Brendan Rodgers has moved quickly to ensure that Mark Lawwell doesn’t leave Celtic clutching a consolation prize.
On Friday, a week after Chairman Peter has gone on record with his frustrations over failures in recruitment it was announced that Mark and his side-kick Joe Durgeon had resigned and were on gardening leave.
When Rodgers arrived back at Celtic in June he praised the brilliant recruitment work of Mark Lawwell which caused some concern with the two windows under the former City Football Group website Content Manager failing to strengthen or improve the first team squad.
Alexandro Bernabei, Sead Haksabanovic and Yuki Kobayashi were signed on long term contracts, in the final pre-Lawwell window Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda, Matt O’Riley and Yosuke Ideguchi were snapped up with the contrast in quality unavoidable.
Slowly through the summer window more and more projects were accumulated, fans waited for a Jota or Cameron Carter-Vickers deal to surface but were served up a dodgy diet of Koreans a Norwegian, an Australian followed by a Swede and a Pole topped off by a Honduran plucked from Greek football.
It was haphazard without improving a single position, Rodgers never name-checked Mark again but after losing away to Lazio he made it known that when he arrived he highlighted the need for four quality signings.
Supporters took that quote into the January window, they waited and waited. Midway through the window another winger was signed with Nicolas Kuhn arriving while Marco Tilio and Mikey Johnston moved out on loan.
In the final hour of the window Adam Idah was signed on loan, five goals during February have more than justified the deal, without the goals of the Norwich striker Celtic could be out of contention for the title.
Some fans may be of the opinion that Idah was Lawwell’s parting gift, speaking to the Daily Record Rodgers killed off that notion:
Hopefully there will come a time here when I can be trusted – and maybe I have an idea of what I’m doing. Adam was a player that came to us late. His agent rang me up and said there was a possibility.
The agent knew I liked him as a young player. When he was available it excited me. Sometimes a player just needs a change of environment. The negativity about Adam being third choice striker at Norwich? For me, that wasn’t the case. I know that the potential is there with him.
At 23 years old, he has everything to be a really top striker. Part of my strength is helping players develop and improve. He’s come in and really enjoyed it. He gives our team a presence.
Idah has displaced Kyogo Furuhashi as Celtic’s first choice striker, clearly Rodgers is more comfortable with a physical focal point to his side.
While the race continues for the SPFL title there will be interesting discussions behind the scenes at Celtic.
Even allowing for the fact that Mark Lawwell was hopefully underqualified for the job he was shoehorned into by Michael Nicholson the set up at Celtic seems hopelessly out of place.
Central defenders were signed in the summer despite Liam Scales being at the club. Tomoki Iwata, Kwon Hyeok-kyu, Odin Thiago Holm and Paulo Bernardo were signed during 2023 to play in central midfield which has blocked the pathway of Daniel Kelly with a similar situation on the wings for Rocco Vata.
Lawwell Mini’s resignation statement carried no mention of recruiting a successor or a restructuring away from a model that has repeatedly failed down the years other than during two transfer windows driven solely by Ange Postecoglou.
CLICK HERE for SSB caller claims Lawwell better than Larsson.
