Celtic’s summer transfer window has been the subject of much speculation ever since the team’s performances on the park started to suffer.
Celtic added eight players to the first-team squad last summer and many have now found to be wanting.
With Brendan Rodgers wielding the axe in January, the Hoops gaffer let Marco Tilio and Hyeokkyu Kwon out on loan and Gustaf Lagerbielke almost being shown the door, it is pretty clear what Rodgers thinks of the players he signed last summer.
Which is strange because the Celtic manager signed off on all of them so surely he would have known what he was getting?
But it seems that Rodgers cannot be fully held to account for the summer recruitment. That’s according to journalist, Mark Guidi.
Guidi claims that whilst he believes Rodgers may well have had the final say, there is someone else who must shoulder the blame.
Ange Postecoglou is also responsible for Celtic’s recruitment
The Australian gaffer left Celtic last summer to go and pursue his dream of managing in the Premier League with Spurs, but Guid reckons Postecoglou also had a big say in some of the players signed by Rodgers.
Guidi said [The Go Radio Football Show], “If they had brought in three or four quality players, they didn’t need to bring in nine or ten. They didn’t need to bring in our four or five jersey fillers.
“What they needed was three or four quality players, and they failed to do it. So the strategy during the transfer window in the summer was completely wrong.
“And I know some people are wanting to blame that on Brendan Rodgers because he signed them off. And ultimately, I’m sure he did sign them off.
“He’s inherited that and he’s put his trust in the recruitment team and Ange’s judgement, no doubt Ange had a big say in some of those players.
“But the question I would ask in terms of signing them if he didn’t sign those players, what were his options?
“His options might have been worse than what they actually signed and that’s not a reflection on the manager.”
In a way, I can see where Guidi is coming from. Undoubtedly there would have been players identified whilst Ange was still the Celtic manager.
And maybe those players’ reports were passed on to Rodgers to cast his eye over. Fair enough. The bigger question for me is what was in those reports to convince the manager that the players being pursued for millions of pounds were good enough for Celtic.
What could possibly have been said about Lagerbielke and Maik Nawrocki to convince Rodgers to sign them for the Celtic manager to then drop them like a stone no more than a few months later?
It is clear there are very real problems at Celtic in regard to recruitment. And if they want to remain the dominant team in Scotland then the mistakes made last summer simply cannot be repeated again.
In other news, ‘Baffled me’… Chris Sutton nails it as he’s left bewildered by Peter Lawwell’s recent Celtic comments
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