Darren O’Dea is talking rubbish about Celtic’s two prospects who “got away.”

I can always sense when something rings hollow in Scottish football discourse. It is the Ginger Witch instinct in me. The wee shift in the air. The smell of revisionism drifting across the Clyde like stale smoke after a bad result.

When I heard Darren O’Dea speaking about Rocco Vata and Bosun Lawal not getting chances at Celtic, I felt exactly that. A strange attempt to rewrite history while conveniently forgetting one important detail: he was there.

He worked inside the system. He saw it. He knew the circumstances. So why now this sudden distancing from responsibility, as if the club simply ignored two helpless prodigies banging at the gates of Paradise? That simply is not the truth. Celtic supporters know it.

Let us start with Bosun Lawal. I actually liked Lawal as a player. I thought he had physicality, composure, athleticism and moments where you could see promise. But promise alone does not make somebody a Celtic first-team player.

At Celtic, the jersey weighs heavy. It is not enough to look decent in youth football or in lower-pressure matches. You must force the door down. The brutal reality is that Lawal never truly did that.

Now he has moved on, and what has happened? Has Europe come calling? Has he exploded into an elite midfielder proving Celtic wrong every single week? No. The truth Celtic scouts and coaches likely saw is the same truth we are still seeing now. He is a decent footballer, maybe even a promising one, but there was never clear evidence that he was ready to dominate in the Celtic midfield.

People romanticise youth players the moment they leave. Suddenly every departed academy player becomes “the one who got away.” I have seen this story a hundred times before. The moonlight hits differently once they leave Lennoxtown, and all of a sudden folk speak as if Celtic released the next Luka Modri?.

No. Celtic are operating at a level where talent alone is not enough. Mentality matters. Consistency matters. Timing matters. Above all else, readiness matters.

Then there is Rocco Vata, and this one especially annoys me because the facts are so often ignored. Vata was given a pathway. Not only that, he was reportedly offered inclusion in the first-team picture if he signed a new deal at Celtic.

The club wanted him to stay. Brendan Rodgers spoke positively about him. Supporters were excited about him. There was genuine enthusiasm there because, unlike some others, Vata clearly possessed something we could use.

But Celtic cannot chain a player to the doors at Paradise and force him to sign a contract. At some point, the player makes a choice. Vata chose to leave.

That is his right. Football careers are short and chaotic, and players will do what they believe is best for themselves. Fair enough. But once that choice is made, people cannot turn around later and pretend Celtic never opened the door at all.

That is the part that irritates me about O’Dea’s comments.

They remove agency from the players themselves and place all responsibility onto Celtic, as if the club simply neglected precious jewels through incompetence alone. Football is never that simple. Especially at Celtic.

This club is not a laboratory for experiments or sentimental projects.

Celtic are expected to win every single week. Titles. Cups. European progression. The pressure is enormous. Managers do not survive on good intentions and academy brochures. They survive by winning.

That pressure changes everything. Young players must either be exceptional or unbelievably mentally strong to break through at Celtic. That has always been the case. Look through history. Even some truly gifted young players struggled to establish themselves because the standards are ferocious.

They must also want to be here, and turn their back on English football money.

I think sometimes people forget just how difficult it is to become a first-team regular at Celtic Football Club. The supporters demand excellence instantly. One bad touch and the groans ripple around Paradise like thunder over the old Glasgow rooftops. Some players rise under that pressure. Others shrink.

My instincts tell me there is another thing happening here too. Modern football loves narratives about “failed pathways.” It sounds fashionable. It creates debate. It shifts blame towards institutions rather than individuals. But every situation has context.

Did Celtic get every academy decision right? Of course not.

No club does. But pretending Bosun Lawal was some obvious elite Celtic midfielder being criminally ignored? I do not buy it for one second. Pretending Rocco Vata was frozen out with no route into the team when contract discussions and first-team inclusion were reportedly on the table? Again, no.

The truth lives somewhere far less dramatic. One player was probably not quite ready for Celtic’s required level. The other made a personal decision to leave despite opportunities existing ahead of him. Simple.

What frustrates me most is how quickly some people inside football try to escape their own involvement in these situations. Darren O’Dea was part of Celtic’s youth structure during these years. He was not watching from a distant mountain with binoculars. He was there. So these comments carry a strange feeling of selective memory.

Celtic supporters are not daft. We remember the conversations around Vata. We remember the discussions about contracts. We remember the debates over Lawal’s level. We remember reality.

The thing about Celtic is this: if a player is truly undeniable, the support will roar him into existence. We embrace our own fiercely when they earn it. You can feel it in the stands, in the singing, in the electricity under the floodlights at Paradise.

But earning it is the key part. Not every talented youth player becomes a Celtic player. Not every departure is some grand institutional failure. Sometimes the truth is far more ordinary than the headlines trying to be written around it.

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