Sorry Brendan but recruitment by Mark Lawwell was disastrous

It isn’t a pleasant task but after his defence of Mark Lawwell at the Celtic AGM a few observations have to be made on the comments from Brendan Rodgers.

Faced with at most six or seven hostile minutes to ask questions I didn’t want to hear from the Celtic manager or Chairman for differing reasons.

One of them speaks to the media around four times a week, his views are well known while I’m not convinced about the accuracy of answers given by the other to questions put at the 2019 and 2023 AGM’s.

A question was put to Michael Nicholson about when he felt the need to sack the Chairman’s son from his role as Head of Recruitment. Last year the Celtic CEO was full of banter as he put the decision to appoint Mark Lawwell completely down to Ange Postecoglou.

It is quite a stretch to believe that Postecoglou arrived single handed in June 2021, worked with the backroom team that he inherited then insisted on giving the Scouting and Information Content Manager at Manchester City the most senior role in recruitment.

When the Australian left for Spurs he tried to take John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan with him. This summer he brought in former Hibs boss Nick Montgomery but has still to put in a call to bring Mark Lawwell on board.

Everyone in employment has to follow the party line, on Friday the Celtic manager went a little too far defending the Chairman’s son, the question had been put to the CEO but Rodgers knows how uncomfortable and unconvincing Nicholson is outside of his comfort bubble.

As he has previous for, Rodgers went further than required defending the record of Mark Lawwell, the next day at Tynecastle he started with one of the 14 signings made by the Chairman’s son, Alistair Johnston played at right-back with Yang Hyeon-jun a late substitute.

From the seven permanent signings brought in by Mark Lawwell in the summer of 2023 three are out on loan (Marco Tilio, Gus Lagerbielke and Kwon Hyeon-kyu) two seem to have dropped completely out of the picture (Maik Nawrocki and Odin Thiago-Holm) while Luis Palma’s attention seems split between the training ground and social media.

SPFL starting appearances since joining Celtic

Summer 2022

Ben Siegrist 0

Alexandro Bernabei 12

Sead Haksabanovic 8

*** Aaron Mooy*** 13

January 2023

Tomoki Iwata 15

Oh Hyeon-gyu 6

Yuki Kobayashi 5

Alistair Johnston 57

Summer 2023

Marco Tilio 0

Odin Thiago Holm 2

Kwon Hyeok-kyu 0

Yang Hyeon-jun 11

Maik Nawrocki 7

Gus Lagerbielke 4

Luis Palma 19

Mooy was very clearly a signing identified and driven by Postecoglou.

Other than the outstanding Johnston just two of those signings have started a first team match this season, Palma and Yang were on the teamsheet for the 2-0 win over Dundee on 30 October.

The other issue raised by Rodgers was the bizarre suggestion that Mark Lawwell identified and was the driving force behind the appointment of Postecoglou in June 2021. That came about more than 100 days after Neil Lennon resigned.

One man is responsible for that appointment and it is Frank Trimboli, the London based Australian agent who was knocking on doors to get a European job for the former Socceroos boss.

Fortunately AEK Athens took cold feet, Trimboli tried Celtic again, the Eddie Howe red herring was getting towards crunch time when a phone interview set up with Dermot Desmond. Two impressive, confident driven characters got on from the get-go, a deal was struck with the wheels in motion for two dynamic seasons that reshaped Celtic.

Meanwhile Mark remained working away as the scouting information and content manager at Manchester City. A decent enough job but not the mover and shaker that some portray.

In October 2022 Postecoglou was back in Australia promoting the Sydney Super Cup when he discussed the process that saw him appointed as Celtic manager, The Sun reported him saying:

I’ve logged on the call and spoken with Dermot Desmond. We had a great discussion, he’s a great man, he kind of knew all about me which gave me some reassurance. I got comfortable really quickly.

They had done their research, not just about me as a manager, but the way I played my football, which was really important to me but we hit it off really well.

We had about a 30-40 minute conversation and he signs off by saying: ‘Brilliant, love it, hang-up I’m going to set up a call with our CEO and our chairman in ten minutes time. We’ll send you the link and you chat to them. If they’re happy, I’m happy.’

Now I’ve gone off the call, right? Georgia’s (Mrs Postecoglou) come in, she’s trying to grab Max and Alexi they’re running around, she’s trying to get dinner organised.

She comes in and asks ‘what happened?’ and I go: ‘look I might have this totally wrong, but I think we have a chance here.’

She says ‘really?’ and I go: ‘Unless I’m totally out of the loop here I think there’s something going on.’

In the meantime Frank (Trimboli) called me to ask what’s going on and I went: ‘Mate I think it went well, he wants me to talk to the CEO.’

As soon as I said CEO he hung-up on me, because he’s then making his calls to see what’s going on.

At that time of the phone call the handover from Peter Lawwell to Dom McKay was well underway, when Postecoglou arrived in London he was met by McKay with the two men attending the England v Scotland European Championships match at Wembley.

Within ten minutes I had the hook-up with the CEO and the chairman. Again, I had a really good discussion with them, even less time, probably about 20 minutes.

They kind of again signed off with: ‘I can see why Dermot really likes you and we think you’re the right man. We’ll speak to Frank and we’ll get this going.

And again I’ve just closed the computer and I’ve gone: ‘What the hell is going on mate?’

This is Celtic, this is one of the biggest, most famous, football clubs in the world. A club that I’d known as a kid that people would talk to me about.

I know what nights at Celtic Park are all about, they sing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’

Postecoglou wasn’t an unknown manager working in the outback, he had managed Australia at the 2014 World Cup Finals, won the Asian Cup in 2015 and had a high profile in Japan.

The persistence of his agent sensing an opening at Celtic brought about the phone call with Desmond, with that concluded events moved quickly with Celtic facing Champions League qualifiers in mid July.

Had Mark Lawwell ‘discovered’ Postecoglou he could have alerted his Dad in the winter of 2020/21 while Celtic were carrying out a managerial review, the review that concluded that Lennon was the best man for the job. A few weeks later Lennon resigned after a second defeat of the season to Ross County.

From October 2020 things looked ominous for Lennon and Celtic, change was needed, the new manager was appointed in June 2021.

The summer 2021 signings were driven by Postecouglou, when that window closed he knew what was needed and had three J-League signings announced on December 31. Midway through January Matt O’Riley was signed almost as the deal for Riley McCree was falling through. In May 2022 Celtic announced the appointment of Mark Lawwell.

All of that is water under the bridge, Rodgers is firmly in control of all matters at Celtic with Paul Tisdale appointed to bring change and modernise every area of the club from the Academy upwards.

Their success or otherwise will be measured on the park in trophies and European progress, not spinning and rewriting history on behalf of a little known scouting and information content manager.

NOTE: There is absolutely no one better qualified and equipped than Brendan Rodgers to manage Celtic, to get the best out of players while delivering success domestically and progress in Europe.

RELATED READING

• Keevins sees his three horse title race come a cropper
• Ibrox fans despair as Jim White breaks the news on Clement