Steven Fletcher has verified rumours that Celtic and Neil Lennon were looking to bring him in during the summer of our Ten-in-a-row season. In 2020, Lennon was looking for reinforcement’s as he plotted to win an unprecedented tenth League title in succession for the club. There were rumours aplenty that pre-season and Fletcher was a name that came up and severely underwhelmed the support.
Well past his best, Fletcher would not have been a signing that would have been accepted by a large section of the fanbase at the time, as we looked to make history. In the end, Fletcher joined Stoke City and we went on to sign Albian Ajeti from West Ham, which as we know turned out terribly as we saw the crown slip away during a full season with football behind closed doors.
As reported by Football Scotland, Fletcher confirmed: “Earlier on in my career when I was linked with Celtic I didn’t have much to do with it. “At that age you just leave it to agents and all that, only finding things out when they’re pretty much done. So I don’t know how close it came back in the early days, but before I signed for Stoke that was the closest a move to Celtic came.”
“It didn’t happen in the end and I’ll tell that story one day. But I was linked with Celtic a lot over the years. So much so I think their fans were sick of hearing about it!.”
The ship sailed on a Fletcher-Celtic link-up long ago and if Lennon did bring him in in 2020 it would have been an insult to all those hard-working fans who put their money in their pockets for season books, strips and memorabilia. It’s doubtful of the signing of a journeyman striker would have solved our problems that year as we had deep-rooted issues burning away underneath the surface.
Paul Gillespie
