John McGinn will always be one of Celtic’s “what if” signings.
As a young player at Hibs, the midfielder was hot property, and Brendan Rodgers had his sights set on bringing him to Glasgow.
But Celtic weren’t the only ones chasing him, and in classic fashion, they missed the boat on the midfielder when he was quickly snapped up by Aston Villa.
Steve Bruce, the then-manager at Villa Park, has reflected on the deal and how McGinn’s family connections to the Hoops caused it to stall.
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Looking back on securing McGinn’s signature, Bruce said on talkSPORT: “I had heard his grandad used to be Celtic chairman. We had to stall.
“I thought ‘I am going to try and get his dad down to give us a little bit of stalling time’.
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“We got him to The Belfry (golf club) and got the pro to play him – which gave us another 4-5 hours to rustle up the £2m because we didn’t have it at the time.
“I am really pleased for him because he has turned into a really, really top player.
“I remember Neil Lennon’s son telling me the best player in Scotland was John McGinn.
“He was at Hibs at the time, Lenny, so I got straight on the phone to him and said we need to find out about McGinn. So we went to work on it.”
In an infamous summer window, Celtic missed out on a number of targets including Cristiano Piccini and Fabian Schar.
To make matters worse, they lost Moussa Dembele on Deadline Day, in acrimonious circumstances. No replacement was signed.
Having missed out on McGinn, the Hoops eventually signed Youssuf Mulumbu. Rodgers departed for Leicester eight months later.
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