Brendan Rodgers has admitted to the flaws in Celtic’s Recruitment set up but refused to go into specifics.
The Irishman was without Matt O’Riley at St Mirren today but watched his side enjoy a comfortable 3-0 victory to maintain their 100% start to the season.
Far bigger challenges are coming up next month with eight Champions League opponents becoming known on Friday afternoon.
Despite a bank balance sitting around the £100m mark Celtic haven’t signed any outfield players that weren’t part of last season’s double winning squad.
Ahead of winning the SPFL title at Kilmarnock Rodgers spoke openly about knowing the positions to strengthen and the advantages of getting business done early so that new signings would have the maximum time to settle into the way he has his side playing.
Celtic finished today’s match with Tony Ralston playing at left-back because there isn’t another first team ready left-back at the club, a situation that has been known since February when Alexandro Bernabei was sent out on loan. Greg Taylor is well into the final year of his contract.
Cameron Carter-Vickers and Liam Scales have played every minute of the four matches so far this season with Stephen Welsh the back up option after Gus Lagerbielke and Maik Nawrocki failed to impress the manager last season.
In an ideal world most fans are looking for four or five first team ready signings to go into the Champions League, experience suggests that the club might at a push bring in two signings, any more would be something of a shock.
The first eight minutes of the conference was spent dancing around the transfer issues before Rodgers was asked about the need to strengthen his side before the transfer window closes late on Friday night.
In terms of the context of next week (Sunday’s Glasgow Derby), we’re in a really, really good place. But over the context of the season, it’s really important for us.
As a football club, we want to develop, we want to improve. We can’t be happy just to make our money and build our pot because the bottom line is on the pitch. That’s the bottom line. I just hope we can at least get some of it [the O’Riley money].
The supporters, they pay the money. I look back to the Covid times here, the Celtic supporters sold the stadium out and they weren’t allowed in it. So we have the duty to put the best team on the pitch.
That’s what we’ll do and look to do. It’s taken a bit longer than I would have liked. But if we can do it by Friday, strengthen the squad, we’ll be in a really, really good place. The team is in a good place, mentally, tactically, how they’re playing. But we want to strengthen and have that depth.
Later, asked about the reasons for the failure to bring in any outfield players with less than a week to run in the transfer window, Rodgers added:
It’s taken a lot longer than I would have liked as the football manager. That’s my brutally honest answer on it but I will repeat this. If we get them in, then there’s still a long season ahead. So it’s important that we do get that and I have belief that we will do.
There are a number of things I won’t go into here but it [not signing players early enough] is definitely something, having come back in and gone through three windows now, we have to put right as a football club. We shouldn’t have been getting into this last week in the position we’re in.
That’s the reality. However, that’s something for us for after this window. As I said, we’ll get the players in that we want. We don’t need to manufacture our own stress when there’s no need. We don’t need to do that. So we’ll be calm this week. We’ll look to get the players in that can strengthen us.
The spotlight is now very firmly on Michael Nicholson to finally come up with first team ready signings, who is involved in Recruitment remains a mystery with the highly paid CEO overseeing a set up that is clearly doesn’t come close to the expectations of the manager.
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1 Comment
by Justshatered
Lawwell is a condescending rat of a man.
There should be no hiding place for him and this Board if the players aren’t brought in that the manager wants and that the club can afford.
When was the last time he paid to get into a match?
Until he starts doing that he has no right to tell anyone to calm down.
He is an employee of this club and in a language he’ll understand: if the customers don’t want him then he’ll have to go.