Last week, to justify his position and judgements Peter Lawwell told Celtic shareholders that the club has spent £35m on players since July 2019.
That sum was largely funded by the sale of Kieran Tierney but the huge spend appears to have done little to improve the squad that had clinched the Treble Treble two months before the cheque book came out.
Yesterday at Hampden there was little evidence of that investment as Celtic were taken the distance by a club relegated to The Championship earlier this year.
The bulk of the £35m spent on the team made no contribution yesterday, the goalscorers, Ryan Christie, Odsonne Edouard and Leigh Griffiths were signed under previous management teams and are still looking for assistance in the final third of the park.
Vasilis Barkas and Patryk Klimala represent £8m of that expenditure but sat on the bench at Hampden while Neil Lennon chose six substitutes ahead of the expensive duo. Albian Ajeti failed to make it into the 20 players stripped for duty at Hampden.
On the park at Hampden there were two defenders costing around £9m but Chris Jullien and Greg Taylor didn’t look noticeably better than their opposite numbers in the Hearts side.
Scott Brown and Callum McGregor formed the central midfield as they have since the Quadruple Treble was launched with a 3-0 win over Aberdeen in December 2016. Just in front of them David Turnbull, a recent £3m signing from Motherwell was starting his fourth Celtic match.
Happily Celtic retained the Scottish Cup but the recruitment process and expenditure highlighted by the CEO a week earlier had little influence on the win over Hearts.
The three goalscorers and all five penalty takers pre-date Lawwell’s £35m spending spree, if Celtic return to the transfer market next month there aren’t many grounds for optimism that the money spent is likely to impact on the pitch.
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