Celtic midfielder Efrain Juarez looks set to join Real Zaragoza on a season-long loan deal.
A Celtic spokesman said the club had agreed a deal with the Spanish side that would see Zaragoza take up the Mexican international’s £500,000 salary but without having to pay any loan fee.
The player’s agent, Jorge Berlanga, confirmed that he should join up with the rest of the squad on Zaragoza’s pre-season tour of England in the next few days.
Juarez endured a difficult first season at Parkhead after a near £4million move from UNAM Pumas last July. After a promising start to the campaign, including goals against Braga and Utrecht in European qualifiers, Juarez struggled to hold down a regular starting spot and made only 20 appearances for the club.
By signing for Zaragoza Juarez will team up again with his compatriot and former manager at international level Javier Aguirre.
He's a strange one is Efrain. On the face of it, he had a very good start to his Celtic career - starting either in the centre of midfield or on the right. He showed aggression, urgency, mobility, good tackling and his technique and passing impressed.
ReplyDeleteBut after a 4-0 drubbing by Utrecht, something seemed to go wrong (not that he was solely to blame for that result). It seems the manager Neil Lennon lost complete faith in him after that point, seemingly not trusting his defensive awareness and positioning.
Juarez could be perceived as too eager to get forward and not responsible in getting back and working for the team.
There's also whispers that he's very immature on a mental level; an idea backed up by the fact he was banned from playing for Mexico for 6 months after partying while away on international duty.
So in summary - it's impossible to saay exactly what went wrong for the guy after a good start. Either way, he's fallen way down the Celtic pecking order and is unlikely to get back in.
Agree on the whole but unless there was something going on behind the scenes hard to see why he was so ostracised last season. I think Lennon saw him as a bit of a scapegoat for the defeat to Rangers in first OF game of the season because having been quite prominent to that point he disappeared after that.
ReplyDeleteEven allowing for the fact that Celtic are well stocked in midfield I would have thought that before Wilson came on his good run of form he was the best option at right-back and even recently in the Gold Cup for Mexico he was an ever-present.