Neil Lennon has hinted that Celtic’s financial position hampered his January transfer plans.
With uncertainty over who will be in charge of Celtic next summer many fans believe that the lack of signings was a clue that Lennon was no longer getting full backing from the club.
During the summer Celtic spent £13m on Albian Ajeti, Vasilis Barkas and David Turnbull without selling anyone. Loan fees were also paid to bring in Shane Duffy, Diego Laxalt and Moi Elyounoussi.
Despite that level of spending Celtic crashed out of three cup competitions before the end of November, their title challenge crumbled with the board announcing in December that they would stage a Managerial Review in the new year.
Last January Celtic spent £5m on Patryk Klimala and Ismaila Soro to galvanise their season and although neither featured heavily the title was won by 13 points when the season ended after 30 matches.
Had Celtic been in title contention last month there would have been an expectation of reinforcements in January- instead Jeremie Frimpong, Olivier Ntcham and Hatem Abd Elhamed left with just Jonjoe Kenny coming in on loan.
4 minutes 10 seconds
Radio Scotland: How has the financial situation impacted on yourself, in terms of you being able to do your job to the best of your ability?
Neil Lennon: Well it hasn’t really, we’ve not really spent any money in the January window. I brought Jonjoe (Kenny) in and obviously we’ve sold Elhamed and Frimpong. Two players who made it clear that they wanted to go, Ntcham, he wanted to go as well.
So in terms of finances that’s not been dictated to me, it’s more or less a question of  players weren’t happy and they’d made that clear for a while and we thought it best from a football point of view that we move them on.
At the end of December Chris Jullien suffered knee ligament damage with no central defender signed during January.
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