Oghilly

Please, seriously take a look at this. How can you possibly claim that the board have backed every single manager at this football club? There is evidence to prove otherwise. On 9 August 2018, Brendan Rodgers was asked whether the Celtic board matched his ambition. His response? “I wouldn’t answer that. It’s private.” He then went on to say: “I have to understand maybe where the limits are at times.” These comments came amid frustration surrounding the failure to secure John McGinn and adequately replace departing players. Fast forward to 26 August 2024, and Rodgers was raising similar concerns. He said: “There are a number of things I won’t go into here, but it’s definitely something, having come back in and gone through three windows now, we have to put right as a football club.” He also stated: “We can’t be happy just to make our money and build our pot because the bottom line is on the pitch.” And: “It’s taken a lot longer than I would have liked as the football manager.” Then we have Ange Postecoglou in 2021, publicly acknowledging the need for Celtic to be quicker and more precise with their transfer dealings. Following our Champions League qualifying defeat to Midtjylland, he said: “I’m the person who has been put in charge. We haven’t got players in, I obviously haven’t done a good enough job convincing people we needed to bring people in.” How much more evidence do you need that recruitment and backing have been recurring issues at this football club? Change is needed higher up. The lack of ambition and consistency in our transfer recruitment has been unacceptable. This summer was supposed to be one of our biggest rebuilds. Clearly, the board didn’t share that vision. It took until 10 July for us to bring in our first signing. Keep in mind that Duran was the only new signing to participate in pre-season because of the repeated delays in recruitment. How is any manager supposed to implement their ideas, establish a system and build a competitive squad when they aren’t given the necessary tools at the right time? Not to mention our constant reliance on deadline-day loans and free agents rather than identifying and securing quality players early in the window. We have had 15 years of domestic dominance. Imagine what this football club could have achieved with proper investment, stronger recruitment and genuine ambition. The board should be asking serious questions of themselves. Celtic Football Club deserves better.