As Celtic fans prepare for a summer of turmoil with major restructuring promised on and off the pitch one fan has highlighted how it could all have been avoided.
Virtually every area of the squad could be in for an overhaul with the possible exception of midfield where Ismaila Soro, David Turnbull and Callum McGregor seem certain to be around unless an offer comes in that the club feel is too good to reject.
Three goalkeepers have been used so far, the defence changes from a three to a five with only Kris Ajer assured of a place- at centre half or right-back.
None of the four strikers have provided the goals expected which is evident with Moi Elyounoussi the top scorer for the season.
One area certainly in need of revamp is at full-back but if things had been handled differently two players starring at Leicester City could be providing the club with the balance badly lacking in the team.
Succession at Celtic https://t.co/Wd5jYno30E
— Paul Brennan (@CQN) January 22, 2021
Be at celtic not beat.
Suddenly Lee wasn’t a bad lad as james Justin was to be signed as early as possible.
Castagne was signing for Brendan.
Piccini a replacement for lustig – we still don’t have.
Our turnover 100m.
Doing a brendan minus the plc is exactly what we need. pic.twitter.com/7Iba8y7sxq
— Martin Gilmore (@MartinG1888) January 22, 2021
In January 2019 Timothy Castagne of Atalanta was identified as the man to come in and take over from Mikael Lustig who had been dogged by injury issues.
The Belgian was in and out of the Atalanta team, it would have been a hard sell to get him to swap Serie A for the SPFL but under a dynamic, forward thinking manager it might have been possible. In the end Celtic went for Jeremy Toljan on loan, after just 10 appearances he slipped back to Borussia Dortmund with Celtic turning to Hatem Abd Elhamed, Moritz Baur and Jeremy Frimpong to fill in at right=back.
After Rodgers had left James Justin’s name turned up on an infamous transfer dossier, Congleton was still at Celtic at that time.
Following his move from Luton he played understudy to Ben Chilwell last season at Leicester, when the England man moved on to Chelsea Justin was a ready made replacement, some might call in Succession Planning.
At Celtic Boli Bolingoli, Greg Taylor and Diego Laxalt have all turned out at left-back. Manny Perez and Andrew Gutman were both signed in January 2019.