{"id":25379,"date":"2026-02-03T02:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T02:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/stephen-welshs-motherwell-return-for-unfinished-business-as-tawanda-maswanhise-stays\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T02:55:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T02:55:00","slug":"stephen-welshs-motherwell-return-for-unfinished-business-as-tawanda-maswanhise-stays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/stephen-welshs-motherwell-return-for-unfinished-business-as-tawanda-maswanhise-stays\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Welsh&#8217;s Motherwell return for &#8216;unfinished business&#8217; as Tawanda Maswanhise stays"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Stephen Welsh has returned Motherwell on loan until the end of the season after Celtic signed fellow centre-half Benjamin Arthur on loan from Brentford.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And the January transfer deadline passed with Scottish Premiership top scorer Tawanda Maswanhise still at Fir Park despite speculation linking a number of clubs with the Zimbabwe forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Celtic had recalled 26-year-old Welsh, with returning interim manager Martin O&#8217;Neill citing the lack of cover with Cameron Carter-Vickers. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But fans of the Fir Park club will be delighted at the centre-half&#8217;s return after he has played a key role in their surge into fourth in the Scottish Premiership table.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Scot has contributed towards nine clean sheets for Jens Berthel Askou&#8217;s side.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We welcome back Stephen with open arms, knowing that he has unfinished business to attend to here with us,&#8221; Askou stated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The dialogue with Celtic has been good and transparent all the way through, and we are absolutely delighted that we found a solution that sends him back to Fir Park to continue his development with us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Earlier in the day, Motherwell had insisted Maswanhise would not be sold in the winter transfer window, despite reported deadline day interest from Anderlecht.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Zimbabwe international has netted 18 goals in all competitions this term, 13 of which have come in Scotland&#8217;s top flight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/cpv7e3pnjw2o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stephen Welsh has returned Motherwell on loan until the end of the season after Celtic signed fellow centre-half Benjamin Arthur on loan from Brentford. And the January transfer deadline passed with Scottish Premiership top scorer Tawanda Maswanhise still at Fir Park despite speculation linking a number of clubs with the Zimbabwe forward. Celtic had recalled [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport-africa","category-world-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25381,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25379\/revisions\/25381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}