Respected sports journalist Stephen McGowan reckons that there are clues that point to Martin O’Neill remaining involved at Celtic next season….
Speaking on the BBC’s Scottish Football Podcast, McGowan outlined his own usually well informed thoughts on what the future holds for Martin O’Neill at Celtic beyond the Scottish Cup Final against Dunfermline on Saturday 23 May.
An unprecedented rebuild coming up at Celtic
“I think Martin O’Neill has been involved certainly, in talking to agents about players for next season, which raises the question whether he is going to be there in some capacity or not, even if it’s not as first team manager,” McGowan said.
“So they’ve probably got, probably, an unprecedented rebuild coming up in the summer. They need a permanent appointment as manager, they need that head of recruitment role filled, that Paul Tisdale occupied previously.
‘An awful lot of change at Celtic in the summer’
“I was doing a calculation. It wouldn’t surprise me if they need something like 18 players going out the door if that is the case, and they might try and bring in a dozen or so to replace them!
“Because they probably are a bit top-heavy at the moment. So I think there’s going to be an awful lot of change at Celtic in the summer,” the Herald sports journalist added.
“I think they’re already resigned to the fact that there’s going to be a bit of restructuring in the football department going on, through necessity. The exact composition of that?
“You may as well just ask me to name six lottery numbers on Saturday, because the fact is that they’re keeping their cards pretty close to their chest.”
Celtic will look to fund the rebuild through sales
A quick look at the Celtic squad to guess at the 18 departures that Stephen McGowan mentions in the podcast gives us this list of 18 potential summer exits.
A few will bring in significant funds to help fund the 12 arrivals and the club will clearly lose money on dud signings like Balikwisha. Meanwhile there will be a clear-out of the loan players who have collectively failed to impress.
Here’s our 18 man list of potential Celtic exits this summer…
First Team squad – Schmeichel, Saracchi, Arthur, Nygren, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Engels, Bernardo, Hatate, Adamu, Balikwisha, Cvancara, Iheanacho, Mvuka, Maeda,
Players out on loan – Yamada, Nawrocki, Palma, Kenny.
Post your own thoughts in the comments section below…
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3 Comments
Of course it remains a guessing game at this stage, but couldn’t totally rule out Calmac, yang, Ralston and Welsh from the list either at this stage imo?
And that’s without AJ and Trusty having a decent world cup and gaining extra interest upon themselves also?
So don’t believe that we are in a stable position whatsoever, regarded our squad building process that’s going to be in operation during the summer.
Hence I also believe that MoN already has a good idea already, on who will be around next season and who won’t be?
Could that be reflected around his current use of players for this title run in?
Think it might have some bearing myself, within his selection process, where Hatate springs to mind?
Regardless, seen nothing to suggest that Nicholson is capable of dealing with agents, and Tisdale seemed even worse at such an important role within the recruitment process.
Getting MoN, to hopefully identify players quicker through there agents, who really want to join ourselves, rather than hanging around and playing the waiting game, should hopefully get better results than the last few windows imo?
We haven’t got the luxury of playing the waiting game during the summer, so getting back the Ange approach, of if players are going to play the waiting game, then move on to the next option.
Worked fairly well with such an approach taken within the transfer market for ourselves, but still doesn’t mean that every signing is going to be an instant success either?
Would like to think that plenty of groundwork is already currently going on within the background, even now with a world cup in operation and we haven’t got the time factor on our side, especially with the amount of work that is required.
The potential issue still surrounds what potential profile of player we could be looking at, without any manager in place at present?
So is there already some potential manager in the making, already having an input?
Or are we already making a potential list of players a new manager can decide upon, before any potential deals could be in the making?
At least with MoN involved, we can hopefully attract the type of players that have the mentality required to match the demands within our club imo?
Most of our “new” squad will be found living in the Motherwell area, particularly if Askou gets the gig. It may not be a bad thing seeing how good they did this season, but we can’t hope to make a great deal of money with a fire sale at Celtic Park, the only ones who’d bring in money are the ones we should be keeping, however im resigned to waving bye bye to Engels.
18 how long been following football the business side back in Jim McClean days where a contact was a contract a player wants to leave you either sell him or you might not have the player with the same desire and his price will plummet good our bad player rules well his agent for Celtic to get rid of players hopefully contract runs out if its not he wont take a cut in wages no matter what our anti Celtic media says Celtic players are the highest earners in this league so for them to go you need to subsides what they will lose or make less balliwinski do you think he will become a player they thought he was and a few other theres new law coming for young home grown players i would just tell sime our squad to go home we wont need them this season id say if celtic buy say 5 players 3 spl hopefuls 2 hopefully for europe yes we have players coming back but with tendents and muscle injuries are harder to come back from than a break