A lot of footballers have played for Celtic in the past eighteen years, and picking the most influencial of them is a difficult task. It’s also a subjective one. There’s no right or wrong answer, and no scientific method of choosing them that everyone will agree on.
Some are obvious contenders for the top five or ten spots. Others will be the subject of debate.
But these guys all have a claim. They all did something exceptional and played a role in enormous events. Our current success is built on them; indeed, a couple of them are still at the club today, helping us to make even more history.
These are the 20 most influencial players at our club since the year 2000.
20 Gary Hooper
A phenomenal signing, and a proven goal-scorer.
He ticks so many boxes for us.
Goals in massive matches. Goals against Rangers. Goals in trophy winning teams.
He was only at Parkhead for a short time, but he managed to score 82 goals for us in all competitions. Had he stayed one more year he would certainly have joined the ranks of the 100 Club. He was a bargain signing at £2.4 million and the only surprise was that we only doubled our money on him.
19 Georgios Samaras
Seven seasons. Major trophies. Massive performances.
A player who never once hid, who never once gave up, who never shirked his responsibilities.
I loved him. I was a fan before it became fashionable because this was one of those rare players who gave 100% no matter if he was playing on the biggest stage or on a wet weekend in Brechin.
He played 249 times for us. He scored 74 goals.
He was a fantastic servant to Celtic, and yet remains one of the most under-rated players on this list.
18 Mikael Lustig
Signed on a free contract back in 2011, he has played more than 200 games for the team and is still a first-choice today.
Yes, the legs may be going a bit and at the time of writing there is some uncertainty over his future, but Mikael has been a fantastic servant to Celtic and his affection for the club and for the fans is obvious. Brendan describes him as being a massive personality in the dressing room, and a huge influence on our younger players.
The only argument about his inclusion in this list is that he should probably have finished higher on it.
17 Stillian Petrov
An absolutely incredible player and a major presence in our team for the whole of his time here.
People say he left too early; this is the era when players give us two seasons before they get moved on.
He gave us seven full seasons and played over 300 times for the club in that time.
What a footballer he was, and he remains a true Celtic man to this day. His battle with leukemia showed what he was made of off the pitch. We already knew what he had on it; he had everything. He will never be anything but welcome at Parkhead.
16 Fraser Forster
The Great Wall was an absolutely brilliant signing for this club, costing us a mere £2 million after he’d impressed mightily on loan.
He came to Celtic as a Newcastle third choice; people tend to forget that.
It was our club who turned this raw boy into an international class goalkeeper.
His departure was kind of inevitable.
He wanted to play for England, and he believed that was only going to happen if he was playing in their top flight. But whilst at Celtic he was an immense presence between the sticks, breaking all kinds of records and writing his name into the history books.
We recieved a whopping transfer fee for him too.
15 Shunsuke Nakamura
A personal favourite of mine, and one of the most skillful Celtic players I’ve ever watched.
I loved every second that he was in the Hoops and don’t think we ever properly replaced the magic touch and the ability to prise open defences which he brought to us.
The highlights are so numerous it’s hard to know where to start, but his Celtic Park goal against Manchester United will be fresh in my memory until the day I die, as will his phenomenal, bending, swerving strike against Rangers, which I believe is the single best goal ever scored against them, and yes I do mean even in front of the Larsson special in the 6-2 game.
Naka had it all. I still miss him.
14 Alan Thompson
A splendid, wonderful, incredible footballer.
I was overjoyed when we signed him, although some questioned it.
But I knew there was a smart player in there, one capable of great things. He had never realised them in his early career; it took the special atmosphere of Celtic Park to bring out his best. That he so quickly became a fans favourite is hardly a surprise.
He was a sublime footballer on his day, and he knew how to find the net.
Big games were what he was made for, and he always showed for business.
13 Johan Mjallby
Big Dolph made his debut against Rangers in the 5-1 battering we gave them under Dr Jo; my memory of that day is the buildup to it when a certain Rino Gattuso was bumping his gums about how he would boss the game. The first fifty-fifty ball he went for was against the big man and Mjallby just rolled over him like a tank.
He was annonymous for the rest of the match; in fact, I think he just about went into hiding in Scottish football generally.
From there, big Johan never looked back.
He was an immense presence in central defence, our Mr Reliable, and a proper gent off the park.
He returned as a coach with Neil Lennon and will forever have a place in our hearts.
12 Callum McGregor
A legend in the making, and I make no apology for placing him so high on this list.
He is 25 and already has nearly 200 appearances for the club.
We will be talking about him to our grandkids.
He gets better with every game that passes, and he will go down in our history as one of the lynchpins of this team which has already achieved so much and is set to achieve much more. A product of the youth academy, he is well on the way to being the complete midfielder, capable of playing in various roles and always with a touch of class.
11 Kris Commons
I might not like his newspaper columns, but as a footballer for Celtic Kris Commons was a mammoth success story.
He brought so much to this team, with big performances and a lot of goals.
He scored 91 of them for the club. Had he been able to knuckle down and give Brendan what he wanted his final year here would have been as part of the Invincible team and he would certainly have scored the handful of goals necessary to put him in the 100 Club.
10 Artur Boruc
The Holy Goalie was a massive fan favourite from almost the moment he signed for the club.
Had he just been a top class keeper – which he was – he would still have made this list, but Boruc was, and remains, One Of Us, a guy who got the club and the fans right from the word go. He epitomised what it meant to be a Celtic player.
He had real quality between the sticks, but he also burned with the passion that fans respond to.
Proud of his background, proud of the colours, he wore his heart and his beliefs on his sleeve.
He didn’t care what the backward, bigoted elements in this country thought of him.
He was loved by our fans because of it, and he still is.
09 Leigh Griffiths
198 games and 104 goals and counting.
What a phenomenal record.
What a signing. What a striker.
There is no way Leigh Griffiths was not going to be on the list.
He has been one of the best footballers at our club since we bought him from Wolves for a pittance in 2013. I still cannot believe we got Scotland’s best striker for a mere £1 million; that’s like robbery without a mask. His contribution over the last five years is not just measured in the goals but in the lift he gives to the fans and the team when he’s in the side and on form.
There is much, much more to come from Leigh as he enters what should be the peak years of his career.
08 Kieran Tierney
His place on this list is higher than many who’ve given Celtic more, but Kieran is so clearly a vital cog in the big wheel that his place here is justified.
Not only that, but when you consider how young he is and what he’s already done in the Hoops, there’s little doubt that we’re talking here about a future club captain. 155 games already, at just 21, he’s got three league titles, two Scottish Cups and a League Cup winners medal and numerous Player of the Year awards.
This kid has some future in front of him, and I cannot imagine that years and years of it will not be right here at Celtic Park.
He will go on to be a club icon.
07 Chris Sutton
The first Martin O’Neill signing, and the moment the rest of Scottish football knew we meant business.
I have to admit that I had my doubts about this one; I thought Sutton was past his best and that Chelsea had ruined him. How wrong I was, and it didn’t take long to realise it. Talk about a big-game player. Talk about a guy who wore his heart on his sleeve for the club.
As complete a player in his role – that of the target man – as you could ever hope to see. He scored goals, he set up goals, he terrorised defences. 199 games and 86 goals … that is a record and a half and it doesn’t come close to doing justice to the player he was.
06 Paul Lambert
The captain. The leader. The man who led the team out in Seville.
And as good a midfielder as I have ever seen in the Hoops.
Paul Lambert was the “local boy made good” in true Roy of the Rovers style, making the journey from Motherwell’s midfield to Dortmund at the peak of their powers and a Champions League winners medal. He’s also one of only two Scot’s ever to win a World Club Championship.
And this fine footballer, a guy who had already played at the very highest level there was, returned to Scotland to anchor our midfield. Incredible, and what a class act he was. That big game mentality was essential to the success we built around him.
He played 273 times for us … and I can count his bad games on one hand.
05 Lubo Moravcik
How can a guy who arrived at Celtic aged 33 and who was there for only four seasons have gone on to be an icon?
Easy.
He was one of the most gifted footballers ever to wear the Hoops and for the short time he was at the club – in which he played 129 games – he mesmerised us and destroyed opponents at every level. Certain games and moments stand out; his goals against Rangers, his peerless display against Juventus … but my favourite moment was in a little remembered game against Motherwell. We played them off the pitch that night and their keeper – Andy Goram; who else? – was absoltutely unbelievable, saving everything.
Late in the game we got a free kick. Lubo stepped up and blasted it past him. The strike was sensational. Goram’s reaction – petulent fury, punching the ball in a rage – was priceless. The Magician had everything in his box of tricks.
What a pleasure it was watching him.
04 John Hartson
More than Sutton, this was the guy who has a claim on being Martin O’Neill’s best and most important signing.
What a footballer he was. What a striker.
He had a predatory instinct for finding the net which was almost limitless.
He reached the 100 Goal Club in his final season, finishing on 109 for 201 appearances; a great ratio by anyone’s standards. But it was the level at which he played, the goals in massive, massive matches, which made Hartson such a fantastic footballer and servant of Celtic.
I still believe that had he not gotten injured, had he played that night in Seville, that we would have won the UEFA Cup because he was magnificent all the way through that campaign. His passion for our club is obvious even today. I love the big man.
03 Scott Brown
This was the difficult one, whether he was third or second … and in truth, he could have been right at the top.
The only reason he’s beaten for those two positions … well, that’s obvious.
But Scott is the beating heart of the Celtic team at the moment and he has been for years.
One of the finest captains in our history, he is already laden down with honours and accolades and his place, as an icon, is secure. But he wants more. He wants to be captain for ten in a row. He wants to return one day as manager.
And I think he will, because he has that winners mentality, that instinct, that understanding of Celtic and what Celtic means. He is a true great as a player and as an ambassador for the club. 493 appearances and counting … his contribution to Celtic and what makes it great is almost impossible to quantify.
02 Neil Lennon
I believe Neil Lennon is the second most influential player to play for this club in the last 18 years.
What sets him apart from Brown is that he’s done the business at the club as both a player and a manager, and perhaps his time in the dugout shouldn’t count but it’s impossible to ignore it. It’s also impossible to ignore the tribulations Neil faced from almost the moment he signed.
You can look at the stats and say “well he was only a player here for four years” and not fully grasp what he fitted into those four years. And even after he left, he had Celtic in his heart and he returned first as a coach and then answered the call when Mowbray left.
He has become an iconic figure at Celtic, impossible to seperate from Lennon The Man, who’s courage away from the pitch was an inspiration and remains one to this day.
01 Henrik Larsson
The top three were always going to be difficult to decide on.
I sweated those positions, and especially whether I should put the King of Kings at the top.
Because it’s too easy. It’s too obvious. And you know, there’s a reason that it is, of course.
Because Henrik was Mr Celtic for such a long time.
Of the seven years he spent at the club, only four of them fell into the timeframe this article covers, yet even those four years would have put him comfortably in the 100 Club … and Larsson, of course, scored a mind-bending 242 goals for Celtic in a mere 313 games.
There has never been a finer signing in all of our history.
He made the Greatest Ever Celtic IX. The mere mention of his name can still silence a room. The highlights are more numerous than you can count; it would take an hour just to watch a YouTube clip of his goals … and some of them were just so special including the famous chip over Klos in the 6-2 game … a trick he managed twice, and I still think the League Cup goal is the better one of the two.
(Watch it if you doubt it. The time he has to get the ball over the keeper is a fraction of a second, the chip is flawless … and he still gets round Klos to knock the ball in on the line. It is a phenomenal piece of skill.)
Will we ever see his likes again?
We can hope for it, but he gave us seven seasons and for five of them the words World Class applied.
Those guys don’t tend to stay in Scotland for long, if they arrive at all these days.
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