As everyone knows, last night we suffered a major setback when our transfer plans for the summer were put online via a leaked internal document.
This article is going to look at that document and try to figure out what we can from it, and what it might mean to us going forward.
There’s a lot of info in there, and maybe even more than it at first seems.
The leak is being investigated by the club.
They want to make it a criminal matter, and that should have our support.
This is not a team-sheet. This is high level strategic information and as such it ought never to have seen the light of day.
There is no “need to know” defence here for whoever put this in the public domain. Had they waited until the transfer window was closed then perhaps an argument could be made for that, but the publication, now, only damages us.
So let’s start at the beginning; let’s start with who had a copy, by looking at who was at the meeting.
WHO WAS IN ON THIS? WHO WAS AT THE MEETING?
The top page of three contains the initials of those who were present, and from those we can infer that, from the boardroom, Peter Lawwell and Michael Nicholson were there.
From the coaching team, Damien Duff was there, and so too was John Kennedy. Neil Lennon was there, of course. Lee Congerton was present.
There are another two sets of initials on the document, and here we’d be into guesswork. LSL is not someone who’s name I immediately recognise; he could be one of Congerton’s staff or one of our many club scouts. I’m also not familiar with TMCK.
As it’s a First Team Recruitment meeting you would assume that no reserve staff would have been at it, and it doesn’t look as if any were. DD could mean Dermot Desmond, but I don’t believe he would have been in attendance for something so prosaic.
Congerton’s attendance at this meeting is understandable in one sense, although most inside Celtic Park must have been well aware that he had at least one foot out the door. As you’ll see in a moment, his departure has actually damaged us somewhat, and in a way that should leave the staff at Celtic absolutely furious with him and Brendan Rodgers.
We know Lennon was being kept in the loop about all this, but the presence of he and his coaches is indicative of a decision that was made well in advance of the cup final even if nobody was prepared to go out on the limb and admit that.
Our club has been in a dreadful state of flux this past six months, and Congerton is part of the reason why. I am deeply suspicious about his role in all this, as I will now explain.
HAS CELTIC HAS DONE BRENDAN RODGERS SCOUTING FOR HIM?
There are at least three players on that list who Celtic would have struggled to close deals for; in one of the cases I sincerely hope we don’t.
But the other two concern me because I cannot fathom why they are on our list at all.
The first of them is Mathias Jørgensen, referred to on the list by his nickname Zanka.
Why are we looking at a 29-year-old central defender who cost Huddersfield a reputed £3.5 million just over a year ago? His side was relegated, yes, but his wages will be astronomical and his transfer fee will be more than what they paid for him, and with zero resale value.
Who really believes Celtic is going to buy that guy? What is he doing on the target list?
The second and third names are strikers and neither is likely (if we’re being generous.)
One is Neal Maupay of Brentford, already rated at more than £10 million before the summer even got underway, and who is now rated at double that due to the interest of EPL sides. It was a flight of fancy to think we could do business there; he will have serious suitors and one of them – newly promoted Aston Villa – have already shown their hand.
The other player is Lys Mousset of Bournemouth, who is another £10 million rated striker but with one crucial difference from Maupay … he doesn’t score goals. Across nearly 70 first team games for their club he has scored just five times.
This one stinks of a potential loan option, and I wouldn’t even want him on that basis with that kind of record.
Why would Celtic entertain that prospect?
So if these guys are unrealistic signing targets for Celtic, why did we bother looking at them? Ask Lee Congerton who appears to have done very little scouting outside the UK … almost every name on the list is a UK based footballer. Who was he scouting them for?
And if you think that sounds like nothing more than a conspiracy theory, consider one of the other names on the list; Luton’s James Justin. He is a full back, which is one of our key areas of need. He is worth around £5 million, which is easily in our price bracket.
Or it was until EPL interest which shoved his value up £2 million more. And who was the club? It was Leicester of course. So that must be nice for them; Celtic’s scouting assets did all the work and they’re going to nip in there and get one of the best prospects.
If they move for Maupay, I’m going to be pretty cheesed and so should Celtic.
THESE PLANS HAVE ALREADY UNDERGONE SOME RADICAL CHANGES.
James Justin is no longer our number one target at right back. Do we even have a number one target at right back anymore? I ask that question only because there is a section in the document which refers to Mikael Lustig.
It says “notice to terminate contract on 31 May 2019 served.”
So Lustig was told that he was done, that on 31 May he no longer had a club. But now Lennon is talking about offering him a two-year contract extension. This is a sure sign that Justin is Leicester bound and we no longer hold out hope of securing that target.
The alternate right back option listed on the paper is Tommy Smith of Huddersfield. He’s 27, but only managed 15 league appearances for the relegated side last season. Is that an inspiring choice? I don’t know because I know very little about him, but when we’re offering Lustig a new deal there’s not a lot of faith in the player within the walls of Parkhead.
Izzy’s contract offer is mentioned; that too has gone by the boards. Romain Perraud, of Paris FC, the only non-UK based player on the list, is a 21-year-old project option who has played only a handful of first team games. As a backup to Tierney he would do at a push, but it’s another example of us messing about instead of signing experienced quality.
THESE DOCUMENTS CONFIRM THAT THE CLUB INTENDS TO SELL TO FUND LENNON’S PLANS.
Our biggest fear – that Lennon would be funded entirely from the proceeds of player sales – has been made flesh by this leak.
It is clear that Ntcham will be sold when the first decent offer comes in, and the off-record briefings in the media about Sinclair’s contract extension being more about money than retaining his services been confirmed by the suggestion that he’d be available if the price is right. His potential replacement – possibly as a loanee – is named in the document; Brandon Barker, the Manchester City winger who was on loan, under Lennon, at Hibs.
Ntcham’s replacement will probably be West Brom’s Harper, who I wrote about yesterday.
He will be available for a cross-border transfer fee of around £300,000. Aribo of Charlton is another mentioned in the document, for the midfield position. He, too, is available on freedom of contract and the fee to sign him would be miniscule.
It is not outside the realms of possibility that this transfer window could well be what accountants, like our CEO, call “revenue neutral”; i.e. we may break even on it.
But sell Sinclair and Ntcham and replace them with freebies and loanees and we may even turn a profit, and this will be particularly true if, as the club appears to expect, we get offers for Edouard.
LEIGH GRIFFITHS “ONGOING SITUATION” WILL BE ASSESSED BY THE CLUB.
There is a single reference to Leigh Griffiths in the document; his “ongoing situation” will be “assessed by the club” when he is back in pre-season training. There are some who believe that Leigh has kicked his last ball for Celtic, but this is not reflected in the leak.
I have to say, I think it’s probably 50/50 as to whether he makes a full return to the Celtic team.
I know Lennon would like him to, but there will be people at the club who may take that decision out of the manager’s hands. I am not claiming that will happen and nor do I have specific knowledge to that end, it’s just a feeling I have and have had for a while.
I personally would love to see him back in our colours and at his goal-scoring best, but there are clearly some doubts inside the club as to whether or not that will happen. They refer to his situation as “ongoing” and that word concerns me mightily.
CELTIC IS SCOUTING BOTH THE UNDER 20 WORLD CUP AND THE UNDER 21 EUROS.
The document seems to confirm that Celtic will be scouting the two youth competitions taking place over the summer, and this is one of the best pieces of news in the leak.
It was at such a competition that Odsonne Edouard first came to Celtic’s attention, and when you consider Lee Congerton’s clear bias towards scouting in England we are fortunate to have two major tournaments at which to source footballers from outside the EPL net.
These tournaments will be extensively scouted by other clubs, and bargains will be hard to come by. But there are always gems for clubs which move quickly, and Celtic has to move quickly. You have to presume that many of the names on that list are now a bust.
That means those two competitions might be vital to any new plans we put in place.
THE LIST IS ENTIRELY UNINSPIRING, AND REFLECTS BADLY ON CONGERTON.
Overall, I am not in the least bit impressed by the quality we’re looking at.
An ex-Hibs loanee, Huddersfield defenders, one unobtainable striker, one I pray we quickly forget about, a couple of available for free midfielders (although, as I said yesterday, Harper is excellent) a French left back backup (the only one from outside the English leagues) and a right back who would have been a decent signing but looks to be Leicester bound.
On top of that, we have the news – not in the least bit unexpected as I said during the week – that the club intends to fund whatever Lennon does by selling Olivier Ntcham and possibly Scott Sinclair. It is as if someone put together the very worst case scenario and then decided to tweet it just to start us off down the road to Prozac early on.
It would be easy to blame all of this on Lee Congerton, as some people seem ready to do.
And I do blame him for not doing a proper job on finding us quality players.
The best footballers we’ve brought to the club in recent years were sourced abroad, in leagues like Holland and France. You cannot scout the finished article in England, or anywhere near it; the prices are way too high. The club’s best bet is to look to the grounds which have already borne fruit.
Take Maupay for example; he played for Nice and St Etienne as a youth player, and earned his move to England whilst on loan at Brest. He cost Brentford £1.6 million in July 2017. The time to have signed him would have been then, before he was on England’s radar.
Good scouting would have identified him long before now. That’s the sort of scouting Celtic needs to be focussed on again. And yes, that kind of network is expensive but we’re looking at yet another window in which we could turn a profit.
The money for good scouting is definitely there.
Above and beyond that though, this whole document is strictly low ambition.
It paints a picture of a transfer window to come in which disappointment is going to be the primary emotion. I said the other day I do not hold out much hope for Lennon getting the support he needs. This is exactly what I feared, from the sale of a key player to the nature of the targets themselves.
The one saving grace is that this document has revealed that to the bulk of the support.
The club can now use this leak for its benefit, by tearing those plans up and starting again, with a little more ambition this time.
