Celtic are reported to have brought in Mark Cooper as part of their new look Recruitment Team.
After two brilliant transfer windows driven by Ange Postecoglou the profile of the squad was transformed but three windows overseen by Mark Lawwell reversed that process.
In the summer of 2022 Sead Haksabanovic, Alexandro Bernabei and Ben Siegrist were signed alongside loan deals for Mortiz Jenz and Oliver Abildgaard. None of those players made it into this season’s Champions League squad.
In January of this year Adam Idah and Nicolas Kuhn were signed with both appearing to be brought in by Brendan Rodgers rather than from Lawwell and his Recruitment Team.
Other than a brief announcement over Lawwell’s departure there has been nothing officially from Celtic about their Recruitment plans but in the Daily Mail McGowan reveals:
Celtic, meanwhile, have hired former South American talent spotter Mark Cooper in a revamp of the club’s scouting set-up.
Head of player recruitment Mark Lawwell, son of Celtic chairman Peter, and chief scout Joe Dudgeon left the Parkhead club to ‘pursue new challenges’ in a clear-out of the recruitment department in March.
Previously based in South America, Cooper went on to work in MLS, but the Scot has now been lured back to Glasgow in a full-time role. Highly rated by manager Rodgers, Cooper has been set the task of improving the standard of first-team recruitment.
Targeting players aged between 19 and 23, with international experience and fitting certain financial criteria, Celtic’s hit rate came under scrutiny after a number of the club’s summer signings failed to hit the ground running at first-team level.
Of the dozen new captures brought in over the last two transfer windows, Nicolas Kuhn was the only starter in Saturday’s 3-0 win over Hearts.
Expected to strengthen in a number of key positions this summer, goalkeeper, the left side of defence, midfield and attack are priority areas and Cooper has already set to work on drawing up a list of players likely to make an impact.
As part of the backroom restructure, Celtic recently confirmed former B team coach Darren O’Dea as Professional Player Pathway Manager with the task of developing the progress of young players at Lennoxtown.
Since the turn of the year Celtic have sent Marco Tilio, Kwon Hyeok-kyu and Bernabei out on loan with all three recruited recently and on long term contracts. Siegrist and Yuki Kobayashi are also on long term deals without playing a minute of first team football this season.
The focus for Cooper will be to bring in players of the calibre of Jota and Cameron Carter-Vickers but a significant clear out is also needed with the first team squad comfortably over 30 with doubts over whether Gus Lagerbielke and Maik Nawrocki have any future at the club.
Need Lawwell snr out to progress
So there is a defender crisis at sevco now the question is who plays alongside Bible John in the central defence as Balogun is out,and well the reserve goalkeeper Goldson is all of a sudden apparently injured.
Now does Goldson make a miracle recovery and slot back in with Bible John or do they bring anothe duff player.
What about signing David de Gea who is still without a club? For the run in and following season.
Joe …Your article brings home…with a vengeance…the catastrophic shambles that exists at the Club with regards to signings.
You have clearly highlighted the problem…so let’s see how the Club handles this going forward.
And I also need to point out that…( Hope I’ve got my facts right here )…
Should we be in the CL next season…Then of the 25 registered players …no fewer than EIGHT require to be “Homegrown ” !!
How the hell do we achieve that ?
I think Lawwell jnr. will be considered to have done a good job at Celtic!
He leaves with c. £67 million or whatever in the kitty.
Just exactly what good it does sitting in the kitty is anybody’s guess!
Meanwhile Celtic’s UEFA Clubs Rankings Co-efficient is twenty five places behind sevcos!
Could that really be viewed as an example of success or even of a token of success at the
“World Class Club”
which is spoken about by Peter Lawwell?
Success in European competition doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a settled team playing good football to go to the next level. Do we think that we are ready for that?
Celtic have tried buying footballers with big names, or reputations before, to gain success in Europe, with exceptionally bad results!
If we win the League, we will have to start getting results in Europe, to begin to edge up the Co-efficient.
Buying a couple of seasoned pro’s may be a starting point?!
maister…we have a bloated squad…with players we’ll find difficult to move on…and 8 of the 25 CL squad players need to be ” Homegrown” if I’ve got my facts right…So I don’t know how we’ll make this all fit…Buying more players don’t seem an option to me…Hail hail
maister…we have a bloated squad…with players we’ll find difficult to move on…and 8 of the 25 CL squad players need to be ” Homegrown” if I’ve got my facts right…So I don’t know how we’ll make this all fit…Buying more players don’t seem an option to me…Hail hail