This transfer window can't be as bad as January 2018

By Hamish Carton

January 14, 2020

Whatever happens this month, Celtic fans can rest easy in the knowledge that things are extremely unlikely to be as bad as January 2018 – perhaps the worst transfer window in the history of the club.

Spirits were pretty high as we entered the month, smarting after our very first domestic defeat under Brendan Rodgers. We still had the superstars of Moussa Dembele, Kieran Tierney and Paddy Roberts at the club and it was felt that we could make inroads in the Europa League with a couple of key additions.

Former Celtic man Moussa Dembele (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Several players were signed, but very few lived up to the hype as Brendan Rodgers’ failings in the transfer window were badly shown up.

The players signed in January 2018

This was the month when the club signed two central-defenders on permanent deals. Great you may say, until you find out that those two were Marvin Compper and Jack Hendry.

The former played just once in two seasons before leaving as a complete flop last summer. The latter is still at the club but has about as much chance of featuring for Neil Lennon’s men as this humble writer.

The fact we shelled out a combined sum of £2.26million (transfermarkt.co.uk) for the pair doesn’t bare thinking about. Signing either would be bad enough. Acquiring both in the very same month was the stuff of nightmares.

And the bad news didn’t stop there. Charly Musonda arrived on loan from Chelsea and didn’t see out his spell in Scotland – departing back to London for a reason that is still unclear.

Former Celtic man Charly Musonda (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

The soon to depart Lewis Morgan was also brought in and the fact he was one of the better signings of the month says more about our recruitment at that time than it does him.

One crumb of comfort was the loan acquisition of Scott Bain who has since gone on to play 45 times for the club. However, even he couldn’t be considered a brilliant piece of business.

Lennon is still sorting Rodgers’ mess

There’s an argument that the January 2018 window set us back for around 18 months. Yes, we were still scooping up every domestic trophy with ease, but Rodgers was starting to stumble with his squad and didn’t know how to fix it in the transfer market.

Former Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers (Photo by Mark Runnacles/Getty Images)

The following summer’s window wasn’t much better while last January was another absolute disaster. In fact, it wasn’t until this summer when a lot of the damage done by Rodgers was sorted by Lennon and his trusted team.

One consolation in January 2018 was that no marquee players departed the scene. Only Liam Henderson and Erik Sviatchenko (on loan) moved on. Hopefully that part of the window is replicated this month.