Yuki Kobayashi looks to be heading on his way out of Parkhead, with recent reports hinting that he has secured a loan move.
Japanese media outlet Sonichi has reported that the centre-back could be heading to J-League side Kashima Antlers on a six-month loan deal.
Kobayashi has been expected to depart the club for some time now as he never seemed to be favoured by Brendan Rodgers, and he perhaps could have been leaving Glasgow even sooner had a move to Finnish side HJK Helsinki not fallen through at the final hurdle in January. He had even travelled to the Finnish capital to sign the deal before everything collapsed at the final stages of the deal.
A former team-mate of Kyogo Furuhashi, Kobayashi joined the club from Vissel Kobe last January. After the success Celtic had had shopping in the Japanese market previously under Ange Postecoglou, with the aforementioned Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate all hitting the ground running immediately, fans were incredibly excited to see if Kobayashi could see similar success to that trio. Instead, his Celtic career would be a bit more comparable to someone like Yosuke Ideguchi or Koki Mizuno.
He hasn't seen a single minute of competitive football under Brendan Rodgers this season, with a few shaky performances in pre-season friendlies being enough for Brendan Rodgers to decide that Kobayashi wasn't in his plans.
He was initially signed to be a high-quality centre-back option, something Celtic were desperately missing at that time, but how did his move to Glasgow turn out so disastrously?
Things started off very positively for Kobayashi as he was awarded player-of-the-match in his Celtic debut, a 4-0 home victory against St Mirren. Ange Postecoglou's side were rocking at the turn of the year, with the Hoops in flying form and demolishing all comers along the way to another treble, but as we may remember, during the end of season fixture split, Celtic's form wasn't exactly rosey.
With the title wrapped up, Celtic had taken the foot off of the gas and Postecoglou had begun to rotate the team to ensure everyone was fit for the Scottish Cup final.
Cameron Carter-Vickers was undergoing surgery and had to miss a trip to Ibrox to face Michael Beale's Rangers, with Kobayashi filling in in place of the American alongside Carl Starfelt. It was a disastrous derby debut for Kobayashi, with the Japanese arguably making two goal-causing errors as Celtic slumped to a 3-0 defeat at Ibrox. Whilst it may have been a dead rubber game, derby matches mean everything to the fans, and Kobayashi was deemed the man to blame.
His lack of physicality was evident, and it was made abundantly clear in a 4-2 loss to Lee Johnson's Hibernian at Easter Road as he once again had an incredibly poor performance, one that would ultimately be his final appearance in a Celtic shirt.
The aforementioned physicality that it takes to make it in European football was lacking from Kobayashi's game, and he will be looking to have a similar loan spell to Yosuke Ideguchi who reinvigorated himself on loan at Avispa Fukuoka back in the J-League.
