With Celtic starting pre-season training in three weeks time the words of Ange Postecoglou from 2021 carry a certain meaning for fans looking for signs of transfer activity.
Arriving to a decimated squad in June 2021 the former Yokohama F Marinos boss faced the biggest Celtic rebuild ever after the damaging campaign led by Peter Lawwell and Neil Lennon who had both left their jobs.
Not only had the SPFL Premiership title been lost by 21 points but the squad was paper thin with four significant figures wanting out as well as life beginning without Scott Brown.
Olivier Ntcham and Kris Ajer left in July, at the end of August Odsonne Edouard and Ryan Christie made their farewell appearances in a 1-0 defeat at Ibrox.
Postecoglou leaned heavily on Callum McGregor in those early days, took some significant defeats but came up trumps in the transfer market with some inspired choices.
But not before Celtic lost out in a Champions League qualifier to Midtjylland in the Second Round.
As a handover Lawwell had completed the transfer of Liam Shaw on a cross-border deal from Sheffield Wednesday, he made two appearances for the new manager.
Liel Abada was the only new signing involved against the Danes, after the extra-time defeat PA reported Postecoglou saying:
I take responsibility. I’m the person who has been put in charge. We haven’t got players in, I obviously haven’t done a good enough job convincing people we needed to bring people in. I’m not going to shy away from it. I don’t say that because I’m some kind of martyr, I just think that’s my responsibility, that’s why I was brought in.
I have been trying to be as forceful as I can about what we need to bring in, and the challenges we have had are well chronicled. Irrespective of the result tonight, we still need reinforcements. We had a really young squad out there, young players on the bench. It’s not a situation we need to be in.
Carl Starfelt and Kyogo Furuhashi made their debuts away to Hearts the following weekend, they were soon joined by Joe Hart and James McCarthy. The former Crystal Palace man was the only signing of that window not to play a significant role in the success Postecoglou enjoyed at Celtic.
Josip Juranovic was next to sign up, on deadline day, after losing at Ibrox Jota and Cameron Carter-Vickers were signed on loan with Giorgos Giakoumakis arriving from VVV Venlo.
By his strength of personality Postecoglou got that group of players working, it was an incredible achievement, all done with the backing of his agent, Frank Trimboli who was well prepared for the task his client was inheriting.
Sadly Celtic’s recruitment process hasn’t improved since 2021.
In 2023 Mark Lawwell presented the returning Brendan Rodgers with a job lot of seven sub-standard projects, last summer negotiations to convert the loans of Paulo Bernardo and Adam Idah dragged on into August, on Deadline Day Arne Engels, Auston Trusty and Luke McCowan were signed with the Dundee man cup-tied from the League Cup.
None of the outfield players were involved in the pre-season preparations in the USA although Kasper Schmeichel and Vil Sinisalo did take part.
Every summer transfer window seems critical, this one is no exception.
While wanting to build on an impressive Champions League campaign there is the very real ‘side issue’ of Brendan Rodgers in the final year of his contract.
Will it be a chicken and egg stand off with the manager not prepared to commit beyond June 2026 without seeing the calibre of signing arriving at the club, while the board back off from signings without certainty over the position of the manager?
January’s transfer activity wasn’t promising.
Rodgers sanctioned the sale of Kyogo but Michael Nicholson was unable to come up a replacement for the striker selected to start the match against YB Bern knowing that a win would be followed the next day with a flight to Rennes to complete his transfer to France. Sure, Jota rejoined Celtic but Rodgers was a striker down, probably an early indicator of boardroom complacency with a double digit lead in the SPFL Premiership.
Celtic went out of the Champions League at the Play Off stage, away to Bayern Munich Rodgers was only able to trust two of his 11 substitutes. Adam Idah and Yang Hyun-jun.
It will remain unanswered but could Kyogo have notched the goal that would have taken Celtic through before Bayern’s stoppage time aggregate winner?
For long periods of that match Celtic were sublime, they matched and outplayed Bayern on their own patch.
Will Rodgers get the players in to build on that or will that night in Bavaria be recalled as the high point of his second Celtic stint?
The answer to that question will become apparent when the players return to training on July 1, the number of new signings involved will be telling.
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2 Comments
by Ulyssesgunt
I’m convinced , part of the 5 way agreement, even if only verbal , was for Lawell to win the 9 in a row unhindered, ( not that we couldn’t have ) make him a “ hero “ in the eyes of Celtics history, but never 10 … that would not be allowed , in exchange for the biggest soup pot in history. He made a lot of money at our expense. When the old club 1872 died , our focus should have been Europe, build a team to compete at the highest level possible.
Lawell failed us .
by Matt
Nothing will happen with new signings until the CL qualifier is negotiated.