Not good enough- Rodgers piles the pressure on Lawwell’s Recruitment Team

Brendan Rodgers has called out the failings of Celtic’s Recruitment Team.

Since July 2022 Mark Lawwell has been installed as Head of First Team Recruitment and Scouting but it seems that he was being carried by Ange Postecoglou.

Three windows of discovering talents like Liel Abada, Kyogo Furuhashi, Josip Juranovic, Reo Hatate, Jota, Matt O’Riley and more created the impression that Celtic had a far reaching and knowledgeable Recruitment Team that was ahead of the curve.

On December 3 last year Alistair Johnston was announced as a signing four weeks ahead of the transfer window opening, now with one week left in the summer window it seems that Rodgers is hoping for three or four deals to plug the holes in his squad.

Not only was Johnston signed ahead of the transfer of Josip Juranovic but he was trained up and fully adapted to the way Postecoglou’s team played to go into a debut at Ibrox and emerge as one of Celtic’s best players.

That is how a well run club with a properly functioning Recruitment Team operates with Rodgers opening up to The Sun about the failings of Lawwell Junior:

I’m not going to beat about the bush when I’m talking about the bush. The squad is not as strong. That’s the reality.

We’ve lost top players and we’ve got players out for a period of time, so I can’t disagree with that.

The point I will make is that we will work very, very hard here to try to improve the squad.

There’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes within the recruitment and trying to identify players that fit into the model. That will continue.

There is no doubt that we lost a matchwinner in Jota, we lost Carl Starfelt who was a regular player in the squad. You then look at Cameron Carter-Vickers being out, a mainstay of the team over the last couple of years.

Working hard behind the scenes isn’t producing results as the result at Kilmarnock demonstrated with the squad badly weakened going to Ibrox next week.

Rodgers will be in front of the media before and after the Derby match while Lawwell and his team work away in the background under little scrutiny or pressure.

At best new signings will have a couple of training sessions behind them as they go into the Glasgow derby, almost certainly without having played a single game in Scottish football.

The Juranovic/Johnston example is the perfect example of how Recruitment should operate with a replacement signed up in December 2022 for an August 2021 arrival.

Whether it was Jota or Liel Abada that would be the subject of transfer activity it seems that Lawwell has been caught well short by the bid from Al Ittihad.

With one high pedigree winger sold less than half of the fee Celtic paid Benfica has been used to sign up Marco Tilio and Yang Hyun-jun, spotted in Australia and South Korea.

Either or both of those players could go on to become fine Celtic players but spending in the region of £6m on a former Benfica youth carries a lot les risk that two projects while keeping £3m in the bank for a rainy day.

Rodgers will have media duties before and after Saturday’s match against St Johnstone, after that there will be no more comment before the transfer window closes with the focus on Lawwell Jnr to come up with the goods.