Murdo MacLeod believes that Eddie Howe is already at work identifying the new faces for next season’s title challenge.
Since news emerged at the start of April that Dermot Desmond and Dom MacKay had met with the former Bournemouth boss there hasn’t been another credible suggestion of an alternative candidate for the managerial vacancy at Celtic.
In the summer of 1997 MacLeod took part in a massive rebuild as Wim Jansen brought Darren Jackson, Jonathan Gould, Stephane Mahe, Craig Burley, Regi Blinker and Marc Reiper to the club plus a dreadlocked Swede in dispute with Feyenoord.
Paul Lambert and Harald Brattbakk were added during the first half of the season but it was a massive overhaul that finally delivered the league title when the odds seemed stacked against Celtic
Picking up on his appearance on the Huddle Podcast, the Daily Record reports MacLeod saying:
I’ve felt with Eddie, if he’s been tied up with Celtic for the last six or seven weeks, then he’s been using his knowledge in England to pick out players who are going to be available to Celtic.
Because obviously, so many people will be saying to the new manager before he even comes to Celtic ‘this one’s not going to be here and this one’s not going to be here. This one’s going, we’ll get money for them but you’ve got to go and get a new centre-back.
You’ve got to get a new centre-forward. You’ve got to bring in better quality than we’ve got just now’. So everybody will be giving the new manager some details on who to get rid of and keep.
Celtic have two more matches to play this season, on Saturday evening the close season of intrigue gets underway.
