One signing, multiple exits, a manager working without a head of recruitment, and rivals spending freely. Let’s be honest – the nervousness is entirely justified.
Celtic retained the title last season in genuinely heroic fashion, coming from behind to pip Hearts on the final day. Nobody is taking that away from them. But the question of what comes next – and whether the board are serious about defending it – is producing exactly the kind of uneasy summer that supporters have learned to dread.
As reported by BBC Sport Scotland, Celtic have made just one senior signing since that title win – Camilo Duran, a striker with Champions League goalscoring experience from his time with Qarabag. He is the sole confirmed addition. And Duran himself, speaking after a 1-1 pre-season draw with Middlesbrough at Celtic Park, expressed surprise at the sparse home crowd. There’s something quietly damning about a new arrival noticing that the supporters aren’t turning up to pre-season, even when pre-season is all they currently have to feel positive about.
The Exits Are Piling Up
Kasper Schmeichel’s season – and ultimately his career – was ended by injury last term, and Celtic have yet to replace him. Daizen Maeda is on the verge of joining Ipswich Town for a reported £10m, a fee that Chris Sutton, speaking via BBC Sport, described as a bad deal for Celtic, particularly given Maeda’s impressive World Cup with Japan. Martin O’Neill is also bracing for the departures of Reo Hatate and Arne Engels, which would gut the midfield spine that drove last season’s title run.
Then there is the Kelechi Iheanacho situation. Celtic held an option to extend his stay automatically, declined to use it, and instead offered a new deal – which he rejected in favour of Bursaspor, a club freshly promoted into Turkey’s second tier. O’Neill acknowledged there are two sides to every story, but the optics are wretched. And with Callum McGregor reportedly attracting interest from the Middle East, the possibility of losing the captain on top of everything else is not one anyone wants to think too hard about heading into a Champions League season.
The Structural Problem Nobody Wants To Name
Former Celtic striker Cillian Sheridan, speaking on the BBC Scottish Football Podcast, put his finger on something that supporters have been saying for months. Celtic have no head of recruitment. The targets being pursued – including Bodo/Glimt’s Kasper Hogh, again – feel like recycled names from previous regimes rather than a coherent strategy built around O’Neill’s needs.
Sheridan said the club are going back to players and transfer targets that were already in place before, possibly from previous people’s shortlists. He drew an unflattering but fair comparison with Motherwell, who built a clear footballing identity and recruitment model that functioned whether or not a manager was in post. That is the modern model, and Celtic are not operating it.
Chief executive Michael Nicholson has admitted publicly that competing with Premier League and Championship clubs for targets has been difficult. That is true as far as it goes, but it is also the kind of explanation that wears thin after the third consecutive summer it is offered.
Sheridan’s sharpest observation was that this feels like an almost carbon copy of last season, but arguably worse, because everyone assumed the club would not repeat the same mistakes after the fan protests, the sacking of Brendan Rodgers, and the turmoil that followed. The current pace of recruitment – with the league campaign starting at home to Dundee a week on Monday – makes the urgency all the more pressing.
The Verdict
Rangers have spent on seven players, including Lawrence Shankland and goalkeeper Ivor Pandur, under Derek McInnes. Hearts have brought in eleven, even allowing for a matching number of exits. Celtic have brought in one. The league starts at home to Dundee a week on Monday.
Yes, the nervousness is right. It is not panic, and it is not manufactured – it is the rational response of a support that has watched this pattern repeat itself and knows exactly where it leads if the board do not act. Martin O’Neill deserves better than inherited inertia. So do we.
Mon The Hoops.
