Former Sky Sports Soccer Saturday pundit, Charlie Nicholas has gone off on a rant about Celtic’s inaction in the transfer market – something the former Celt blames on their Champions League exit.
Nicholas, who is never too far away from a critical word on his former club believes Celtic are slow at getting business done and it feels like they’re forced into doing business rather than being as active as possible.
Celtic brought in Vasilis Barkas, Moi Elyounoussi and Albian Ajeti before the game against Ferenvacros but they didn’t get the job done. Talking about getting the Shane Duffy deal over the line, Nicholas believes this should have been done much sooner and could have helped Celtic stay in the Champions League.
“This is a position that Neil Lennon has been screaming out for and it was clear that Duffy was his preference.” Nicholas wrote in his column as cited by RecordSport.
“If Lennon asks Peter Lawwell to deliver him a centre-back or another left-back then that’s what he should get.
“If the Celtic board had delivered on these fronts earlier then the club would still be in the Champions League rather than looking at the Europa League.
“They always seem to be slow off the blocks in the transfer market.
“It’s almost as though they have to be forced into doing business at times. It is the same every summer.
“The reality is that Celtic are a selling club but, for them, it is usually more a case of, ‘Who can they keep?’ as opposed to ‘Who can they sell?’.”
I don’t think you can realistically point to Duffy not being signed as a catalyst for our Champions League exit. Neil Lennon has a habit of signing players and not putting them straight into the squad, had we signed Duffy over a week ago, there’s no guarantee he would’ve played any of the game.
Neil did the same with Christopher Jullien last season and we went out to Cluj.
Nicholas might be right that Celtic are slow in the market, but in this instance, the manager’s errors coupled with many missed chances cost us that game.
its not often i agree with nickolas ,but is it me or do the board take a long time to get things done, other clubs seem to get it done bam bam bam but at celtic park it like pulling teeth