Johan Mjallby has revealed that the lack of transfer funds was the reason why he and Neil Lennon quit Celtic.
Four years after answering Lennon’s call to assist him while in temporary charge of the club Mjallby announced in April that he was stepping down as assistant manager.
Lennon did likewise two months later with neither man having a job lined up.
With only Craig Gordon and loan signing Jo Inge Berget on show against Maribor on Tuesday night Celtic crashed out of the Champions League sparking a fans inquest into every area of the club.
“We all agree in management that if you have a team and you win trophies then you want to make that team even stronger,” Mjallby told the Daily Mail.
“You want to make it even better. That’s how it should be but we felt that this simply wasn’t going to happen. We could see last year that we needed some reinforcements.
‘That’s not criticising the team we had because we were quite happy with the lads but we were greedy. We wanted to take another step and make the team even stronger to make sure we could keep bringing Champions League football to the club. Both for ourselves and for the club, as well. And we just couldn’t see that happening.”
Mjallby’s comments echo the feelings of many supporters angry that none of the money brought in from selling top players and back-t0-back Champions League campaigns has been reinvested in the team.
With Virgil van Dijkj likely to join Fraser Forster on the way out the guts of the squad that Mjallby and Lennon had in the summer of 2013 will no longer be available to Ronny Deila.
Mjallby takes no joy in the current predicament but isn’t surprised by the downturn in performances that has angered supporters.
“We knew inside that there was never really a great chance the club would invest very much,” Mjallby added. “In fairness, you can see why.
“They have to look after the finances of the club and they have made quite a good job of it in the last few years but they did that with the help of us bringing Champions League football and Champions League money in. And all we wanted was to make the team stronger.
“I think we should have had a bit more credit for what we did at Celtic. Because in four years we might have won a trophy or so more, but we did really well by taking the club to the Champions League twice. That’s something we are very proud of.”
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