Former Celtic recruitment chief Lee Congerton has opened up on his time at the club. Congerton recently moved to take up a role in Saudi Arabia but confirmed that in his time at Celtic, Brendan Rodgers wanted to sign Christopher Nkunku, who Chelsea signed last season for a reported £52m.
Speaking about his time at the club, Congerton painted a fairly bleak picture about what Brendan Rodgers was dealing with in his first spell.
“At Celtic we had no money. Peter Lawwell is a nice man, he’s an accountant.
“Brendan spoke to me and said we needed pace and power, speed. We all know PSG has an amazing youth programme with players at the time who were never going to play for PSG,” he said to The Telegraph.
Congerton said that Celtic wanted to sign two players from PSG’s Academy that would go into play in Germany and then move in big money moves to England.
“Two of the other players we tried to sign during my time were [Moussa] Diaby, who is now at Aston Villa, and [Christopher] Nkunku who is now at Chelsea.
“But there were several players I didn’t want to be anywhere near them and that is why I left. Peter knows that and so did Brendan. Atalanta is very different.”
Nkunku was in and around the PSG first team in Rodgers’ first season but it wasn’t until the 2017/18 season that he became a mainstay. This resulted in a 2019 move to RB Leipzig for £13m.
Rodgers is hoping to recruit a similar profile of player this summer and hopefully money will be available to spend.
