Pundit tells Celtic to make change if they want big signings

Barring a miracle, it looks like the Premiership is headed to Ibrox, ending Celtic’s dream of creating history and securing 10IAR this season. It is clear that the Hoops need a huge rebuild if they are planning to get back to the top of Scottish football once again in the near future.

For a change, this season, the board cannot be blamed for not backing the manager with signings in the summer. In fact, there was a great feeling about stuff when the window closed. Unfortunately, it is the performance of those arrivals that has led to their downfall.

While David Turnbull looks like an incredible talent, the same cannot be said about the rest. Shane Duffy, Vasilis Barkas and Albian Ajeti have been absolute flops while Diego Laxalt has been decent but not great.

Of course, the lion’s share of the blame for this falls on the shoulders of the recruitment team and their head of football operations, Nick Hammond.

Could Nick Hammond be heading out of Celtic?

There have been rumours recently which have claimed that Dermot Desmond could be looking to get rid of Hammond and Alan Hutton appears to be backing the idea. Speaking with Football Insider, the former Rangers man said:

"“By the way, we’re talking big-money signings here, we’re not talking about young boys that they have taken a risk with, not cost too much and they’ve maybe tried to sell on, we’re talking about big money for Scottish Football.“It’s not worked out, you just have to look at Villa, for example, with the sporting director (Jesus Garcia Pitarch). He brought in 12 players that didn’t work, got sacked the next year.“This is a high-pressure job that they’re in, dealing with big teams, big signings, big money and it’s not worked.“The signings that have come in have not been good enough – Duffy, big fee, big wages, and he’s looked a shadow of the player that we’ve seen in past seasons.“So, these things haven’t worked out and normally when that happens, your head’s on the line.”"

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To be very honest, the club’s recruitment was not much better before Hammond arrived. They have been bringing in cheap players for quite some time now, hoping to eventually turn a profit when they leave. More often than not, it has not worked out.

So there needs to be a change at the club which goes beyond Hammond. If they do decide to part ways with him, this could be a job that a former Celtic player thrives in instead of looking to shoehorn someone in as manager just because they have history with the club.

Of course, the club will need to make significant investment in the summer if they want to turn this thing around and once again challenge for the Scottish crown. With a number of top players expected to leave – Odsonne Edouard, Ryan Christie and Olivier Ntcham – they must make sure that the transfer money that comes in is used efficiently. They cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of this summer.