Marian Shved has highlighted the recruitment issues that he had at Celtic.
It would be a stretch to describe substitute appearances against Nomme Kalju, Ross County and Clyde that came to less than 45 minutes as a career but the Ukrainian can certainly say that he wore the hoops.
When Brendan Rodgers ‘welcomed’ Celtic’s interest in the winger with the notorious quote that the club already had a million wingers it became ominous with the new bhoy from Karpaty Lviv immediately sent back on loan to the club that had just sold him.
The influence of Peter Lawwell seemed to be all over the transfer, when Neil Lennon took over as manager he has priorities way ahead of developing players through the ranks or showing interest in a project signing.
Shved and Vacoun Bayo quickly slipped out of view, after moves to Belgium one is a Champions League hero with two goals to his name and the other is sitting on an impressive contract with Watford.
Reflecting on his bizarre Celtic experiences Shved told The Sun:
The chief executive (Lawwell) supported me. That’s true. I sat with him and Neil Lennon to discuss the situation. I hadn’t played in half a year. The coach said, ‘Yes, of course, I will give you chances to play’.
We shook hands but after this I didn’t play. Celtic at this time had very good results. All the time they were winning.
Maybe it’s why the chief executive couldn’t say anything to the coach because they had good results but it was still frustrating.
I am a player. I was training well and tried to show I could play but it didn’t happen. The problem is he promised me but nothing happened, nothing changed.
Do I feel like I never had a chance at Celtic? It was only the decision of the coach. It wasn’t a decision of the club or the supporters. I knew the coach had changed.
It doesn’t matter who the new coach is, when you go to a new team you have to show your best conditions in training. Maybe if it was another coach I would have played more but you can’t change anything.
Maybe I made some mistakes but if I had to go back to that time I would make the same decision. It was a great experience and it was good for my career.
Daniel Arzani and Karamoko Dembele were around the Celtic first team squad at the same time with none of that trio ever starting a competitive match.
Shved is another example of recruitment ultimately being decided by an accountant (Lawwell), anyone that now signs for Celtic is very much the choice of Ange Postecoglou.
Football has a terrible habit of throwing up ironic story lines with the Celtic boss well aware of the Shakhtar Donetsk winger that could twist the knife into his side’s Champions League prospects tonight.
CLICK HERE for Shved’s career profile.
Brendan Rodgers confirms Maryan Shved’s imminent arrival at Celtic but appears less than enthusiastic about it: `”We have got about a million wingers, we don’t need another one”https://t.co/WAkJDJ2zmW pic.twitter.com/Jv4LYJmuC4
— Clyde 1 Superscoreboard (@ClydeSSB) January 23, 2019
Listen it was lennon again!! He didn’t give Rogic game time after his great debut in invernessin jan 2013 had Calmsc out the door, tierney not even quoted!! Bakou the same! He was a shortsighted poor limited manager the who played favourites and a piss head to boot, cringe he was manager of our great Club! Throw in he very dodgy behaviour with females which is documented as fact! This was lawell biggest problem lennon! Not Sheved and he should be given a chance the lad of course he should have, but Lennon being well lennon saw like many he had no chance! Garbage manager in every sense alienated players big time! And he no right to ever managed Celtic ever! That’s on lawell more than anything else
In inverness I meant