Celtic getting rid of Craig Gordon wasn’t the problem; failing to replace him was

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Celtic were always going to have one of these days against Craig Gordon.

After he signed for Hearts, there was always going to be one match where he stepped up. One match where he would thwart us with some decent stops and we wouldn’t be allowed to hear the end of it.

There’s been plenty re-writing of history since last night. It’s consistently been thrown in the Celtic fans’ faces that we never kept Gordon whilst we’ve endured woeful goalkeeping issues. That we should’ve kept hold of the Hearts star because we didn’t have anyone better at the football club.

But the truth is that’s not where Celtic went wrong. Gordon’s form and confidence levels had dropped massively in his final 18 months at Celtic. Everything from his distribution to his shot-stopping had lowered.

You go back to the summer of 2020 and see if many were crying at the prospect of Gordon departing. Yes, he deserves credit and respect for the over 240 appearances he made in green and white [Transfermarkt]. But his time as this club’s number one had come to an end.

Where we went wrong was in failing to believe he needed replaced. It’s not the actual release of Gordon that we should be ruing here. There was a golden opportunity to totally revamp our goalkeeping department, and we failed miserably to do so.

Vasilis Barkas did come in, but he was viewed as Fraser Forster’s replacement. Scott Bain, meanwhile, was initially given the number two role, effectively taking Gordon’s spot. That’s where Celtic made a huge blunder.

Celtic chose not to bother replacing Craig Gordon

Bain had never shown himself to be solid enough to merit that spot. He was effectively the contingency plan if Barkas didn’t work out. Instead of strengthening, we looked to save some money by looking within the club. That’s despite the fact we had no options suitable to be a potential number one.

That’s the fatal error Celtic have made here. Gordon’s time at Parkhead was up, and a split was what was best for all parties. Celtic didn’t attract much criticism for the decision either. That’s because it was assumed we were going to delve into the market and fix our shortages.

But we decided not to, and here we are. Now, there will be plenty of media pundits talking about how we should’ve kept the Hearts man. How Celtic will be looking at him and Hearts with envy.

Blah, blah, blah. We know where we went wrong as supporters, and it wasn’t in letting Gordon go. A goalkeeper who, if we’re being honest, isn’t good enough anymore to be Celtic’s number one.

In his two games against the Hoops since joining Hearts, he’s shipped four goals. he’s hardly come back to haunt us because he saved a couple last night.

So please, let’s stop the Craig Gordon fawning. It’s unnecessary and totally overlooks where Celtic truly went wrong.

In other news, Matchday 1 and Celtic are already counting the cost of poor officiating