Frank McAvennie delivered an excellent rant earlier this week when he attended the launch of the Jim Craig statue launch at Gracie’s in Glasgow’s Merchant City…
The legendary Celtic striker started with some praise, for Celtic Mexican maverick Julian Araujo who has made an immediate impact on all the Celtic supporters including Frank himself.
Then he turned his attention to other matters starting with his belief that Celtic should have recalled Polish defender Maik Nawrocki from his loan spell in Germany where he is currently playing in the second tier of the Bundesliga for Hannover.
“We need somebody,” Macca argued. “Listen, I’m a big fan of the boy Nawrocki. I don’t know if he’s getting a game and all that, but I like him. And I thought they should have brought him back. You know, I really do. I think he’s a good player.
“And, you know, we’ve been relying on the same boys, and it’s not working. Nobody’s scared of Celtic now. The boys that they’ve got, they’re not scared of them. And that’s not a slant on any of the managers. The management team, it’s just…The recruitment’s been terrible,” McAvennie said.
Frankie Bhoy continued: “Who’s bringing the players in? It’s been awful. And then when injuries didn’t help, you know. When you’ve got Johnston, Carter-Vickers, Jota. I mean, that’s three players, and Engels that would have been in the team right away. So that’s four players that you’ve got on the team that would make it a better team.
“I just think we’ve not prepared for anything. We’ve never prepared for anything in the summer. You know, and you can’t go out and do what Celtic have always done, wait to see if we qualify for the Champions League.
“We might not get that chance this year. Because we might be in the Europa League (or even worse, Frank – we might end up in the Conference League play-offs).
“But yeah, listen. It is what it is. That team’s not good enough at the moment. I know there’s a lot of injuries, but… No, if we’re going to lose the league, lose it with somebody that’s got a bit of a fight. I looked at the team, and I thought, they’ve given up.”
One thing that Frank McAvennie knows about more than most is goalscoring and given the absolute lack of return from the strikers signed in the summer and in the January transfer window shambles, he believes he has the answer.
Aside from Araujo, Frank also is an admirer of Benjamin Nygren. “Put him up front,” the former Celtic striker, who scored 50 goals for Celtic, said. “He’s got an eye for goal. And just leave him up there. And then you’ve got… You’re matching up in midfield, because if he doesn’t score a goal, he doesn’t do anything for us.
“So I would say, you know, he gets away, gives it away, bounces off him. I know it’s a bad pitch, but it’s not just in that game. He’s been non-existent. He’ll score two goals, he’ll get Player of the Year this year!”
Hopefully Frank has calmed down by now having got all that off his chest. He certainly does make a few valid points, particularly about playing Nygren as a nine, thus freeing up a space in the middle of the park to create more chances. If the Swede gets a sniff he usually finds the back of the net.
What have we got to lose trying it, giving the alternatives open to Martin O’Neill as Celtic face nine must win matches that would deliver a Scottish Cup and very probably an unlikely Premiership title.
Incredibly that would be our 14th in 15 seasons – that’s surely never been done before.
McAvennie was also critical of the attitude of the Celtic players in that damaging 2-0 defeat at Tannadice at the weekend, saying that they lacked fight. “I was disgusted by Celtic players rolling over at Tannadice,” Frank McAvennie told STV News, watch below…
‘I was disgusted by Celtic players rolling over at Tannadice’https://t.co/eshjch7LOF pic.twitter.com/UI4QOlxBou
— STV News (@STVNews) March 25, 2026
— Matt McGlone (@MattMcGlone9) March 25, 2026
Frank McAvennie was helping to launch a campaign to build a statue of Lisbon Lion Jim Craig in Govan.
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