James McCarthy

Oh I don't blame him for the contract, it's absolutely on those that sanctioned it. I said back when we signed him I didn't think we would see much of him due to his injuries, if I could see that then you'd think they would be able to see the risk of a long term contract probably wasn't worth it. That being said less than 9 games worth of minutes over 4 years is worse than even I was expecting!

 

https://bornceltic.com/2025/06/11/u...hy-is-actually-doing-at-celtic-now-is-solved/The James McCarthy Celtic mystery has just been solved


James McCarthy’s Celtic situation has been an extremely strange one for the club.

Signed under Ange Postecoglou, McCarthy has barely featured for Celtic in the four years he has been at the club.



However, there has been some sort of mystery surrounding McCarthy at Celtic and it’s quite simple, no one really knows if he is still at the club.
That’s it, until now.

James McCarthy is still still a Celtic player, but with a caveat
The boys in ACSOM sleeve discussing transfers ins and outs and who should leave the club when the topic of McCarthy reared its head.



Paul John Dykes was explaining how an appearance at a recent event shed light on McCarthy’s Celtic situation.

Dykes told A Celtic State of Mind, “The thing is, unfortunately for us and for the player as well, he’s not listed, and all the rest of it. He’s not been, obviously training at Celtic, but he’s still contracted at Celtic.


So there was an event about six months ago, I think it was a talk to a friend of mine who was at this fundraising event. And one of the guests, although I don’t think he did a speaking bit, but sat at one of the tables, was James McCarthy.

“And at that time, what I was able to take from that is that he was still officially contracted to Celtic but he was allowed to train the kids at Hamilton Academicals.

“I don’t know if he’s got his badges or if he has any kind of ambition to become a coach, but he was at Hamilton Accies and he was doing some training there, but he was still officially at Celtic player until his contract ends this summer.”



James McCarthy’s costly Celtic career
McCarthy made 27 appearances for Celtic amassing a grand total of 801 minutes. (Transfermarkt)

And according to SalarySport the Irishman was on £14,000 per week at Celtic. Combined, McCarthy has earned £2.184m or £2,696 per minute he has spent wearing the green and white Hoops.

Not bad work if you can get it.

 

* biggest waste of money ever

 

"Unfortunately for the player".

Aye, because McCarthy hasn't made a conscious decision to be a waste of space for the club.

 

Only £2M, worth every penny and then some for his contribution to that late GG7 goal against St Johnstone and I'm not even joking. Every point was crucial with automatic qualification to the Champions League and everything we have built since. £2M for 3 points that day was worth it and the psychological effect those sorts of days had on that lot. It kept us 2 points ahead in the league when we would have went even.

 

The club made a conscious decision to give an inury prone, past his best midfielder a 4-year deal.

Definitely not unfortunate but I'd 100% do the same thing in his shoes

 

oh well thats bound to be his 4 years up now , unless we offered him an extension

 

I’d do it for 50p a week if it give me the chance to say I’d played for Celtic when I retired

 

Not to mention the entertainment value of whatever tf that accent of his is supposed to be

 

He was a Desmond signing and the length of contract was to reflect the drop in wages he'd have coming to us. It didn't work out and we all move on.

 

Why does this name keep cropping up & hunting us

 

Wouldn’t even put it past them.

 

I’m far less accepting of this than some of you

He’s well within his rights to sit on his * and collect that money, but fans are well within their rights to consider an already rich, supposed fan doing so, in extremely poor taste.

 

We don't know anything at all about his circumstances, and we're only guessing that he's * the club around... I had surgery one December, thought I was fine by about March to do light training, overdid it and busted myself for a month once. And I'm not talking anything like a pro level anything or other... He could have really genuine issues...

The only thing we can categorically say is that it turned out to be a bad transfer for us, not that he deliberately robbed us. I'm not arguing that point at all, and I'll be glad to see him drop off the accounts, but it's not really fair for people to throw everything he's ever said and done as a fan in his face because he got injured and didn't play, no matter how frustrating that was for us...