Chris Sutton has pleaded with the Celtic board to put their faith in Brendan Rodgers’ transfer ambitions.
Last season’s double puts the hoops in line for the best part of £40m from the Champions League with a bigger sum likely if they can pull of a moderate improvement in results.
The new format gives Celtic four matches against teams in Pot 3 and Pot 4, a notch below the super powers and the sort of outfits that Rodgers should be able to compete with if backed in the transfer market.
Five weeks on from winning the Scottish Cup no new signings have been made, five weeks tomorrow the defence of the SPFL Premiership opens up with Kilmarnock visiting the champions.
There has barely been a credible rumour to come out of Celtic during the close season, on Thursday the non-internationalists returned for pre-season training with Scott Bain currently the first choice goalkeeper.
Sutton has watched Rodgers closely during two spells in charge at Celtic, despite the success the club has enjoyed there has always been a reluctance from within the club to fully invest in the transfer market. Funds that are gathering interest bolstering the Balance Sheet.
After losing away to Lazio in the Champions League last November Rodgers revealed that he had wanted to bring in four quality starters when he returned as manager last summer.
Although it is only early days in the current transfer window there are a few concerning signs for Celtic supporters- mainly the failure to sign a goalkeeper.
Under the current set up it is hard to see how anyone at the European Championships in Germany could fit into the wages structure but with a bank balance nudging £100m Sutton told Daily Record readers what he expects from his old club:
If Rodgers and Celtic make the right moves over the next couple of months, they have a real chance to both blow Rangers away and also make that elusive mark again when facing the continent’s elite. Let’s get it right, you should never look over the fence. What Rangers are doing isn’t Celtic’s concern. They have to mind their own business and they will but, to those of us on the outside, it seems there’s a golden opportunity to hammer home an advantage over their biggest rivals.
Winning that title last season has whacked another £40 million into the Parkhead coffers and, at the same time, kept it out of the Ibrox piggy bank. That has a serious effect on what the respective clubs can do in this transfer market and gives Celtic a huge chance to stride further ahead.
On the back of three successive titles wedged among seven domestic trophies out of the last nine Celtic’s ambitions really should be focussed on Europe, matching the sort of progress enjoyed last season by Copenhagen, Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven- three clubs with smaller turnovers.
Most fans quickly realised that the seven signings made last summer were well short of first team material let alone likely to cut it at Champions League level. Sutton called it out early with those signings with only Luis Palma making a meaningful contribution in the Champions League.
Over the next few weeks fans will discover whether the CEO has realised the mistakes made or whether the bar has been set at simply being a few points clear of their only domestic rival to dine out on coming out in front in a two horse race.
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