Have The Celtic’s Board Been Embarrassed By Owen Beck’s Latest Transfer Development?

Owen Beck, the Liverpool youth player, has returned to Dundee on loan for the rest of the season. I think Celtic fans are entitled to know if this is yet another humiliation for our out-of-his-depth head of recruitment? Because it rather looks like it might be.

Owen Beck was touted for a move to Celtic.

It is alleged that what scuppered that move was that he played a single game for Liverpool, thereby ruling it out.

Now, if we were interested in Owen Beck and determined to get a deal done, under normal circumstances you’d think we’d not have let that happen. We’d have spoken to the club and made it clear that a deal was only possible if he didn’t play for them.

But Celtic thinks these things are better left until the last day of the window, to generate easy headlines and to save some money on wages. This is Lawwell MO we’ve come to recognise.

If we failed to make one simple phone call and get one simple assurance to that end, then isn’t that just an utter disaster?

The media will be all over this story, and that’s just one of the questions they will be asking. But they shouldn’t have to ask it, since it’s partly our responsibility as fan media to ask it. If Beck is now subsequently lined up as our key target in the summer, what’s that going to tell us about the board’s utter failure here?

They can’t hide from this, if they’ve screwed this up we’re going to find out about it, we’re going to know. And the manager, of course, knows already.

Some sites are already spinning this as “Celtic’s move being hindered by FIFA and UEFA regulations.” That’s not true.

If we really made the move for this guy and wanted this guy the only people who have hindered Celtic are Celtic, because we didn’t make Liverpool the offer that would have stopped them giving this guy the handful of minutes in their team which ruled out the move.

Bad enough that Dundee got the left back they wanted whilst we’re still fumbling about.

Worse, by far, if they got the left back we wanted.

I don’t know whether Beck is the next big thing or not.

I don’t know whether the club’s interest in Beck was real or if it was just an internet rumour.

But the media does know, and people inside Celtic do know, and people inside Dundee know, and at least some of these stories came from them, and their version of it was that he left their club to tie up the move to Celtic Park.

You can choose to believe that or not, but that story was doing the rounds.

I think there was interest from us. He fits the profile perfectly and nobody can doubt he’s been watched and scouted enough to make a determination. That he’s on the cusp of the Anfield first team anyway is an indication of some talent.

So is it possible that we just dragged our feet?

Is it possible that arrogance and complacency were the reasons we didn’t even get that most fundamental guarantee from Anfield that the guy wouldn’t be selected in lieu of our offer?

Was this yet another John McGinn style screw up?

This one stinks of ineptitude and I’ve thought that since the news that he played for Liverpool in the League Cup, the game which scrapped the idea of us moving for him.

Because it would have been simple to do our business in a professional enough manner that he’d never been in the pool that night … this stinks of foot dragging and basic incompetence.

And you know what? I hope I’m wrong.

I hope the club does have a left back lined up and it blows all our supposition out of the water.

Because if we can’t even get stuff like this right, if we’re inept to this degree, I’m terrified for the rest of this campaign.