Schmeichel confirms the worst fears about Celtic Recruitment

Kasper Schmeichel has confirmed the worst fears about Celtic’s ‘system’ of Recruitment.

Back on February 20 Joe Hart announced that he would be retiring at the end of the 23/24 season, with his contract expiring it ought to have been a position that Celtic were already looking to bring someone in.

Schmeichel was also out of contract, from Anderlecht at the end of the season but speaking yesterday the Danish internationalist revealed that talks with Celtic only stated in early July.  He played in Denmark’s defeat to Germany on June 29, then went on holiday hearing from Brendan Rodgers three or four days later.

A one year contract was announced on July 18, Schmeichel watched Celtic play against DC United two days later, on July 24 he made his Celtic debut in the 4-3 win against Manchester City.

Getting Schmeichel in to replace Joe Hart is an outstanding piece of business but it seems that in the four months after the former England keeper announced his retirement the ‘Recruitment Team’ were unable to identify a suitable successor. At that point Brendan Rodgers turned to his contact book to solve a major issue.

1 minute

Asked the simple question about how his move came about Schmeichel said:

Where are we now? It was probably three or four days after the Euros when we went out to Germany. That was probably the first time.

There was a few other kind of bits of interest but as soon as I spoke to Brendan there wasn’t really a question about what I wanted to do.

It was a facetime call with Brendan, that was pretty much it, it didn’t take very long. I was out of contract, it was quite an easy deal to make.

The only issue we had to make was that I was in Sardinia with my family, we had to get some sort of medical done, the timings of everything, they didn’t want me missing too many days, it was only two days holiday, so that was the only thing that made things take a little bit longer but it was an easy decision.

Shortly before the Schmeichel contract was announced Viljami Sinisalo was signed on a five year contract, flying out with the squad to Washington before his transfer from Aston Villa was announced.

On Thursday Celtic also announced the signing of Paulo Bernardo from Benfica, 10 weeks after the midfielder had played a key role in the winning goal at the Scottish Cup Final.

Nothing has been announced by the club since the March 2 statement that Mark Lawwell was going on gardening leave after less than two years as Head of Recruitment.

Clearly there will be scouts within the club but who is in charge, who is directing them, who is making final recommendations to Rodgers is unknown.

In the past John Park, Lee Congerton and Nick Hammond have held the job under various titles but there seems to be a current void in that area of the club.

Rodgers recently name-checked Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay regarding transfer business but a lawyer and an accountant should only be involved in the contract side of things.

After four disastrous windows under Lawwell Mini it seems that Recruitment is a continuing problem at Celtic with the current first team mainly drawn from two highly successful transfer windows under Ange Postecoglou plus a few players that the Australian inherited when he became manager in June 2021.

• Schmeichel’s 43 appearances in season 23/24.
• The Celtic sounds of Santa Ponsa.