As Celtic supporters we are all acutely aware and somewhat nervous about the need for the club’s recruitment to be on the money this summer. As we touched on in a previous article, the job ahead this summer is further complicated by an expected £20m pandemic induced deficit when the end of year finances come around.
In an ideal world then, Celtic would be looking to have minor tweaks required, instead however it looks as if there will have to be major surgical input in the first team squad this summer, with as many as seven or eight new signings required for first team places and at least another two to three to act as cover and ultimately competition for the established stars.
It is crazy to think that Celtic have reached such a position. One where Celtic require to sign a goalkeeper, central defender, two full backs, a right sided central midfielder, cover for David Turnbull, two wide players – and find a way to get what looks like at least two, but more likely three strikers, if Leigh Griffiths is not retained, into the club.
Finances of course is likely to be a big issue as we saw in January with the transfers of Jeremie Frimpong and Hatem abd Elhamed out the club, even when there were no suitable back-ups, resulting in only a loan deal for Jonjoe Kenny to plug the gap.
Now, with the news Patryck Klimala has moved stateside for £3.5m, it is clear not only are Celtic needing to press the bottom on a hard squad reset, they are having to use the funds from player sales to soften the blow of the inevitable Covid-19 financial hit to the club accounts.
We previously indicated how both sales from the current squad could plug the financial black hole, and also supply any new manager with the funds needed for the rebuild. And we also pointed out that there was little room for error when it came to recruitment this season.
On that point however the waters muddy. Even assuming Celtic get the money they hope for from the wantaways and let-downs within the current first team squad, when it comes to identifying talented alternatives Celtic, as with many clubs around the globe this transfer window, could well be relying almost entirely on video analysis of targets. For those of us of a certain vintage it is hard not to think of the £5m Rafael Scheidt disaster, a player signed on the back of such an approach and despite apparently being a Brazilian international we ended up signing a player for a huge part of our transfer budget who turned out to be the same by name as by nature.
And those murky waters muddy further still when the post Brexit work permit issues come into force. The government has delayed the impact on their points-based system by extending the grace period to this summer. In theory then if Celtic have Scandinavian targets for instance or those from other smaller European nations in mind, then this summer is the last window of opportunity to get players in before the new restrictions kick in.
Once again however the risk attached is high given many players will have a great deal of statistics, data and video evidence to promote their talents it will have been nigh on impossible for any recruitment staff to actually set skilled scouting eyes on their intended targets, when recruitment has to be so on point that too has to be a concern.
Add to that Celtic’s last Head of Football Operations, Nick Hammond, supported by Head scout Gary Penrice both had extensive knowledge of British markets, and to the French market but to a lesser extent. It is also unclear whether Celtic were choosing to stick to those markets this summer or whether Hammond had managed to extend a scouting network further afield with enough locally based scouts in say Central European countries, whose judgement we trusted sufficiently well enough to be able to count on players being suitably well scouted to table bids for this summer. It is also unclear whether those contacts remain in place or if they, and the structure adopted, left when Hammond did.
Something however appears to be happening, players are being sold and it would appear they may even be being bid for.
Officially however at present Celtic have no announced structure and only rumour and conjecture fill the gaps as to what any footballing model may or may not look like. Celtic have maintained radio silence on this matter when it comes to communication with the support. This may be understandable when it comes to publicly announcing specific targets for key roles but it is absurd not to at least outline what a restructure may look like and buy time with an impatient support keen to know the positions we are looking to recruit to and what the footballing outline of a model may be. Yet that is where we are, we can only hope our new CEO with a strong communications background will lead to greater transparency going forward.
With so many imponderables ahead, it is difficult to get a handle on Celtic’s approach to recruitment next season. It may be a Head Coach and Director of Football are already making squad retention, sales, and targeting decisions, and that all will be revealed in one fell swoop in the next few days.
Yet the concern has to be a certain Mr Lawwell is still employing his own eye for a player, taking players on trusted agent recommendations, which we know we have done in the past, or simply making decisions based on finances alone. Such involvement and the knock-on impact ahead of European qualifiers that start in 85 days and a season with the carrot of automatic Champions League qualification for the league winners, would be a concern would it not?
This upcoming transfer window is going to be huge for Celtic. The ongoing dragging of heels when it comes to announcing a structure and ultimately the individuals to fill the roles is eating into valuable time, never mind how long it will take the new staff to bed into their new surroundings and get down to work.
Celtic lost a manager in February, yet we were looking at structural change as early as December. How many clubs have the wheels turn so slowly?
There are overdue winds of change required at Celtic, yet at boardroom level ours appear to be of the gentle lackadaisical breeze variety. Celtic have two commodities in short supply this summer and both have to be used wisely – time and money. As such a sense of urgency therefore wouldn’t go amiss.
Niall J
