Report states Dermot Desmond has provided promising Celtic transfer fund assurance

By John McGinley

April 2, 2021

The Eddie Howe news has been well covered from all angles today, but there’s a promising and perhaps overlooked nugget in Stephen McGowan’s report on the situation in The Scottish Daily Mail.

The journalist, well respected by sections of the Celtic support, reckons that prominent shareholder Dermot Desmond has provided assurances to the former Bournemouth boss that funds will be in place to rebuild the current squad.

Celtic haven’t qualified for the Champions League group stages for a number of years. Over 12 months of pandemic-related problems have also taken their toll on our finances.

The club isn’t skint by any means, but it does raise questions about our ability to significantly spend in the transfer market this summer.

We do have a number of assets to sell on for a pretty penny, potentially funding a rebuild, but that’s a difficult task.

Seemingly though, Desmond is ready to give Howe assurances that the money will be in place to bring in the players he wants over the next six months if he does indeed take the job.

That, coupled with similar assurances on the football structure, has apparently put Celtic in pole position to land Howe ahead of Crystal Palace, reports The Mail.

McGowan reckons Celtic could be in a position to announce Howe as the new manager early next week.

Discussions over the last few days in London have seemingly gone very well. The former Bournemouth man will now have the Easter weekend to confirm his intentions.

Eddie Howe could be on his way to Celtic / (Photo by Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images)

All going well, this time next week, we could have a new manager in place – or at least an announcement to that effect. It still feels more likely he’ll take charge officially at the end of the season.

Hopefully, we hear even more over the next couple of days.

In other news, Chris Sutton has delivered his verdict on the Eddie Howe developments.