It’s now day 14 of the January transfer window and Celtic have still not signed a striker.
It’s almost a calendar year since Kyogo Furuhashi left Celtic for Rennes and six months since Adam Idah left the Bhoys for Swansea City.
With the club’s two main strikers gone, fans would have expected that the Celtic board would have had the recruitment team scouring the globe for the Hoops’ new front man, right?
Kieron Bowie to Celtic… yes or no?
The fact Celtic tried to re-sign Kyogo on loan was the first red flag to the answer to that question. The second was O’Neill admitting he has ‘discarded’ a number of transfer suggestions that have been put forward to him since he returned to the club.
The third and final huge red flag is this new transfer confession O’Neill has just made and it’s not a good look for the Parkhead executives and will stun the Celtic supporters.
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‘Not Prepared’ – Why O’Neill’s transfer admission exposes the Celtic board
Martin O’Neill has been back at Celtic for less than 10 days so it would be unreasonable to expect him to be prepared for any transfer dealings.
And while the Celtic manager admits this, it does raise huge questions of how much work the Celtic board put into it.
O’Neill told the Daily Record, “I agree, it is vital [to get players in], I’m well aware and I’m not going to minimise it.
“I promise I am not sitting on my backside, I’m trying my best. I’d be very hopeful of bringing a few in. I am in the process of looking at these.
“Away back in my first spell as manager, I had time to do that before I was bringing people in. I had that all prepared.
“Unfortunately, it’s me, and I haven’t got this prepared now at this minute. Because I had Christmas at home, not expecting this.”
Not one Celtic fan will not blame O’Neill for that, but it does beg the one big question. Why are Celtic and the recruitment department not prepared? What are they doing?
‘Furiously Working’ – Martin O’Neill is leading a one-man scouting mission
Michael Nicholson once famously said that he wanted Celtic to be ‘world-class in everything that we do’, which was a great sound bite.
However, what O’Neill admits next is that Celtic’s recruitment process is nowhere near those standards, it seems.
“Well, we’re sharing it,” O’Neill continued, “But eventually it’ll be done. But there’s only so many calls I can make in a day.
“But we are actually furiously working. It doesn’t sound as if it’s me having some tea and relaxing here and things.
“Once you leave here, I’ll be back up on the phone again. The games have become so important for us.
“The margin of error is so small now as we can’t catch up those matches we’ve lost. So the games become a real focus.”
Let us know!
O’Neill has enough on his plate trying to keep Celtic in a title race, why is the manager being expected to source, call and bring in players too?
Just what was Paul Tisdale and the Celtic scouting and recruitment team doing at the club over the last 12 months in their search for a striker?
I forgot, they were busy chasing wingers Michel-Ange Balikwisha and Sebastian Tounekti for £10m whilst Brendan Rodgers had to call in Kelechi Iheanacho on a free transfer.
This transfer window has the hallmarks of turning into another shambles for the Celtic board.
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