GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - DECEMBER 15: Premier Sports pundit Charlie Mulgrew during the Premier Sports Cup Final between Celtic and Rangers at Hampden Park, on December 15, 2024, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Charlie Mulgrew has suggested that Celtic should be looking at signing not just Motherwell’s manager, but two of their players as well. That is not ambition. Those would be the actions of a club that has forgotten what it is supposed to be.
And it should be called out for exactly what it is.
Celtic will not rebuild its reputation by shopping in the bargain bin of teams fighting for fourth place in this league. Celtic will only improve aiming higher. By identifying top-level talent. By bringing in players and managers capable of raising standards, not merely settling for what we can get on our own doorstep.
For God’s sake, do none of these people think this stuff through for even five minutes? The suggestions get stupider by the day.
There was a time when the expectation was that Celtic would at least try to recruit the best manager available to us, not the most convenient one. Celtic signed players who could dominate domestically and compete in Europe, not players who looked decent in a team sitting outside the title race.
Now we have former players suggesting that we should be lifting talent wholesale from a side that will likely finish fourth in the league.
That is not a step forward. That is a lowering of the bar.
Let’s be absolutely clear about something.
Look there is nothing wrong with identifying good players in the Scottish Premiership. There are always individuals who stand out. There are always players capable of making the step up.
But that is not what this is. This is not about identifying a hidden gem. This is what some people used to call Sky Sports Scouting, buying a player on the basis that you’ve watched him play a handful of decent games.
If Motherwell had a manager and players of the calibre required to take Celtic FC forward, they would not sit where they do in the table.
Celtic’s problem in recent years has not been access to players. It has been a lack of ambition in how the club identifies and recruits them. The club has taken too many punts. It has made too many signings that do not fit the system. It has accepted too many compromises and dressed them up as smart business.
Now people tell us the solution lies closer to home. They tell us to settle for what already sits within reach. They tell us to convince ourselves that this represents progress.
It does not.
It represents stagnation.
When Celtic have been at their best, we have thought bigger than this. We have looked beyond the obvious. We have brought in players who lifted the entire level of the team, not players who simply slotted into it.
Celtic have often appointed managers with a track record of success, not ones who are still trying to prove themselves at a lower level.
That is how you build a winning culture. That is how you maintain standards.
What Mulgrew is suggesting cuts against all of that.
It is not even particularly original thinking. Every year or so there are a couple of players we’re being urged to sign or regret it. Players at Livingston or Kilmarnock or Hearts. We know their names. The Shanklands, the Hoult’s, the Dykes.
There is also a wider issue here, and it is one that should not be ignored.
Mulgrew wants a coaching role at Celtic. That is his right. Former players often move into coaching. Some of them go on to have very successful careers.
But when someone publicly advocates for lowering the club’s recruitment standards, for targeting players and staff from teams well below Celtic’s level, it raises questions.
It raises questions about judgement and about ambition. And it raises questions about whether that person truly understands what Celtic is supposed to represent. Because this is not just about one suggestion. It is about a way of thinking.
A way of thinking that normalises mediocrity.
If this is the direction the club starts to move in, then yes, perhaps someone with that mindset will eventually be seen as a good fit.
And that should worry every supporter.
Because once standards drop, they are very difficult to raise again.
We are already seeing signs of it. In recruitment and in squad depth. In the compromises that are being made year after year.
The last thing Celtic need right now is to lean further into that.
We should be pushing in the opposite direction.
We should be demanding better.
Better managers. Better players and better decision-making at every level of the club.
Not looking at a fourth-place side and thinking, “That will do.”
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Not sure of the logic here James.
Liverpool raided lowly Southampton for Virgil and he propelled them to the biggest trophies on the planet and is now club captain.
To suggest we are too great to find decent players at Motherwell doesnt make sense.
That comparison!!! Haha!!
You are either at the wind up or not dealing with a full deck.
In fact, its so absurd that I can only think of the following..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8TXesafZws
Some of these Motherwell players weren’t really noticed before their manager found a way to get the best out of them. Even the likes of O’Donnel, McGinn and Welsh have flourished under him. So I wouldn’t be so sure they would excel at Celtic unless he is the next manager. We all agree that Motherwell and their manager have been a breath of fresh air this season with their fearless approach to matches. However it might just be me but I feel they are cut a helluva lot of slack when they fail to deliver those performance levels of results. In fact any of those failures are airbrushed right out of the story till their next win.
James, I know you’ve quite rightly criticised our recruitment over the past few seasons, after some of the foreign players we’ve signed lately for 4 and 5 million, I would not belittle some of the young guys playing with M’well, Falkirk and Dundee this season.
After Nancy, who you welcomed with open arms, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to play down the guy who got M’Well into 4th place with a small budget and a small pool of players.
Celtic are a unique club, expected to win every game, who come up against teams in Scotland every other week, with 10 men behind the ball, it takes a special manager who can adapt from Scottish games to European games. I’m just concentrating on the next 8 League games and Semi Final and then we’ll take it from there. But there is no way I would discount Askou so lightly, he comes across to me as a smart guy with an intelligent football brain.
Charlie mulgrew, the celtic boards usefull idiot getting us primed ready for another shitshow of a summer transfer window.
Not another penny ya cunts
We have always signed players from other Scottish clubs- Broony, agathe, Phil O’Donnell, jaysus even mulgrew himself so for him to say that is pish. All players start somewhere and hope to move on to bigger and better things. The wee Kiwi looks decent and with the right coaching could be superb so its foolish to say the shite he is
We should be developing AND keeping a hold of our own players but we can even fucking do that, so Charlie, haud yer wheest man
I got the wrong end of the stick there – didnt realise mulgrew was saying we SHOULD sign Just. He is an exciting player..turns out it was the author of the article who said we should sign them. Nonsense man.
Dunno about this one…
Firstly I’d never give Charlie Mulgrew much street cred given some of the utter pish he’s been (reportedly on here) been spouting…
But I think we’re too dismissive of Scottish talent sometimes…
Motherwell have played a helluva lot better football than Celtic this season, Aye we’re ahead as it stands but they’ve played the best football for sure…
When we were under Tommy (Burns) we destroyed “Rangers” as they were then before they booted the bucket but they were the fuckers who won the lot…
Far far far too many foreign duds have passed through Parkhead at absurd wastes of money over the last two decades !
Sorry James – this is nonsense and stinks of entitlement (“we’re too good to be buying your SPFL players”). I guess you wouldn’t have bought Brian McClair then? Or Murdo MacLeod? Or Scott Brown? Or John Collins? Or Jackie McNamara?
And on the managerial front, what were Liverpool thinking, giving the manager job to a guy with not a day’s experience of managing a football club? Oh wait, that was Bob Paisley and he went on to win 20 trophies in nine years.
If MON, SM and MF think that (say) Just is a player we should be looking at then I trust their judgement on that and won’t be turning my nose up just because he “only” plays for Motherwell.