Four days before the defence of the SPFL begins Brendan Rodgers has fired another reminder to Michael Nicholson about the consequences of failure in the transfer market.
A deal to sign Paulo Bernardo seems to be in the final stages but it looks like the 10 outfield players to face Kilmarnock on Sunday will be from last season’s squad.
Celtic go into the new season on the back of three impressive wins in the USA but beyond the current Starting XI there is very little certainty.
Bernardo, Adam Idah and Nicolas Kuhn made contributions in the second half of last season as did the born-again James Forrest.
At this moment all looks rosy, that could remain the case throughout August but there are injury concerns over Kyogo Furuhashi, Callum McGregor and Cameron Carter-Vickers with no obvious replacements on call.
Greg Taylor remains the only left-back at the club with genuine concerns over whether Matt O’Riley will still be a Celtic player at the start of September.
Aware of all those issues Rodgers voiced his concerns again during an interview with Sky Sports.
💪 Strong pre-season
🧤 Schmeichel ‘lift’ for players
🩺 Bernardo medical
👀 Keeping eye on Idah
💸 O’Riley offer must ‘value the player, not the league’We’ve been speaking to Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers ahead of their Premiership opener vs Kilmarnock, live on Sky 📺 pic.twitter.com/GXUza0ee3w
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) July 31, 2024
At 3 minutes 30 the issue of transfers is brought up.
We still have work to do but, with transfers, there are lots of moving parts. It’s never as easy as just seeing a player and bringing him in.
We’d hope by the end of August we will have the team supported in the way we wanted. It’s so important that you don’t snooze in this game of football. You always have to be developing and improving.
And we want to ensure that we have an improved squad for this season in order to take on all the challenges that we have.
During the trip to the USA Rodgers name checked Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay as the men conducting transfer business which went largely uncommented on. Neither are genuine frontline football people, certainly with no experience in the recruitment side.
To trade Nicholson is a Sports Lawyer even though when Rodgers appealed a touchline ban against the SFA they brought in Nick de Marco to defend their manager.
Profiling their Chief Financial Officer the Celtic website explains:
Mr McKay spent 18 years in professional services, most recently in a senior position with global consultancy firm Deloitte which he left to join the company. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte in 2000 and has spent the last 15 years within the Financial Advisory area.
Nicholson and McKay might be able to draw up a contract but it remains a mystery over who is doing the legwork in Recruitment.
Last November Rodgers revealed that he had identified four positions in need of strengthening when he returned as manager in June 2023, after the January Transfer Window he urged the club to be braver.
Who is actually drawing up the lost of attainable strikers or left-back remains unknown, what can’t be disputed is that 10 weeks after winning the Scottish Cup the squad has been weakened.
Rodgers has tried prompting the club into activity in various interviews, with each passing day in August the need to strengthen becomes more urgent- perhaps it is time for Rodgers to take a different approach and become more forceful in his media comments and demands on Nicholson and McKay.
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