With less than nine hours to go until the Transfer Window closes there is very little sign of Brendan Rodgers getting the striker that his side badly needs. It is a scenario that Peter Lawwell is familiar with.
The striker isn’t solely needed to face Bayern Munich or to fight for two domestic trophies but to give Celtic a fighting chance of getting through the August Champions League qualifiers to open up another £40m windfall from UEFA. Which would provide a serious attraction to players with at least eight Champions League matches to go alongside the more mundane 38 SPFL Premiership matches with multiple matches against Kilmarnock, Ross County and playing Dundee United three times in seven weeks.
A year ago Celtic fans were coming to terms with very limited transfer activity when there was a glaring need for four first team ready signings after the summer 2023 batch had proved spectacularly useless. Signings made under Mark Lawwell, the former Head of Scouting and Recruitment.
Nicolas Kuhn was brought in after Marco Tilio, Luis Palma and Yang Hyun-jun had fallen short on expectations, in attack Adam Idah was signed on loan to provide an alternative to Kyogo Furuhashi.
With James Forrest coming in from the cold Rodgers produced a minor miracle out of 14 trusted players to win the SPFL and Scottish Cup with the title ensuring direct entry to the new look Champions League.
Never again thought that supporters. Self inflicted mistakes created an exciting title race, thankfully Rodgers’ ability, self pride and bloody mindedness secured the trophies as he lived up to his boast of ‘Come back in May’ that greeted his low-key return to managing Celtic.
Incredibly, with a few hours left in the current transfer window Celtic are in a worst position that 12 months ago. Chairman Lawwell has been at the centre of transfer activity for over 20 years.
At least in 2023 no significant players were sold off to bolster the £70m plus bank balance.
Going into the final day of the 2025 window Celtic have lost their first choice striker and replacement left-back. That leaves them with one striker and one left-back plus a few square pegs for round holes with alternatives that have barely played in the positions.
It was all preventable but with each passing day the car crash became clearer leaving the club in a desperate scramble to bring in players, any player or any terms to cover up for the failings of the previous 33 days while Michael Nicholson is cracking gags in the boardroom.
Chairman Lawwell confessed in the 2023 Interim Report:
The Board recognises the inherent inefficiencies of holding excess cash, and, in conjunction with other cash commitments, the importance of investing in strengthening the team to deliver football success.
The Board shares the frustrations of the supporters regarding the less than anticipated activity in the recent transfer window.
Since the opening of the transfer window in June 2023, and up to the end of the winter transfer window which closed on 1st February 2024, we have committed £23.9m in player investment.
Lawwell added:
Within this we renewed and extended the contracts of Cameron Carter-Vickers, Liel Abada, Matt O’Riley, Anthony Ralston and Reo Hatate. The Board’s commitment is to strengthen and improve the playing squad in every transfer window and although resources were available, we were unable to further add to the squad due to the unavailability of identified targets.
This was disappointing to us all, and never the intention.
The January transfer window is notoriously difficult as clubs are very reluctant to let their best players go at such a crucial time of the season just as we are. Indeed, we resisted strong interest in our players from other clubs.
Rennes didn’t find the January transfer window notoriously difficult, they discovered a Champions League club happy to sell their first choice centre forward with one group match left to play and the guarantee of at least two more matches in the competition.
The club that Rennes bought from had only used one other striker in the league all season and hadn’t even bothered to have a replacement for Kyogo lined up.
It seems that Lawwell’s comments from last February were simply to fill a gap in the Interim Report. No actions have been taken to correct those failings, with a few hours left to do business things are looking increasingly desperate. At the 2023 CEO Nicholson justified the appointment of Lawwell as Chairman on the grounds that there is no substitute for experience.
With Nicholson failing to secure a permanent striker to replace the Japanese internationalist the club are left looking for a stop gap loan to provide cover for Idah.
Facing up to Plan B of bringing in a loan striker Rodgers told The Sun:
I would think so, I would think so. I think that to get the one that we would want for that longer term, if it’s not there, then I don’t want to just bring in anyone just for the sake of it. I’ll always look from within.
There’s no point in bringing in someone if they’re not the right fit. So it might be more down that route, but we’ll wait and see what tomorrow evening brings.
It remains to be seen whether Rodgers sticks to his quality threshold or accepts a loan signing on February 3 that he wouldn’t have considered a fortnight ago with the haste to sell Kyogo exposing Celtic’s half baked strategy and the favoured old mantra of emerging from any transfer in a stronger position than at the start.
Since those comments from Lawwell in February the club has banked the fees from Liel Abada, Matt O’Riley, Alexandro Bernabei and Kyogo, the interim report to 31 December 2024 could reveal a bank balance of over £100m while the Barrowfield Training Centre remains unopened and behind schedule.
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1 Comment
by TicToc
Given the expected failure of our Board in general and Lawwell in particular, I suggest that once the ‘window’ has closed and the final damage has been assessed that we take immediate action.
So, tomorrow we should arrange the permanent transfer of Peter Toxic Lawwell to ‘hell’ as he’s been working his ticket for years, decades even, and we wouldn’t want to keep him waiting any longer.
At the same time negotiate a transfer of Nicholson to the same venue, on loan until August and then probably permanently after he’s proven to us what ‘qualities’ (“Yes, Peter, no Peter”) he was appointed for.