Saidy Janko moved to Celtic for a mere £200k from Manchester United.
Janko, previously praised by Man U’s Davie Moyes, was seen as a prospective solution, challenging Lustig’s established position.
However, Janko’s Celtic stint was riddled with setbacks. His inaugural season was predominantly spent on the sidelines, nursing an injury, exacerbating the woes of a gloomy season culminating in manager Ronnie Deila’s resignation.
A silver lining appeared with Brendan Rodgers’ arrival, providing Janko an opportunity to reignite his Celtic journey. Yet, the Hapoel Be’er Shiva match in the Champions League playoffs in August 2016 tainted his prospects.
Janko’s underwhelming performance, especially a glaring mistake leading to a goal, nearly jeopardised Celtic’s qualification to the Champions League Group stages. The subsequent fallout was swift. Rodgers orchestrated Janko’s loan move to Rotherham, hinting that youth needed nurturing elsewhere.
By July 2017, Janko departed for AS Saint-Etienne, missing Celtic’s treble-winning and undefeated domestic season.
Janko recently shared with World Football Index, “I was thrilled because Celtic are also a massive club throughout Europe and across the world,” further admitting, “I relished the new challenge in Scottish football.
“However, I did not manage to play as many games as I would have liked to because just as I had broken into the team, I suffered an injury in training from a tackle by Emilio Izaguirre. That kept me out of action for a long time and halted my progress.
“Despite that, Celtic was a good learning curve for me and I played my last game against Hapoel Ber Sheva as the club qualified for the Champions League under Brendan Rodgers.”
