Leaves Celtic wide open to criticism- Sutton calls out Lawwell’s excuses
Soccer Football - Scottish Premiership - Celtic v Livingston - Celtic Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - December 21, 2022 Celtic fans inside the stadium before the match REUTERS/Russell Cheyne
Peter Lawwell’s statement with Celtic’s Interim Report has left Chris Sutton as puzzled and frustrated as many hoops supporters.
It seems that the Celtic Board shares the worries the lack of activity during the January transfer window- but no solutions have been offered.
The need for quality arrivals was heightened by the disastrous summer activities which saw 10 players arrive while Jota, Aaron Mooy and Carl Starfelt left the club.
None of the arrivals improved the Starting XI, Luis Palma has been the only one regularly selected but over the last two months his supply of goals and assists has dropped noticeably with the exception of two assists during the Scottish Cup win at Motherwell.
There seemed to be no change to the way the January window was treated, in the summer a replacement will be required for Joe Hart while Matt O’Riley is likely to attract the sort of offers that Celtic find difficult to resist. In August Starfelt, a current internationalist and regular in a treble winning side was sold for £4m to Celta Vigo.
It has all the ingredients for a perfect storm, after checking out the Interim Report Sutton told the Daily Record:
Peter Lawwell didn’t have anywhere to go with Celtic’s interim report. He knew it, everyone knew it, he basically admitted as much and a fair few of his comments didn’t cut it for me.
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure there were enough satisfactory answers in there to key questions. Mainly, the disappointment of failing to further add to the squad. Collective responsibility was taken, but it doesn’t change anything and the big question is why were these mistakes made?
Who is to blame? If funds were available, there’s a culpability somewhere and, although they’ll never actually say, that’s the point and it leaves Celtic wide open to criticism and speculation.
Identified targets were unavailable. Well identify more or some alternatives. Because, quite simply, are you telling me there wasn’t a single left-back out there available as better cover to Greg Taylor than Alexandro Bernabei? Come on.
Also, I’m not entirely sure what transfer activity being at its lowest in England for 10 years has to do with Celtic. Regardless of happenings in England, given Brendan Rodgers talked about needing to be braver in the market, would they have spent big to buy from the Premier League down south anyway?
Who is mainly to blame for Celtic's disastrous season?
Chairman- The decline started with his appointment
Manager- Not the same guy, weak and more powerless
Recruitment- you can't get over four disastrous transfer windows
Less activity in England ought to provide Celtic with less competition to sign players while the ‘January is a difficult market’ claim was made to look foolish by the advance work of Ange Postecoglou who had the deals for Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi completed and announced on 31 December 2021.
Two of those three signings, plus Matt O’Riley played a major role in Celtic’s title success that season which booked a group stage place in the Champions League. At this stage it is difficult to see Nicolas Kuhn and Adam Idah having the same impact.
CLICK HERE for the full Interim Report.