Former Celtic striker Chris Sutton has expressed strong criticism of Celtic’s approach in the current transfer window, particularly over the club’s failure to sign a left-back.
With just days left before the window closes, Sutton finds it unacceptable that Celtic are yet to address this key position, despite identifying it as a critical area for strengthening.
The club have been linked to a few left-backs this window, and it seemingly is an area that’s been prioritised but it certainly doesn’t feel like that.
Celtic’s situation has been worsened by the injury to first-choice left-back Greg Taylor, who is sidelined for several weeks. The lack of suitable cover for Taylor has left manager Brendan Rodgers with limited options, a predicament that Sutton believes could have been avoided with better planning and recruitment.
It will be interesting to see who starts against Ross County.
Sutton, in his column for the Daily Record, questions whether the responsibility for this oversight lies with Rodgers, the recruitment team, or the Celtic board. He argues that the failure to secure a left-back, despite long-standing awareness of the need, points to deficiencies in the club’s transfer strategy.
“Greg Taylor on the injured list. Six days until the transfer window closes and not a left-back deal completed to cover the absence.
“It’s not as if Brendan Rodgers hasn’t known for a long time he needed one. If he and the recruitment team couldn’t see it as far back as last summer, they weren’t looking very hard. In these scenarios, I can fully understand the frustration of the Celtic fans. I’ll get to the issue of quality in a minute but not even managing to get back-up in the door isn’t really acceptable.
“Securing Cameron Carter-Vickers on a new deal is great news. He’s been the best defender in Scotland for a while, but you can’t get away from the fact there are areas of concern within the team. Everyone thinks Celtic will just roll over Ross County today. They should, but that’s not the point. The point is this is they have left themselves light. Alexandro Bernabei hasn’t been trusted for a while and this was the one position that urgently needed to be sorted out. The fact it’s not yet been done by now beggars belief.
“Is it on Rodgers? Is it on Mark Lawwell and his team? Is it on the board? For me, it’s on the recruitment side and the facts are this market seems to be more complicated for Celtic than it ought to be.”
He continued: “Rodgers has spoken about quality and not adding to the squad for the sake of it. That’s fine if you are talking about improvement. But he said himself last week Celtic had to be mindful of a loading issue regarding Taylor and it was about support and back-up.
“So are you telling me there isn’t a single left-back better than Bernabei out there and available within the confines of the Celtic model? Come off it. Taylor doesn’t cut it defensively in the Champions League and you should always be trying to upgrade every position for that but there’s no excuse for being short domestically.”
