Peter Lawwell has been accused of wasting almost three months waiting on Lee Congerton quitting as Celtic’s Head of Recruitment.
When Brendan Rodgers fled in the dead of night to dedicate his life to Leicester City he took Chris Davies, Kolo Toure and Glen Driscoll with him, left behind was the disastrous Head of Recruitment who had brought in Odsonne Edouard and half a dozen disasters during his time in Scotland.
Charly Musonda, Marvin Compper, Youssouf Mulumbu and Jack Hendry were all signed during Congerton’s reign with alarm bells going off among the support at the drain on resources and failure to add anything to the team.
Throughout March and April, well into May Congerton remained in charge of recruitment as the clock ticked down towards the critical Champions League qualifiers.
On May 11 Congerton resigned to take up a job at Leicester, Neil Lennon was upgraded to permanent manager at the end of that month then on June 20 Celtic announced that Nick Hammond would take up a scouting role on July 1.
Going into the detail of that diary of disaster Stephen McGowan of the Daily Mail explained:
Rodgers blamed the failure of his signings on the club’s reluctance to spend big cash sealing big deals. But how much Celtic spend has never really been as important as *how* they spend it. And in recent years they’ve spent poorly.
So poorly at times that when Rodgers left or Leicester City on February 26, the door shouldn’t have struck Lee Congerton’s backside on the way out. With a huge rebuilding job ahead it made no sense to waste any more time or money on a head of recruitment with one eye on legging it back down the road to rejoin the boss.
Within an hour of Rodgers going Peter Lawwell should have been on the phone to John Park with one hand while handing Congerton his severance cheque with the other. Instead Congerton remained a Parkhead employee until Leicester finally paid the money to release him on May 11.
By then three months of valuable rebuilding time had been wasted chasing up the recommendations of a head of recruitment who had no intention of hanging around. Arsenal’s interest in Kieran Tierney was no secret. And Celtic knew they needed a top class replacement.
Since the appointment of Lennon at the end of May Lawwell hasn’t said a word in public.
