Craig Gordon has highlighted the failure to replace the Invincibles for Celtic’s collapse in the chase for a 10th successive title.
When Tom Rogic scored the winning goal in the 2017 Scottish Cup Final he was surrounded by team-mates such as Stuart Armstrong, Scott Sinclair and Mikael Lustig. Moussa Dembele was sitting on the bench with Kieran Tierney in A&E at the Victoria following a brutal attack from Jayden Stockley.
The sale of three of those players raised over £50m but recruitment over the last few years has been woeful.
In the summer of 2017 Olivier Ntcham and Odsonne Edouard joined the club but over the last two years very few signings have came into the team and made the desired impact.
In the summer of 2019 Hatem Abd Elhamed, Boli Bolingoli were brought into the squad but neither lasted the season with Gordon getting a close up view of the declining standards.
Picking up on his late night appearance on Sportscene, The Sun reports the Hearts keeper saying:
I think it’s been a gradual thing. The team that was Invincible under [Brendan] Rodgers has been eroded away. There’s only a few guys left. The guys that are still there have aged four or five years since then and it’s been something that’s been coming.
Players needed to have been brought in earlier to realise what the club was all about to then step into the shoes of these players. It’s something that has been coming and I think the players and the more senior guys in there would probably have realised that.
They were desperate to hang on for the Ten and make sure that happened but it really doesn’t look like that’s going to be the case now
Is poor recruitment the main reason for failing this season?
Yes, it has been poor over last few years
No, there are a few other reasons
During the January transfer window Jonjoe Kenny on loan from Everton was the only player brought in to the Celtic squad with the right-back making an impressive debut at Kilmarnock last night.