Where do you begin to trace the root of Celtic’s diabolical season?
The Hoops have been plagued with issues throughout 2020/21 and when you dig deep enough, you’ll realise that there are problems far greater than Scott Brown’s dwindling performances or Odsonne Edouard’s questionable mindset.
It stems far deeper than Jonjoe Kenny’s inability to concentrate or Diego Laxalt’s hopeless defending. It also runs further back than last summer’s shambolic recruitment.
Vasilis Barkas and Albian Ajeti have been a huge waste of money, setting the club back a sum of £9.5m. The former has barely played after being usurped in the pecking order by Scott Bain while Ajeti has only six goals to his name.
Coincidentally, that significant financial investment nearly equates to the amount of money Celtic received for Brendan Rodgers.
Back in February 2019, Leicester City managed to prise the Northern Irishman away from Paradise in a deal that goes down as one of the most expensive manager transfers of all time.
The Foxes paid a compensation fee of around £10m two years ago but that money has rather evaporated.
Rodgers engineered a tremendous amount of success in Glasgow, winning seven trophies in total but they failed to replace him sufficiently when he headed south of the border.
That decision was taken by the much-maligned Peter Lawwell. The CEO is set to retire at the end of the season and be replaced by Dominic McKay but it’s his lack of ambition back in 2019 that is the root cause of Celtic’s current downfall.
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With that in mind, you can hardly blame the numerous protests that have occurred outside Parkhead this season.
Speaking on ACSOM after Celtic were drubbed 4-1 by Rangers last Sunday, presenter Paul John Dykes said: “So we make around £10m when he [Rodgers] goes to Leicester and what do we do with it? We bring in Neil Lennon. Now, that is on Peter Lawwell and that performance today if you really want to track it back is on Lawwell.”
Dykes continued: “The suggestion that Peter Lawwell will still be at the club in some capacity going forward, Celtic fans should be frightened about that. He is the reason we have fallen so disparagingly short this season.”
It’s particularly hard to disagree with that assessment. Lawwell had £10m to spend on a top-quality manager but instead looked towards the past.
Lennon returned for a second bite of the cherry and despite winning the treble last term, everything has disastrously fallen apart in 2020/21.
His management left a lot to be desired and the fact he was still using Rodgers’ training methods at Lennoxtown says it all.
£10m is a lot of money for a club like Celtic but it was thrown down the drain with their shoddy recruitment in the transfer window summing things up.
That £9.5m last summer would have been better sitting in the bank, especially after the way Lawwell refused to spend it on an able replacement over two years ago now.
With Celtic in such a dominant period in their history, attracting a manager shouldn’t have been a particularly arduous task.
At the time, they were linked with Slaven Bilic, David Moyes, Steve Clarke and Roberto Martinez. Any of those coaches will have been more inspirational than someone who had already taken on the job once.
As the hierarchy are proving now, it’s difficult to find a new head coach when the future of the football club is so unclear.
Their search has gone on for ten weeks and is still devoid of a solution. All of this is on Lawwell; he has a lot to answer for. The fans should be particularly enraged right now.