While Lawwell was away from the front line Ange Postecoglou had no difficulties bringing in Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda, Yosuke Ideguchi and Matt O’Riley to strengthen the squad and deliver success on the park.
During the trip to the USA Rodgers name checked Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay as the men conducting transfer business which went largely uncommented on. Neither are genuine frontline football people, certainly with no experience in the recruitment side.
Years of domestic domination, with one very notable blip has convinced them that they are all doing great jobs while the team repeatedly flops in Europe when faced by tougher opponents than the 2013 Third Division Champions.
In the absence of any known Recruitment Team Nicholson and McKay are tasked with improving the playing squad to give Rodgers a fighting chance of competing in Europe with last season’s dead-rubber win over Feyenoord highlighting how far Celtic have fallen on that stage.
Rather than taking advantage of automatic qualification for the group stage of the Champions League that status seems to have increased the levels of complacency throughout the club.
The board know how I feel on Adam, that was the reason for bringing him in. He’s been a real catalyst for us, especially over the last few months.
Those sort of incidents don’t do much for morale, as Lawwell worked on the Balance Sheet towards a pay day of £3.5m of salary and bonus the squad suffered and the manager became disillusioned.
Nicholson has watched Robertson and Beaton perform on a regular basis, their performances are predictable, at Tynecastle they combined to cost Celtic three points resulting in Brendan Rodgers serving his first ever touchline ban.
“Like many other clubs, we will continue to press for the highest standards in relation to the VAR process in Scottish football.”
For describing it as incompetent Brendan Rodgers got a one match touchline ban, bearing in mind Beaton’s background most Celtic fans would have used another description for his decision making from Tynecastle.