TALKING CELTIC
THE greatest signing in Celtic history isn’t the theft of Henrik Larsson for £650,000, signing Lubo Moravcik for half that or even the deal to bring Lisbon Lion Ronnie Simpson to the club who quite incredibly cost four grand.
The £1200 fee paid to Llanelli for one John Stein, a modest fee even back in 1951, not only changed the club forever, not that anyone knew it at the time, but it’s not hyperbole to suggest football itself would later come to welcome the decision for Celtic to sign a former miner playing for a Welsh club.
This piece of business will take some beating.
Every manager, and certainly his chairman, loves a bargain. Spending £80mil- lion on Gareth Bale doesn’t require a trusted scouting network; rather a bottomless pit of money which Real Madrid always seem to have.
But to find a Larsson, a Kris Commons, almost 100 goals and as many assists for £300,000, takes skill, patience and a line of people working together for a football club who knows where to look for those players others have failed to notice.
Celtic is an easy sell. Scottish football is not. Brendan Rodgers is a manager that good players want to work with and they will be handsomely rewarded for it. But Stoke City, alas, can afford to triple the wages Celtic’s highest earner can.
There are many, too many, who would rather be a fringe player in the Premiership or at Championship in England instead of testing themselves in an environment which is far more demanding than one of those English mid-table clubs who cruise through every season.
Rodgers is hardly the first man to sit in that office who knows there are limitations in terms of finance and persuasion.
THAT’S the challenge and it’s one which is going to be fascinating when the summer window opens.
“I think there is still a level of player out there for us who can bring excitement,” said the Celtic manager with some confidence.
“Again, it’ll all depend on what it is for the player. We can’t just pay anything, and I would never ask the club to do that.
“I’m not here to put the club in a risk. Not at all. I’ll always demand that we sign the best possible players we can.
“But I understand strategically where the club is at, and how it needs to function going forward.
“That’s not lacking ambition, that’s just being real. And also knowing – from being down south for a number of years – exactly the types of players we can attract here. In fact, not even attract. Players we can get here.”
The man in charge of recruitment is Lee Congerton who Rodgers raves about. His role will be to find the likes of Victor Wanyama, bought for £900,000, sold for £12m and any future sale is going to add even more to Rodgers’s kitty.
“The reason brought in Lee was because he’s one of the best at it,” said his manager.
“This is the guy who found me Philippe Coutinho. No-one would have heard of Coutinho otherwise. When I worked at Chelsea I remember Lee I being away in South America. He came back and told me about two players who were 14 or 15. He said ‘wow, there are two players out there we’ve got to try and get.
“It was Coutinho and Neymar. At that point no-one had heard of them. Alexander Pato was another one, I re-