With no sign of the club signing any outfield players in time for the SPFL opener Celtic fans are being reminded that no first team starters have been sold, yet. By Stephen McGowan.
Last November Brendan Rodgers went public with his assessment that when he returned to the club in June 2023 four quality additions were required.
In his first window back at the club he was handed a job lot of seven project signings. Three never made the Champions League squad, none were anywhere near the team sheet as the SPFL and Scottish Cup was won in May with what was left of Ange Postecoglou’s treble winning squad.
Since Rodgers commented on his assessment, after the Champions League defeat away to Lazio he has been able to add Nicolas Kuhn to his squad. The German winger shows more promise than any of Mark Lawwell’s summer signings.
Rodgers has repeatedly stressed the need to raise the bar, to recruit outwith the £3m ceiling that he appears to operate within but so far no one has listened or taken action.
There were no additions for the first day of pre-season, none for the first friendly and no new signings got the benefit of 12 intensive days in the USA bolstered by three matches.
With some fans starting to get restless and fearing a fifth successive wasted transfer window it seems that the club is feeling under pressure with a warning sent out by the ever reliable McGowan of the Daily Mail.
Pushing on for the best part of 20 years the former Celtic View reporter has had the most consistent information lines from inside Celtic Park. In October 2003 Peter Lawwell became Celtic CEO on a salary of £250,000. By 2019 he picked up a salary of £3.5m on a turnover of £83m as Celtic lost out to AEK Athens in a Champions League third round qualifier. Brian Wilson and Tom Allison have each been on the Celtic Remuneration Committee for almost 20 years.
With no new signings being made the Daily Mail reporter has revealed that things could get worse if Reo Hatate follows Jota, Carl Starfelt, Josip Juranovic and Giorgos Giakoumakis out the door as the hoops look to consolidate a bank balance that is running close to annual turnover.
Leicester City are weighing up a big-money offer for Celtic’s Japanese midfielder Reo Hatate.
Preparing for an imminent return to the English Premier League, Foxes manager Steve Cooper wants to add to his creative options in midfield. And, while a bid has yet to go in, Celtic are aware of Leicester’s interest.
The Parkhead club kicked out an approach for Hatate from Russian side Zenit St Petersburg earlier this month.
One summer sale is expected over the remaining month to top up the funds raised from selling Oh Hyeon-gyu and Sead Haksabanovic.
Paulo Bernardo will probably complete a move from Benfica along with one other signing plus a new contract for Greg Taylor. McGowan will almost certainly have the exclusive on one of those deals.
In early September news will leak out to media favourites about offers turned down to sell players and near misses that slipped past in the final days of the transfer window alongside the promise that Rodgers will have funds to spend in January.
In the transfer windows of summer 2021 and January 2022 there were no Lawwell’s on the Celtic pay-roll, Mark is still looking for the next challenge in his career journey and is believed to be involved in some consultancy work.
At the 2019 and 2023 AGMs Lawwell revealed that he had never read the Five Way Agreement of 2012 which gave a newly formed Glasgow club a seperate set of rules compared to all other SFA member clubs.
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1 Comment
by Charlinick
Should be careful complaining about record spelling when you don’t proof read your own articles, “and no-one knew getting the benefit of 12 intensive days in the USA”