Former Celtic striker Charlie Nicholas has slammed the board and urged them to “open the cheque book” if they want the club to progress in Europe.
Celtic were dumped out of the Europa League at the last-32 stage by Danish champions Copenhagen. However, that only came after we managed to top the group and lose only one of our six games.
Neil Lennon brought a total of 10 players to the club in the summer before signing both Patryk Klimala and Ismaila Soro in January – taking the incoming total up to 12.
However, speaking in his Daily Express column (03/13, page 57), Sky Sports pundit Nicholas had a real go at the Parkhead beaks for a lack of backing.
“Celtic must open the cheque book if they want to see the team advance to the latter stages of European football. Neil Lennon doesn’t have enough players who can keep the ball properly and dominate games the way they should on the continent.
“Celtic have plenty of money in the bank but they are not prepared to cough up to get that extra bit of quality in. When they are doing well in Europe it takes the heat off the board because nobody questions them.
“Having been knocked out last week by a bog-standard Copenhagen team, it’s no coincidence we are seeing reports of Celtic looking to extend the contract of Odsonne Edouard. A woeful 45 minutes cost them against Cluj in the Champions League qualifiers earlier this season and the same thing happened in the Europa.”
Recruitment not to blame for Euro exit
There is room to say that we could’ve done a bit extra in January. Another centre-back to help compete with Christopher Jullien and Kristoffer Ajer would’ve been ideal. However, that’s not why we ended up exiting the Europa League.
It was nothing more than individual mistakes that cost us vs the Danes. We were clearly superior over two legs in terms of our quality. But you simply can’t legislate for short back-passes or a normally reliable centre-back getting caught out of position.
That’s football at the end of the day – players make mistakes. After all, we defeated Lazio home and away as well as securing four points against Rennes in our two games against them. We were solid at Parkhead in the group stages, and showed a real improvement in performance levels compared to last season.
Celtic have also spent around £17million on new arrivals this season (Transfermarkt). The money has been spent, including a big £7m deal for Jullien (Scottish Sun). The board certainly did back Lennon, and many of those signings have impressed.
So it’s harsh and probably inaccurate from Nicholas to say that better players are needed to go further. It was one game where mistakes were made. If we played Copenhagen again you would still fancy us to go through. It’s all about replicating the vast majority of performances in Europe this season when we enter the Champions League qualifiers next season.
Yes, the board have made mistakes, but they aren’t to blame for going out to Copenhagen.
Do you believe better signings are a necessity if we want to go further in Europe next season? Give us your thoughts in the discussion forum below.
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