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Mark Lawwell left Celtic after last January’s shambolic window. Another head would have to roll here.

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Image for Mark Lawwell left Celtic after last January’s shambolic window. Another head would have to roll here.

This time last year, the transfer window had already closed. And we had made just two signings in that window when we needed four or five players going into it. One of those signings was a Norwich City reserve called Adam Idah, a player specifically chosen by Rodgers over a list of uninspiring alternatives.

Since most people were pretty underwhelmed by Adam’s signing, you shudder to think what those other options would have been.

We also signed a winger called Nicolas Kuhn.

Those two signings won us the double, and that has made it difficult for most people to remember how shambolic that ending was and how incredibly angry the Celtic fans were at the time. That window was so shockingly underwhelming, in the midst of a title race much closer than this one, that in the aftermath, towards the end of February, Celtic made a rare confession, and I’m going to read you exactly what was said:

“The Board shares the frustrations of the supporters regarding the less than anticipated activity in the recent transfer window. The Board’s commitment is to strengthen and improve the playing squad in every transfer window, and although resources were available, we were unable to further add to the squad due to the unavailability of identified targets. This was disappointing to us all, and never the intention. The January transfer window is notoriously difficult as clubs are very reluctant to let their best players go at such a crucial time of the season, just as we are. Indeed, we resisted strong interest in our players from other clubs.”

The chairman is the guy who wrote that. It appeared in the club’s interim accounts and is as close to an apology to the fans as you’re ever going to get. The real apology—and the real action—came just days later, when on 1 March, the club announced the departure of Mark Lawwell. That in itself was an admission of failure on such a scale that it’s hard to know where even to start.

At the AGM at the tail end of last year, my colleague Joe McHugh tried to ask a question about Mark Lawwell’s hiring and his record to chief executive Michael Nicholson. But before he even got his question out, Peter Lawwell interjected to accuse Joe of pursuing a personal vendetta against him and his son.

But as they say in The Godfather, there was nothing personal. It was strictly business. As a blogger, it’s Joe McHugh’s job to ask questions, just as it’s my job to ask questions. And I was opposed to the Mark Lawwell hiring from the day it was announced and I said that on this site in an excoriating piece which got the predictable amount of stick from people who believed every word about how he had been chosen by the manager as part of a Celtic transfer dream team.

The manager in question would be gone in a matter of months, of course, which made a mockery of the idea that he had ever envisioned working with Lawwell Jnr for anything other than a short time.

I never bought into the garbage about his stellar record at Manchester City either; Joe did his homework on that one and blew holes in all the bombastic claims. That second name itself meant that he would be more harshly judged than another candidate, a gaping flaw which I was astonished no-one at the club foresaw in advance.

In the end, had he performed to a high standard there might be a lot of people saying “I told you so” right now, but it reeked of cronyism and nepotism and those hires rarely end well. His getting that role was a scandal. No organisation that valued merit would ever have countenanced such an appointment.

But even I did not predict the utter disaster that it would be. Even I could not have foreseen the complete meltdown that summer before last was going to be. He couldn’t survive that. And the fact that January was such a damp squib was all the more reason for letting him go. It can be dressed up however they want, but his position at the club had become utterly untenable.

Other people at the club will be in an untenable position if we don’t resolve the outstanding issues in the next few hours, but it’s an embarrassment that we’re back here again in this same position, with critical needs still to be addressed and a tonne of work still needing to be done.

No one will convince me that this is necessary. It is not necessary. No one will convince me that this is a smart, intelligent, organised way to do business—because it clearly is not. And while a lot of business gets conducted on the final day, I do not believe that other clubs do all their business on the final day. It’s farcical. And it’s dangerous too. It’s playing with fire. And one of these days, we’re going to get badly, badly, badly burned by it.

We were in this exact same position last year. We got the sob story last year. And the half-hearted, half-apology that came with it—although we had to wait until February for that. And we had to wait until March for the hammer to actually come down and for someone to pay with his job.

I’m not having any excuses this year. If we find ourselves in the exact same position again as we were this time last year, then it shows that nothing has changed. There’s no forward planning. There’s no forward thinking.

There’s no joined-up thinking at this club and if this ends in another shambles, I’ll be expecting someone else to fall on their sword.

Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images

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24 comments

  • Jay says:

    Peter Lawwell Statement – 06/02/2025

    “The Board shares the frustrations of the supporters regarding the less than anticipated activity in the recent transfer window. The Board’s commitment is to strengthen and improve the playing squad in every transfer window, and although resources were available, we were unable to further add to the squad due to the unavailability of identified targets. This was disappointing to us all, and never the intention. The January transfer window is notoriously difficult as clubs are very reluctant to let their best players go at such a crucial time of the season, just as we are. Indeed, we resisted strong interest in our players from other clubs.”

    • Jay says:

      There will be a slight addition at the end though stating how “at the end of the day though if a player doesn’t want to be here the club are powerless to prevent them leaving.”

      • TonyB says:

        I always thought the Chairman’s function was to chair Board meetings.
        He should have nothing to do with running the football side of things or getting involved in transfer activity, quite apart from the fact that at 20 plus years, he has been at Celtic for far too long to be healthy.

  • Rouse73 says:

    Nothing will ever change with this stale board. By dinner time tomorrow they will have another £2.5 million in the bank, from Bayern tickets, and they will tell their pet hacks how close the deals were. Come Easter they will promise a brave new summer, telling us lessons have been learnt, whilst banking another £35 million for season tickets. Our commercial side works well, while these tired old suits still think they know how spot footballers. I still think members of the board are failing to back the manager because of their own personal grievances, the perception alone speaks volumes. I will have my own meaningless protest and withhold my £92 tomorrow, they will be delighted and sell my tickets for even more. I’m 51 now and I am done with this clown show.

  • Pedro1967 says:

    …’Very reluctant to let their best players go at such a crucial time of the season, just as we are..’. Roll on 12 months and that’s exactly what we have just done with a replacement highly unlikely to be brought in! We should be thinking about planning for the next campaign by bringing in some quality additions now (in addition to trying to win the playoff tie next week!!!), not throwing them in at the last minute before qualifiers.

  • FTH says:

    The Board are a Shambles, quite simply it’s a dereliction of duty. They lack the ambition of the fans, quite happy to bank the millions from the champions league but they lack the foresight to look at the bigger picture, invest in quality players to keep us in the champions league and earn even more money. The fans are being taken for a ride and it’s time these people who run the club are helt to account. Remember, football without fans is nothing….start listening to them.

  • Brattbakk says:

    I’ve never believed the narrative that we deliberately don’t want to pull to far ahead but now I’m not so sure even though it sounds ludicrous. The exciting breaking news is Jeffrey Schlupp on loan. He’s a good player, versatile, 32 and out of contract in the summer. It’s massively underwhelming with disrespect to Schlupp (if it even happens)

  • Brattbakk says:

    No disrespect

  • JimBhoyback says:

    So as I read the statement above it seems the board failed and then some lame excuse.

    It has been stated here a few times. You do not need to wait until January to plan your moves. The manager tells you what he needs and why, ie, eg, Top striker since Larsson allowed to leave needs an equivalent talent brought in just to keep us at SAME level. Temp cover at LB goes, NOT even to Strengthen. They have not even Succeeded at keeping us at the same level.

    I predicted the lethargy we see time and time over with Brendan and Lawell, last minute, panics. There may be a new narrative in play now, Nada.!

  • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

    There simply cannot be a ‘just as we are’ in the bottom line of the top paragraph due to the Kyogo fiasco…

    Lookin like it’ll be –

    “We tried” – “It’s helluva difficult in January” – “It’ll be very different in the summer” – “Well learn from this” –

    Multiply that by one Gazillion Sickening Fuckin Times !

    Still FIVE ‘long’ hours to go – So who knows !

  • micmac says:

    You would think in the run up to the transfer windows discussions would be going on between the Manager and Paul Tisdale, the scouting dept the manager, Nicolson and Riley regarding transfer plans in and out, or am I seeing things too simply, I honestly can’t see much business getting done, maybe they will pull a rabbit out of the hat with Tierney, but I honestly think it’s Idah,Maeda and Kenny covering the striker role until the end of the season.

  • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

    So Sevco have announced that they’ve closed business for this window by sinning Lyall Cameron on a pre contract from Dundee (be careful you get your development fee Mr Tony Doncherty) and that Lovelaces is off to Millwall…

    Does that give Lord Lucan-Nicholson the license to spend the square root of fuck all then or could it just be more Lies from Liebrox…

    Should it be true I’ll have a really good laugh at those Sevco fans I have to share pubs with and who believed that Igamane was ‘goin for £30 million’ (funny it wasn’t £55 million) because ‘it said it in The Record’

    Oh – The Fools, The Fools, The Fools !!!

  • Kevcelt59 says:

    Unless they come up with somethin unexpected in the next hours, it’ll be their usual tried and tested, gamble with our season with last minute loan, or ‘prospect’ deals, with the possibility of gettin screwed by clubs for waitin too long. Still rakin in the fat millions. Ride out the flak. They only seem tae really act, when the support are on the brink of takin action.

  • wotakuhn says:

    WTF ? – Jota and KT weren’t signed today.

  • wotakuhn says:

    Don’t mind at all the loan signing of Schlupp, decent left back signing until we welcome KT home in the summer. If Taylor slinks off the battlefield like Kyogo and I hope he doesn’t well we have time with Schlupp coming in. Glad no one came in for Hatate and in particular Maeda, by far our best of the Japanese signings

  • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

    ONE – FUCKIN – HOUR – TO – GO –

  • Pilgrim73 says:

    Best bit of transfer business we could do is handing Nicholson his P45. This should be followed by Desmond selling his shares to someone who actually gives a feck about the running of the club. It is an absolute disgrace that the tens of millions of pounds generated by the football club are sitting in a bank account for no reason. This money should be out on the park providing the manager with the best possible squad we can afford.

  • Dan says:

    62 years old now, don’t think I can do this anymore, the custodians of the club certainly don’t love it, like we the fans do. Why do they not want to improve the team, it doesn’t make any sense. There simply has to be a reason tied up with the other mob across the city and the SFA. What other club in world football would hoard cash like we do and keep the team at a set level or weaken it. Nothing makes sense at our club anymore. Sometimes wish I had not invested so much years of my life into Celtic

  • iljasb says:

    The usual complaints at the end of the transfer window: But we brought in Jota and tried to get Tierney in this window. That was scuppered by Arteta and no fault of anyone at Celtic FC. He will be in before CL qualifiers next season. We brought in another left back until the end of the season and Taylor and Hatate still here. So this window definitely not a disaster. Unless you want it to be. I think bloggers have their say but what do they know about what goes on behind the scenes during a transfer window. Quite a few teams in SPFL and EPL didn’t get all they wanted. I think at this point Maeda is a better striker than Kyogo and Jota is potentially a better winger than Maeda. Both better wingers than Yang. They’ll all get game time. I think Jota and Maeda will share the left wing and Idah and Maeda will share striker’s duties. Maeda first choice on wing until Jota up to speed. Idah first choice striker. Young Kenny looks promising so who knows. Scales can also fit in at left back. We have enough for SPFL and Scottish cup but in CL up against BM I don’t think any of our striker targets would have greatly increased our chances of beating them over two matches. What we do in the Summer is more important. BR knows that. I don’t think he’s too disappointed with this window.

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