Nicholson and Lawwell go AWOL from Ibrox clash

Michael Nicholson and Peter Lawwell were posted missing from the Directors Box at Ibrox as Celtic settled for a point in a horrific game where neither side made any positive contribution.

A trip to Ibrox is normally one of the diary highlights of the year for the Celtic executives, today they could have met  up with Andrew Cavenagh and the new owners of the Tribute Act formed by Charles Green in 2012.

Neil Doncaster, Graeme Souness and Alex Ferguson were all in the Directors Box with Celtic managing two second half efforts on goal while Kasper Schmeichel got through the 90 minutes without making a save

Chief Financial Officer Chris McKay was in the front row of the Directors Box alongside Brian Wilson and Sharon Brown, behind them were Roy Aitken, Tom Boyd and Paul McStay who all know something about what is needed to win at Ibrox.

Veteran Non executive Tom Allison was also missing as was Dermot Desmond who rarely sets foot at Ibrox, generally the Irish businessman attends around a dozen matches a season.

Lawwell and Nicholson have both been behind renewing the Old Firm trademark, in 2022 Nicholson signed up to the Sydney Super Cup which included a Glasgow Derby being played in Australia, the first time that the clubs would have faced each other outside of Glasgow.

With just over a day left in the transfer window it has to be assumed that Lawwell and Nicholson were busy trying to sell off more key players.

Already this year Kyogo Furuhashi and Nicolas Kuhn have been sold without any attempt at bringing in replacements, today Adam Idah was unavailable with negotiations over a move to Swansea at an advanced stage following a long running campaign to undermine the August 2024 signing from Norwich due to the price tag negotiated by Nicholson.

Today’s match was a brutal watch, Celtic offered virtually nothing as an attacking force with Michel-Ange Balikwisha making his debut on the left wing after two training sessions, on the other side Ben Nygren looked uncomfortable away from his preferred central role.

Celtic looked a little more threatening in the last 25 minutes following the introduction of James Forrest. That allowed Daizen Maeda to switch to the left wing with Shin Yamada, yet to start a competitive match or score a goal playing through the middle.

After the match Rodgers did his usual diplomatic act of highlighting how his side has been purposefully weakened while hoping that new signings arrive in the final hours of the transfer window.

It is a familiar message from the Celtic boss, one that has been ignored by his bosses all summer long as they put the Balance Sheet and bank balance ahead of the team sheet.

On Friday Rodgers performed a remarkable back flip after criticising the recruitment issues that he is having to deal with.

At his pre-match media conference he said:

We’ve got a major owner in Dermot Desmond who’s a super intelligent guy. We’ve got a board of directors who bleed for the club.

They want the club to do well. So everyone here is connected. I hear all this talk about total disconnection. It’s not what I see and I hear, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Every single guy here – me, the board, Dermot – we love Celtic and want Celtic to be the very, very best.

There’s a business model that you see works so well. I want to try and ensure the football model works equally as well.

So it’s fluent and agile and we keep ahead of the game. So when we lose players we’re not in this cycle of waiting, waiting, waiting, standing still and then missing out on the competitions that we want to be in.

It seems that the Chairman who bleeds for the club would rather spectate at the Champions League draw than watch his team playing in a Glasgow Derby

At today’s post match media conference

QUESTION: Is today a bit of a warning then that unless the business is done in the next 24 hours, this is kind of what’s going to be the fallback position?

RODGERS: Yeah, listen, we’ve had a period of time, so we’ve had a long time to reinforce the squad and listen, I’m hopeful that we can do that, and get it over the line.

The game is about the quality of your players. You can take the game to different levels based on your players. But it’s my responsibility to try and maximise what I can get out of the players that will be here.

Hopefully, we can get that competition in the team and reinvigorate some of the players that have been here for a long time. Because, as you say, they’ve been here for four years, guys like Daizen (Maeda), they need competition.

QUESTION: Do you understand people being confused or surprised that you’re in this position with only 24 hours of the window to go?

RODGERS: Yeah, but as I said, we can assess it at the end of the window.

I repeat again that every coach and manager wants the players in early to embed them in and adapt to the systems and styles, and get that profile of player that we need. We’re hopeful that we can do our work in this next period.

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