John Hartson has slammed Celtic’s summer recruitment as a major factor in this season’s demise.
The Welshman has watched in dismay as the season has unravelled with Celtic’s title bid as good as over two days into January with little impact from £15m of players brought in during the summer.
David Turnbull was given his chance in December which coincided with an upturn in results but for the best part of £10m there has been virtually nothing back from Vasilis Barkas and Albian Ajeti.
Celtic were strongly linked with Peterborough’s Ivan Toney but it seems like the comments of Barry Fry scared them off with Brentford enjoying the benefits of 16 goals from 22 Championship matches.
Last season Toney notched 26 goals in 39 appearances in League One but Celtic opted to go for Albian Ajeti who failed to scored in nine substitute appearances for West Ham that totalled just 130 minutes.
Picking up on a podcast The Sun reports Hartson saying:
The players just haven’t been at it and I don’t think the recruitment has been great. You can go through the players and name them one by one, asking if they’re good enough.
I think Ajeti played four games for West Ham in 16 months and we paid £5million for him. What happened to the boy Toney at Brentford? He’s on 15 goals in 15 games, so I don’t know why we didn’t get him. At least we’d get someone who is proven already.
While Hartson’s stats are slightly out over the weekend Arsenal and West Ham were linked with a move for Toney.