24/05/09 CLYDESDALE BANK PREMIER LEAGUE .CELTIC v HEARTS .CELTIC PARK - GLASGOW.Celtic Director Dermot Desmond and Chief Executive Peter Lawwell (right) chat prior to kick-off.. (Photo by Bill MurraySNS Group via Getty Images)
With Rodgers announced as a guest of ACSOM for an audience on June 14 it would be safe to assume that Paul John Dykes got that story from a fairly reliable source.
With Peter Lawwell starting to re-exert his influence on Celtic at the start of the 2017/18 season signing activity was limited.
Kolo Tourre had retired in the summer of 2017 with no central defenders brought in.
Midway through the Invincible season Rodgers had restored Dedryck Boyata to the defence with Erik Sviatchenko making way.
Jozo Simunovic had to be nursed carefully with Nir Bitton always on call to fill in at centre half.
Kris Ajer was also making strides forward after being converted from a midfielder by Rodgers.
Rodgers made it clear that an experienced option was needed to replace Toure which set the Recruitment Department off on search of someone to tick that box.
THE ANSWER IS MARVIN COMPPER!
To the delight of Lawwell a cut price option was identified.
RB Leipzig were keen to get rid of Compper’s salary, at the age of 32 it was felt that he had lost the edge needed to play in central defence in the Bundesliga.
Lawwell had a solution.
On December 2017 Compper signed a two and a half year contract.
40 minutes
QUESTION: Compper, what a guy
PJD:
The thing with Compper is, he is a signing, and I can say this with some confidence that Brendan Rogers knew nothing about. He was a club signing, he was a free transfer and the club put out that it cost a million quid.
It was like this is a German internationalist and all this nonsense. But you can rest assured if a player came in and Brendan didn’t fancy him or it wasn’t his player, he wouldn’t play him. And that was the case with Compper, OK he 60 minutes against Morton?
The plan was to take Compper to Dubai during the January break and return with another option in central defence.
The first match back was a home Scottish Cup tie against Brechin on January 20.
Compper missed it with a ‘mystery’ injury, Celtic won 5-0.
On 3 March Compper played for 83 minutes against Morton in the Scottish Cup. It was his final appearance as a Celtic player.
The German played in a few matches in the Development League before being paid off a year early to join Duisburg in July 2019. A year later he retired from playing.
In August Compper was appointed head coach at Royal Antwerp.
Daddy Lawwell’s grubby mits all over it for sure…
And of course – No Comppersation to be paid doesn’t do any harm either eh !