Celtic’s New Lead Scout Shows Where Our Eyes Won’t Be Looking Much. England.

The news that Celtic is appointing a new lead scout, and that he comes from the City Group, might once have been greeted by our sites and some of our fans – this one included – with deep dismay. That’s not the case with this one. This is a fine appointment, coming from a big, big club and with a perfect pedigree. I’m pretty happy with it.

The guy’s history, and the work he’s been doing with the City Group, is impressive just taken on its own. What stands out most about it is that he’s not primarily been focussed on England, he’s spent time, in fact, working in New York, scooping out the leagues which feed into the MLS. He’s looked far afield. We are not hiring him to do Sky Sports Scouting.

I think Celtic will spend less and less time focussing on England.

That’s certainly not what this guy is being brought here to do. England is too expensive and that means that even mediocre players are going to go for bigger and bigger fees.

Brexit has further complicated things, with domestic produced players the priority of many of their clubs.

I’d like to see us scout the MLS more regularly.

We’ve already taken Johnston from there and that’s looking like a superb piece of business.

I watch their games regularly and their players have a high level of technical skill, especially those produced by the clubs and not bought in from elsewhere. It is a matter of time before the US starts producing world class footballers as regular as clock-work. They have the cash and the infrastructure for it.

So it would make sense for us to be plugged deeper into that setup and to have people watching those clubs.

Just as it makes sense now that we’ve looked at Asia to look at Africa, where there’s no shortage of superb talent, most of it flowing towards France and Germany rather than here. The success of this particular Celtic side has been in thinking outside of the box. Hiring this guy, with his CV, is a sign that we’re now living outside that box permanently.

And that’s why I commend it, and why we should be excited. This is a new club culture we’re building here, one that isn’t even necessarily dependent on the manager.

Oh he’s given us the blueprint, but we are committing to it in a big, big way.