Pundit Kevin Graham has recently made a claim about former Celtic man Aaron Hickey and if the Hoops have a buyback clause for the young left-back.
Graham was a guest on the latest episode of ‘A Celtic State of Mind’ podcast and he discussed many issues surrounding the Parkhead side. He talked about a lot of potential Celtic transfers and Hickey was one of the topics of discussion. He talked about whether Celtic should re-sign the youngster or not and if the Hoops have a buyback clause for the Hearts defender.
Hickey has been linked with a Parkhead return in recent days as Gianluca di Marzio has reported that the Hoops are ‘pushing’ to sign the player. Serie A side Bologna and Bayern Munich are also interested in the young Hearts man.
Graham said that the Hoops don’t have a buy-back option available for Hickey, but he won’t be ‘averse’ to the club signing Hickey as a second – choice option to Greg Taylor.
When asked about the buy-back clause, Graham said: “I don’t think there is, but I was reading it this morning, I do think it is utterly bizarre that Aaron Hickey is still only 18. I thought he was [in his] early 20s, just because he seems to have been around for that long. At 18, he’s still got a lot of development to do. You look at the other young guy that Hearts had – Harry Cochrane – seemed to get burnt out very quickly.
Would you like Hickey to return to Celtic?
Absolutely!
I wouldn't like that
“Maybe, Hickey, I don’t know how many first-team games he’s had for Hearts, he’s not the finished article yet, and there is still some development there. If he came into the Celtic squad, obviously, we do need another left-back and I wouldn’t be averse to Aaron Hickey being Greg Taylor’s understudy because he will get games. And [he] may be more suited to the wing-back role if we do go to the 3-5-2.”
TIF Thoughts…
Hickey had been with the Celtic Under-17s from the summer of 2017 until the summer of 2018. After that, he joined the Hearts’ Under-18s side and grew through the ranks there (as per Transfermarkt).
Despite being 18-years-old, Hickey is already a first-team player at Hearts and made 22 Premiership appearances for them in the 2019/20 season. Hoops left-back Boli Bolingoli has been linked with a move to Amiens and if he does leave, Celtic would need another left-back to replace the Belgian.
Hickey is still very young and has already played a good amount of first-team football. Because of that, he may have high potential. He offers the experience of having played in the Premiership at a young age and since he has been at Parkhead before, he would know the club well. So bringing Hickey back might just be a good idea for the Hoops.