the last six months scrambling to fit everything inside Twitter’s character limit.
I hope you enjoyed this particular incident of rabbiting on, thank you for reading!