Celtic Fans Should Congratulate Our Defenders, But Then Agree We Should Move Them On.

Celtic’s centre back pairing of Cameron Carter Vickers and Liam Scales was not one we’d have considered before this campaign began.

It is another indictment of our signing policy to note that we have brought three centre backs to the club over the course of this campaign, two for reasonably good money and one on loan from the EPL, and this is what we’re ending the season with. Not one of the two who are left look like getting in the team and staying there.

This is obviously a problem, and we saw what that problem looks like in all its gory glory yesterday when we conceded a goal at the end of normal time and then one at the end of extra time to send us to the dreaded penalty shoot-out.

Liam Scales has been a miracle man for Celtic. His performances have vastly exceeded our expectations of him. He should be applauded. We should be grateful for his solid form throughout the campaign, and especially for that wonderful display early on at Ibrox where he was one of the reasons we won that unexpected victory.

But on no account should he be at the centre of our defence next season. That cannot happen. We very badly need to start thinking bigger, and look for players of a much higher calibre. Nawrocki cannot get into the team in front of him; that doesn’t look good for him going forward either, and although I know we can’t continue to buy players and cast them aside, the first transfer window of this campaign looks as if it’s a virtual write-off.

And those “running” the club, who are entirely responsible for that, might just have to swallow that. There will no rehabilitating some of these guys. You saw Yang yesterday too; a raw talent but someone who wouldn’t be in the first team if other people were available, and he at least is still with the squad and still getting games; the same cannot be said for Tilio or Kwon or even Holm, who seems miles off it right now and clearly isn’t impressing the boss.

There needs to be a radical rethink in the summer, and it has to start at the back. We need at least one top class central defender, and I think quite possibly two of them. That means moving on Lagerbielke and Nawrocki.

It means getting Kobayashi out the door. It means making Welsh and Scales backup players, and neither of them might be happy about that … but we can’t be sentimental and we clearly can’t go into the Champions League with the current players.

Our defensive record this season hasn’t actually been as bad as most people seem to think, but whenever we are put under pressure, we panic a lot more than we should, and a lot more than a side with real quality players would.

It’s the other thing about project players; in a cup semi-final you do not want to be depending on them if you are under siege, as we were yesterday when we threw on Nawrocki late. He wasn’t responsible for us losing the goal, but that’s what we were eventually reduced to.

It seems clear that the manager doesn’t rate our current defensive options, and that he will need to make big changes in that area during the summer. I didn’t think we needed a massive rebuilding job in the summer at the start of this campaign; perversely, in signing so many players who won’t cut it we are facing one now, and in the interim have lost Jota, Abada and Starfelt. The loss of the two wingers has been felt, keenly. The loss of Starfelt is arguably worse.

And that’s one of the things we have to rectify as a matter of urgency.