James Forrest
The Emperor of Ice Cream
I do not know whether Martin O’Neill is frustrated, angry or simply resigned to the situation at Celtic right now. Perhaps it is a little bit of all three. But after his latest interview, there is no point pretending we are dealing with vague transfer window noise anymore.
The manager has now confirmed what many of us feared. Several key players could leave this club. We knew it, but to have it nailed down gives us some idea of where we are because there are not fringe players. Not squad fillers. They are important footballers. The key footballers in some ways. Players who have carried this side, shaped this side and, in some cases, defined the way we play.
Daizen Maeda looks almost certain to go. Arne Engels is attracting the sort of attention which makes a sale feel more likely than not. Reo Hatate’s future lies wherever we get an offer from. Benjamin Nygren’s name has now been raised, and if a huge offer comes in, who knows what this club does? But we can guess.
We have also discussed the nightmare scenario around Callum McGregor, and if that ever became a live issue, this window would move from worrying to catastrophic in about five seconds. This is where we are.
And Celtic had better wake up.
Because this was never a summer where we simply needed to add two or three quality players to a squad which already looked secure. That would have been the job if nobody important left but we knew they would.
Even then, we needed a left-back, another striker, midfield strength, a goalkeeper and quality in the wide areas. We needed to build towards the Champions League qualifier with appropriate seriousness and urgency, under this board. Which was always the part that scared some of us to death.
That was the work before the exits. A lot of work.
Now imagine doing all of that while also replacing Maeda, Engels, Hatate and Nygren. Imagine doing it with the clock already ticking. Imagine doing it with Celtic’s recruitment machine moving at its usual majestic speed, like a shopping trolley with one wheel jammed. This is what some of us have long feared and now it’s no longer a shape in the future; it is here. The full rebuild has arrived … and we are slow out of the gate.
I see no sign whatsoever that we are prepared for the scale of it. We may replace players who leave, although even that is up for grabs with this lot, but replacing players is not the same as strengthening the team. If you lose four important footballers and bring in four bodies, you have not necessarily done your job. It’s why Sarrachi and Iheanacho are needed but nowhere even close to enough.
I think there will be a game next season, probably very early on, where we look at the starting eleven and realise it is weaker than the team which finished the last campaign. It may even happen on a Champions League night.
We may glance at the team sheet and think, “Oh my God.”
That is where this is heading unless the club dramatically escalates its efforts. We are in the middle of July. We are weeks away from the start of the campaign. We have European football looming, and the manager had admitted that several members of his core squad have one foot out the door, and we’ve spent much of the summer fighting with his coaches over the terms and conditions in their contracts.
None of this is a surprise. That is what makes it worse. Daizen’s situation has been obvious for months. Engels attracting major interest was always a certainty considering that which arose in January. Hatate wanting a fresh challenge has been discussed often enough. Nygren having admirers is not some thunderbolt from a clear sky.
These were foreseeable problems, and yet here we are, still waiting for evidence that Celtic have done the serious work required to protect the squad from being gutted.
Camilo Duran is in the building, and that is something. But it is not enough. It is nowhere near enough. A £6 million striker is a start, not a strategy. If Kelechi Iheanacho is still unresolved, if Marcelo Saracchi is still not through the door, if midfield targets are still floating around as rumours, if goalkeeper planning is still uncertain, then we are not operating like a serious club preparing for a defining season.
We are operating like Celtic. And that is the problem.
The Saracchi situation alone is enough to drive you up the wall. How long does it take to get that deal done? If the manager wants him, if the player wants it, if the fee is within reach, then what exactly are we waiting for? A papal blessing? A handwritten note from the ghost of Jock Stein? Someone in the building to discover the lost art of picking up a phone?
Then there is the Iheanacho mess, which is almost too ridiculous to contemplate. A player who was here, who contributed, who the manager wanted, and who could have been retained through a simple option, is now part of some drawn-out circus because Celtic somehow managed to make an easy thing difficult.
And you wonder; how the Hell are we going to act when serious players have left, need to be replacements and we’re opening negotiations with clubs who know what our needs are and that we have piles of money in the bank? At the very time when you do not want people in charge who prioritise the saving of pennies over Champions League riches that’s exactly the sort who will be in charge of keeping this from spiralling.
We complicate the simple. We delay the obvious. We turn squad planning into performance art. Anyone who has faith that they can do it … where does it come from?
Martin O’Neill has said enough for everyone to understand the danger. He knows players will go and that he has raised the terrible possibility of losing five of them, including the captain, this suddenly feels very real. He knows the squad could change dramatically. He knows recruitment is vital. The question is whether the people above him know it, or worse, whether they know it and still cannot act with the urgency required.
Because if Maeda goes, that is energy, pressing, goals and chaos gone from the front line. If Engels goes, that is one of the most talented young midfielders at the club gone before he has even reached his peak. If Hatate goes, that is craft, imagination and unpredictability gone from midfield. If Nygren goes, that is last season’s top scorer ripped out of the team. The departure of the captain? Wow. Nothing easily fixes that.
And Celtic are supposed to absorb all of that while still preparing for Europe?
This is where the board has to stop hiding behind process, caution, valuation gaps, market conditions and all the other phrases people use when they are trying to make inaction sound clever. Nobody wants reckless spending. Nobody wants panic buying. But there is a vast space between reckless panic and this maddening crawl.
And you know what? The longer all this takes the more likely it will be that panic buying is exactly what we’ll end up doing, as the days and then the hours count down.
The real work has to start now. Now.
Get the left-back done. Get the striker situation sorted. Get midfielders in before midfielders leave. Get a goalkeeper if that is on the list. Get wide players in. Get replacements in before the farewell statements are being typed.
That is what serious clubs do.
The club still has time to act. Not endless time, but time. But the window for doing that is closing fast. So get a move on.
Stop admiring the problem. Stop waiting for perfect conditions. Stop behaving as if the transfer window is something that happens to Celtic rather than something Celtic are supposed to control.
Because if we end up weaker on Champions League night than we were when last season ended, if Martin O’Neill is left standing there with half a rebuilt squad and a handful of excuses from the people above him, then the anger will be unlike anything they have seen yet.
This is not a normal summer anymore. It is a test of whether Celtic even believes that it is a serious football club.
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The post Martin O’Neill spells out the full scale of the transfer rebuild. Celtic cannot delay. appeared first on The Celtic Blog.
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The manager has now confirmed what many of us feared. Several key players could leave this club. We knew it, but to have it nailed down gives us some idea of where we are because there are not fringe players. Not squad fillers. They are important footballers. The key footballers in some ways. Players who have carried this side, shaped this side and, in some cases, defined the way we play.
Daizen Maeda looks almost certain to go. Arne Engels is attracting the sort of attention which makes a sale feel more likely than not. Reo Hatate’s future lies wherever we get an offer from. Benjamin Nygren’s name has now been raised, and if a huge offer comes in, who knows what this club does? But we can guess.
We have also discussed the nightmare scenario around Callum McGregor, and if that ever became a live issue, this window would move from worrying to catastrophic in about five seconds. This is where we are.
And Celtic had better wake up.
Because this was never a summer where we simply needed to add two or three quality players to a squad which already looked secure. That would have been the job if nobody important left but we knew they would.
Even then, we needed a left-back, another striker, midfield strength, a goalkeeper and quality in the wide areas. We needed to build towards the Champions League qualifier with appropriate seriousness and urgency, under this board. Which was always the part that scared some of us to death.
That was the work before the exits. A lot of work.
Now imagine doing all of that while also replacing Maeda, Engels, Hatate and Nygren. Imagine doing it with the clock already ticking. Imagine doing it with Celtic’s recruitment machine moving at its usual majestic speed, like a shopping trolley with one wheel jammed. This is what some of us have long feared and now it’s no longer a shape in the future; it is here. The full rebuild has arrived … and we are slow out of the gate.
I see no sign whatsoever that we are prepared for the scale of it. We may replace players who leave, although even that is up for grabs with this lot, but replacing players is not the same as strengthening the team. If you lose four important footballers and bring in four bodies, you have not necessarily done your job. It’s why Sarrachi and Iheanacho are needed but nowhere even close to enough.
I think there will be a game next season, probably very early on, where we look at the starting eleven and realise it is weaker than the team which finished the last campaign. It may even happen on a Champions League night.
We may glance at the team sheet and think, “Oh my God.”
That is where this is heading unless the club dramatically escalates its efforts. We are in the middle of July. We are weeks away from the start of the campaign. We have European football looming, and the manager had admitted that several members of his core squad have one foot out the door, and we’ve spent much of the summer fighting with his coaches over the terms and conditions in their contracts.
None of this is a surprise. That is what makes it worse. Daizen’s situation has been obvious for months. Engels attracting major interest was always a certainty considering that which arose in January. Hatate wanting a fresh challenge has been discussed often enough. Nygren having admirers is not some thunderbolt from a clear sky.
These were foreseeable problems, and yet here we are, still waiting for evidence that Celtic have done the serious work required to protect the squad from being gutted.
Camilo Duran is in the building, and that is something. But it is not enough. It is nowhere near enough. A £6 million striker is a start, not a strategy. If Kelechi Iheanacho is still unresolved, if Marcelo Saracchi is still not through the door, if midfield targets are still floating around as rumours, if goalkeeper planning is still uncertain, then we are not operating like a serious club preparing for a defining season.
We are operating like Celtic. And that is the problem.
The Saracchi situation alone is enough to drive you up the wall. How long does it take to get that deal done? If the manager wants him, if the player wants it, if the fee is within reach, then what exactly are we waiting for? A papal blessing? A handwritten note from the ghost of Jock Stein? Someone in the building to discover the lost art of picking up a phone?
Then there is the Iheanacho mess, which is almost too ridiculous to contemplate. A player who was here, who contributed, who the manager wanted, and who could have been retained through a simple option, is now part of some drawn-out circus because Celtic somehow managed to make an easy thing difficult.
And you wonder; how the Hell are we going to act when serious players have left, need to be replacements and we’re opening negotiations with clubs who know what our needs are and that we have piles of money in the bank? At the very time when you do not want people in charge who prioritise the saving of pennies over Champions League riches that’s exactly the sort who will be in charge of keeping this from spiralling.
We complicate the simple. We delay the obvious. We turn squad planning into performance art. Anyone who has faith that they can do it … where does it come from?
Martin O’Neill has said enough for everyone to understand the danger. He knows players will go and that he has raised the terrible possibility of losing five of them, including the captain, this suddenly feels very real. He knows the squad could change dramatically. He knows recruitment is vital. The question is whether the people above him know it, or worse, whether they know it and still cannot act with the urgency required.
Because if Maeda goes, that is energy, pressing, goals and chaos gone from the front line. If Engels goes, that is one of the most talented young midfielders at the club gone before he has even reached his peak. If Hatate goes, that is craft, imagination and unpredictability gone from midfield. If Nygren goes, that is last season’s top scorer ripped out of the team. The departure of the captain? Wow. Nothing easily fixes that.
And Celtic are supposed to absorb all of that while still preparing for Europe?
This is where the board has to stop hiding behind process, caution, valuation gaps, market conditions and all the other phrases people use when they are trying to make inaction sound clever. Nobody wants reckless spending. Nobody wants panic buying. But there is a vast space between reckless panic and this maddening crawl.
And you know what? The longer all this takes the more likely it will be that panic buying is exactly what we’ll end up doing, as the days and then the hours count down.
The real work has to start now. Now.
Get the left-back done. Get the striker situation sorted. Get midfielders in before midfielders leave. Get a goalkeeper if that is on the list. Get wide players in. Get replacements in before the farewell statements are being typed.
That is what serious clubs do.
The club still has time to act. Not endless time, but time. But the window for doing that is closing fast. So get a move on.
Stop admiring the problem. Stop waiting for perfect conditions. Stop behaving as if the transfer window is something that happens to Celtic rather than something Celtic are supposed to control.
Because if we end up weaker on Champions League night than we were when last season ended, if Martin O’Neill is left standing there with half a rebuilt squad and a handful of excuses from the people above him, then the anger will be unlike anything they have seen yet.
This is not a normal summer anymore. It is a test of whether Celtic even believes that it is a serious football club.
Choose The CelticBlog as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.
The post Martin O’Neill spells out the full scale of the transfer rebuild. Celtic cannot delay. appeared first on The Celtic Blog.
Continue reading...
