DONNELLY: Celtic must keep the crown jewels
Donnelly insists Celtic must put history before profit and implores club to keep hold of star duo Edouard and McGregor for a likely tilt at 10 in a row
FOR one summer only, Simon Donnelly would like to see Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell abandon the club’s prudent transfer policy and adopt a no-sale policy over their prime assets. Barring a collapse on the Premiership home straight, it looks like Neil Lennon’s team will be going for a 10th successive championship next term and Donnelly believes history should come before profit.
As part of the Celtic team that denied Rangers 10 in a row in 1998, Donnelly speaks from experience when he describes the scale of the pressure that will build over the next 12 months.
And that’s why he would implore his former club not to sell top scorer Odsonne Edouard, even if someone is prepared to smash the Scottish transfer record for the Frenchman.
Similarly, he does not want to see Callum McGregor allowed to leave if Brendan Rodgers follows up on last summer’s ill-fated enquiry with a firm offer.
Celtic’s model is based on such sales. For Edouard, read Moussa Dembele. McGregor could be this
year’s Kieran Tierney.
Celtic raked in £45million from those two sales alone and could get even more at auction this year.
‘Would it be a difficult decision if you’re offered £60m for two players, while going for 10 in a row?’ asks Donnelly.
‘Well, I know what I would do. I’d keep them and get the 10. That’s what the support want. They want to go and beat the record.
‘There was talk of McGregor leaving last summer but there would have been mutiny at Celtic because Tierney had just left.
‘They tied him down which was brilliant business because he’s their best midfielder.
‘Now the attention is on Edouard, that’s natural because of his form. Football is a business nowadays but they could get the same money in another 12 months’ time because the kid’s only going to get better.
‘He’s just 22 and will only kick on. They’ll want to hold on to Edouard for another couple of seasons.
‘And they could make the same money anyway if they can qualify for the Champions League groups.
‘They recruited so well with Dembele and Edouard. But if you lose your best players, it’s always a problem to go and find other ones.
‘I experienced that myself as assistant manager at Dundee United. It’s not easy.’
There’s no doubt Donnelly speaks from the heart but his analysis does not allow for the players themselves and how they may view the situation.
McGregor seemed temporarily unsettled by the knowledge that Rodgers wanted to give him a crack at the English top tier and, with Leicester currently bound for the Champions League, he might find a second chance difficult to resist. As for Edouard, the striker has been as inscrutable as Dembele since arriving in
Scotland on an initial loan from
Paris SaintGermain.
Dembele effectively forced through a transfer to Lyon in the summer of 2019 and the nightmare scenario for Celtic fans is for Rodgers to return with a double bid this summer.
Even so, Donnelly (below) reckons Celtic still retain the greater strength in depth of player.
For the second year running, victory in the post-Christmas Old Firm derby seemed to place Rangers in a position to mount a sustained title challenge yet Steven Gerrard’s men have succumbed to the same collapse in form since the winter break. ‘Rangers are craving success because Celtic have had so much,’ added 45-year-old Donnelly.
‘For the last two years, they have got to the turn of the year close and then, for whatever reason, have fallen away again.
‘Is it (a lack of) the minerals, what it takes to get over the line? I don’t know. Celtic just seem to come up with the answer, year after year. Lenny tweaks his shape, plays the two strikers up front and it has worked a dream.
‘They came back after the winter break refreshed, scoring goals for fun and from everywhere.’
Ironically enough, it is from Celtic that Rangers can draw encouragement — if not blind faith — that they can conjure a way to stop Celtic beating the clubs’ jointly-held record of nine.
Back in the summer of ’97, Celtic were in some disarray with manager Tommy Burns sacked and the attacking triumvirate of Paolo di Canio, Jorge Cadete and Pierre van Hooijdonk dissolved.
A series of low-key signings were made, including a certain Henrik Larsson, with an unheralded Dutch manager appointed to lead them.
‘I have to be honest, I’d never heard of Wim Jansen and a lot of the squad hadn’t either,’ added Donnelly. ‘We were ignorant towards him even though he’d been to World Cup finals as a player and achieved a lot in the game.
‘We got off to the worst possible start — two defeats and six points behind straight away. We went to McDiarmid Park on the Wednesday and won in the (League) cup. That halted the run.
‘So many new players came in. Di Canio and Cadete left and it was like a conveyer belt of new signings — you’d come into training every day and there were more new players.
‘In those circumstances, you have to find your feet quickly.
‘It just seemed to click after that terrible start and we grew in confidence.
‘We had good players, that’s the most important thing. It boils down to players. It sounds simple but, right now, Celtic have the better players. For me, Rangers don’t have good enough players.’
If you lose your top players, it is always an issue to go and find other ones