Dermot Desmond has taken part in a surprise interview with the official club channel to talk about all things at the club. From recruitment, his shared, and to the debacle of last season.
One interesting point Dermot made about last season was Celtic retaining their two players on-loan from Southampton.
At the time Fraser Forster and Moi Elyounoussi were set to head back down south. The Hoops put deals in place Southampton and both players were happy with to stay on and try to help the club win ten in a row.
As we reported at the time and have done since, Fraser Forster pulled the rug out from underneath Celtic at the last minute. Dermot talks about letting Craig Gordon go because they thought Fraser was coming back – only for him to leave Celtic with a massive gap to fill in the quad going into a pivotal season.
“We wanted to retain the players we had on loan, Elyounoussi and Forster, both deals looked to be done.” Dermot told Celtic TV. Unfortunately, Fraser Forster decided last minute to stay at Southampton. In the interim, we let Craig Gordon go, that was the start of a little bit of the challenges we faced.
“Now we were in need of replacing a goalkeeper to replace Fraser Forster and Craig Gordon.“
Celtic brought in Vasilis Barkas and the Greek stopper turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. Shipping goals at an alarming rate.
It was one big blow for Celtic before we really got going, but as we know, it was death by a thousand cuts,
You only hear or see the bould Dermot when things are going well.. . . .