Could these four Scots players have made it at Celtic?
Ronny Deila would be delighted to get £11m to spend on his squad but as the last few seasons have demonstrated it’s highly unlikely that Celtic will go above £3m for a player with Teemu Pukki and Stefan Johansen picked up for just over £2m last season.
Clearly signing players from the Premiership is a thing of the past with even the transfer fees and wage demands of players in the Championship becoming out of reach.
McCormack’s career path demonstrates the volatility of the transfer market with his departure from Rangers (IL) to Motherwell in 2006, following a loan spell at Doncaster, attracting minimal attention.
Two seasons at Fir Park earned him a Bosman move to Cardiff City where he scored regularly before another Championship move to Leeds in 2010.
At no time has there been a clamour from Celtic fans to ‘get him signed’. His Rangers (IL) background is clearly a factor but at no stage has the new £11m man looked likely to do the sort of job that Scott McDonald or Gary Hooper managed in the hoops.
McCormack’s transfer, not long after Ryan Gauld joined Sporting Lisbon for £2.5m, does demonstrate that there is still a market for Scottish players with Swansea snaping up Jay Fulton, Adam King and Steven Kingsley from Hearts and Falkirk almost as soon as they emerged into first team football.
The signing of Leigh Grifiths from Wolves in January was Celtic’s first Scottish signing since Charlie Mulgrew in 2010
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The most famous transfer near miss in recent times is clearly Steven Fletcher.
In January 2009 and on course for a fourth successive title Gordon Strachan was looking for more firepower to compete with McDonald and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink.
Fletcher had never been prolific but had the pedigree of being a Scotland youth and u-21 internationalist- two years earlier Celtic had paid Hibs £4.4m for Scott Brown.
Celtic’s offer of £2m seemed reasonable but Hibs were looking for £2.5m and for £500,000 no business was done- and the title slipped away from Strachan’s side.
At the end of the season Hibs got their £2.5m from newly promoted Burnley, managed by Owen Coyle and Fletcher set off on a career that has made him one of the richest Scottish players in football history.
On the pitch he has tasted relegation at Burnley and Wolves but his bank balance hasn’t suffered with £6m taking him to Molineux and Martin O’Neill spending £9 to take him to the North East.
In January he was again linked with a move to Celtic as the ‘£6m striker’ card was played but after fuelling the story Celtic took a step back and signed Griffiths for £1m.
It wouldn’t be a great surprise to see Fletcher linked again with Celtic at some stage but the most likely time to ‘get him signed’ was in January 2009 from Hibs before he got a taste for Premiership wages.
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With his streak of red hair and obvious Glaswegian attitude it wasn’t long after breaking into the Motherwell first team that James McFadden was linked with Celtic.
Character is a rarity in the game these days but the bold and brash McFadden had that in bundles and wasn’t afraid to let others know that he fancied his chances.
Berti Vogts rewarded him with a call up to international duty and was repaid by a missed plane home from Hong Kong as the Fir Parker indulged a little too much in the nightlife of the former colony.
It seemed only a matter of time before Faddy joined Celtic with the retirement of Lubo Moravcik apparently creating a vacancy but despite the rumours Martin O’Neill resisted the obvious with McFadden joining Everton in August 2003 for £1.5m- six months later Celtic signed Stephen Pearson from Motherwell for £300,000.
McFadden remained linked with Celtic, in October 2011 Neil Lennon offered him a contract, but as a free agent he opted for a return to Everton after a stint at Birmingham and was last heard of being freed by Motherwell at the end of last season.
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Few players have lived closer to Celtic Park than Robert Snodgrass- and few have did more to avoid joining the hoops!
Snodgrass hasn’t been shy to go on record about where his heart lies but has shown an equally determined streak to use his head rather than his heart when it comes to matters of his career.
Livingston was the club he chose to join from school and he was quickly involved in the first team after playing alongside Steven Fletcher in the Scotland youth side that reached the final of the 2007 European Championships against Spain.
In January 2007- despite 26 SPL appearances the previous season John Robertson sent Snodgrass out on loan to Stirling Albion but it’s fair to say that the players career has proved more successful than the manager than made that decision.
Leeds United finally took the plunge to take Snodgrass to England in 2008 with a token £100,000 fee going to the West Lothian club.
At Elland Road Snodgrass’s career took off earning him a place in the Scotland squad and a £3m move to Norwich where he looked perfectly at home in the Premiership.
Celtic were again linked with the 26-year-old last season but as Norwich were relegated Hull City came in with a £7m bid meaning that there would be no east end homecoming for Snodgrass.
Whether McCormack, McFadden, Fletcher or Snodgrass would have made an impact remains unknown but their success in England, in terms of transfer fees, confirms that Scotland is still producing players.
Celtic’s extensive youth and scouting programme has produced many prospects in recent times with Liam Henderson the latest player to make an impact but it remains to be seen if he can make the step that has so far evaded James Forrest, Tony Watt and Dylan McGeouch.
Celtic will never again field a homegrown team, I’d expect the current Celtic side to beat the Scotland national side without too much fuss.