Celtic need to find another level in Europe
WITH yet another demoralising evening in prospect in Valencia, it seems the perfect time for Celtic to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask just how it came to this. How a club that had set its sights on the knockout stage of the Champions League less than three years ago now has its manager, against the backdrop of a £60million wage bill, consistently painting his players as relative paupers with no real right to expect anything special in Europe.
How a publicly-discussed policy of signing players in the January window in order for them to be integrated into the side in time for July’s crucial Champions League qualifiers has led to a bloated squad that will have to be stripped bare and rebuilt at the end of the season.
And how the millions spent on running the academy set-up, surely a central plank of the footballing and business models, appear to be delivering little in terms of players ready to follow the likes of Kieran Tierney into the first team.
Dominant in Scotland or not, this feels like a crossroads moment for Celtic, a moment in which they must figure out what kind of club they want to be going forward.
There is a sense after the midweek surrender at home to
Los Che in the last 32 of the Europa League that many supporters would happily retreat into the comfort zone of chasing 10 In A Row against teams — yes, Rangers included — on a different planet in terms of balance sheets and budgets.
The board cannot possibly join them, though.
The question is whether they are content just trying to battle into the Champions League group stage and banking £30m as compensation for ritual humiliation or whether they are ambitious enough to have a go at building something more sustainable with the risk that might entail.
This continued focus on how much Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain spend compared to Celtic is disingenuous. Clubs carrying a £60m wage bill should have aspirations to do something meaningful in UEFA competition from time to time.
Ajax, Europa League finalists in 2017, are comparable to Celtic in terms of size, revenue and wages, for example. Although they lost 2-1 in controversial circumstances, it is absolutely unthinkable that this Celtic team could go toe-to-toe with Real Madrid the way the Dutch did in the last 16 of the Champions League on Wednesday.
Now, it is true that Ajax did revisit their transfer strategy in the summer. Their 2017-18 wage bill of under £50m will have gone up thanks to a £40m-plus programme of spending that brought in older, more experienced players such as Daley Blind and Dusan Tadic, with their only big sale seeing academy graduate Justin Kluivert go to Roma for £16m.
Celtic, in contrast, are light years away from sanctioning a £30m net spend during one window. The reason Ajax can do it, though, is because they have an established system of blending academy-raised players with cleverly-acquired talent and selling them all for outrageous profit.
Davinson Sanchez cost £4.5m from Atletico Nacional in Colombia and went to Spurs for £42m. Arkadiusz Milik arrived from Bayer Leverkusen for £2m and joined Napoli for £30m.
Of their academy players, Davy Klaassen went to Everton for £24m, Riechedly Bazoer to Wolfsburg for £11m, Anwar El Ghazi to Lille for £7m and Jairo Riedewald joined Crystal Palace for £8m.
Now, the process is seeing higher fees paid out for fresh young talent such as David Neres and Hakim Ziyech, who both cost around £11m.
Of the team that faced Madrid, homegrown midfielder Frenkie de Jong is Barcelona-bound for £65m in June. Matthijs de Ligt and Andre Onana will also bring in fortunes soon and there were other academy graduates on the field in Kasper Dolberg and Noussair Mazraoui.
Ajax put pressure on their youth players to get into the first team early. Celtic’s Under-21 side, meanwhile, lose 4-0 to Annan Athletic in the Irn-Bru Cup.
Callum McGregor and James Forrest, of course, emerged from that set-up, but they are now 25 and 27 respectively and there’s little sign of any future first-picks coming behind them.
Ajax aren’t perfect. Not all signings pay off. They haven’t won the Eredivisie since 2014 and trail PSV Eindhoven this year.
However, they do show clubs of their size still compete when there is an acceptance that, with the global marketplace meaning you simply cannot build a team long-term, you need a slick method of developing talent from different sources, showcasing it, moving it on and starting again.
Naturally, this is fiendishly tricky to execute, but Celtic cannot go on as they are. Raising £20m from Moussa Dembele was great business and Olivier Ntcham will surely be next, but these deals need to be a regular part of a more joined-up way of working.
That Celtic must rebuild their entire defence, a long-running weak spot, before the next round of European qualifiers is a nonsense. That Emilio Izaguirre is back and playing against Valencia is a disgrace.
Most loan players should go in the summer and a handful more will leave on freedom of contract, including Dedryck Boyata, who could have been sold for £10m. There are another 10 passengers, at least, who could be shipped out — although you’d be lucky to raise £1m in transfer fees for the lot.
Outwith the need for improved scouting and improvements in youth, just imagine how what added punch that £60m-a-year wage bill could offer with a squad of 26 rather than 36.
Rodgers came to deliver in Europe and it has been evident since that dreadful Champions League loss to AEK Athens that he is no longer a good fit. The club cannot afford the players he needs to make his desired style work at that level and the academy isn’t producing them.
Of course, it is not all doom and gloom. That the board understand they need to up their spend on younger talent such as £9m Odsonne Edouard is encouraging.
Vakoun Bayo and Maryan Shved seem the kind of players from the kind of markets they should be targeting. Having £38m in the bank, as revealed this week, is good, too.
These are uncertain times in football and society. Having some financial insulation is wise. However, you also wonder whether the board are holding funds back to have a go at something different with a fresh footballing department next term.
Celtic do have money to spend. Indeed, they have already spent plenty. It is the way they’ve been spending it that’s the problem — and that’s what has to change.