Former Celtic Star Publicly Calls Out the Club Over Their Transfer Strategy as Rangers Continue to Pull Ahead in the Summer Window
While Rangers are rebuilding at pace, Celtic are stuck in a familiar cycle. That’s the view of former Hoops striker Cillian Sheridan, who has gone public with his frustration over the club’s slow start to the summer transfer window and raised a deeper structural concern that goes well beyond who they are or aren’t signing.
Camilo Duran remains the solitary Celtic signing this season and not for the first time, supporters grow more and more frustrated with the board’s transfer market passivity. Across the city, it’s a completely different picture.
On the other side of Glasgow, there has been a revolving door of incomings and outgoings as Rangers’ summer rebuild under new boss Derek McInnes takes shape. The Govan side enlisted Serbian midfielder Vanja Dragojevic as their seventh signing of the window. Seven signings to Celtic’s one. That gap is hard to ignore.
Sheridan wasn’t shy about saying so either. Speaking on BBC Sounds’ Scottish Football Podcast, he said: “I think you’d have to be concerned from a Celtic point of view. I think any Celtic fan would be. I think Martin O’Neill is as well. Especially at a time when you’re watching and seeing Rangers sign players nearly every week. It hasn’t been a good window so far, which you’re kind of saying every year now, every six months you’re talking about how they haven’t had a good window.”
The timing makes it worse. Last season, Celtic were criticised for failing to replace the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi and Adam Idah, especially as they failed to qualify for the Champions League after losing to Kazakhstan minnows Kairat Almaty. As Hoops striker Daizen Maeda is now set for a move to Ipswich Town, the club are once again tasked with replacing a key attacker before the new campaign begins.
Sheridan didn’t just call out the slow pace of business. He pointed to a pattern he’s seen repeat itself and traced it back to one specific problem at board level. He continued: “One thing I’ve noticed is that the players we’ve been linked with, the likes of Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran who’s already signed, I feel like they’re players that they’ve been looking at before and it kind of all goes back to the fact there’s no one in the position of head of recruitment. This guy’s meant to be in charge of finding players and doing signings. It’s as if they’re saying ‘we’re not really bringing anyone in so let’s go back to who we were looking at before.’ I just think the biggest problem at the minute seems to be just the structure.”
Same names. Same links. No real progress. For a club that just won a domestic double, that’s not good enough.
Celtic are reportedly in talks with Bodo/Glimt forward Kasper Hogh, a player the club also made a formal enquiry for back in January. The fact that they’re circling back to January targets in July says everything Sheridan is trying to say.
The pre-season clock is ticking. Rangers are building. Celtic are repeating themselves. And now a former player has said, loudly and clearly, that something structural needs to change before this window closes.
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