Previously on Legacy of the Hoops, Celtic had a Premier Cup setback and set out a wage budget for our stars. In this part, we complete our first season at Celtic Park and whilst I’m having a whale of a time, it hasn’t been easy…
Season 2022/23 – February to June
A mercifully quiet January transfer window saw James McCarthy leave for Russia for a nominal fee, no further outgoings and no incomings. We returned to league action looking to put the Premier Cup Final disappointment behind us and dispatched Livingston and St. Johnstone 2-0 before we were back in cup action. We drew Rangers away in the Scottish Cup 5th Round and the pressure was on for silverware. It would result in more cup heartache! In a poor display, we went down 2-0 and Rangers would go on to lift the Scottish Cup.
We had a wobble in the next fixture drawing at home to Aberdeen, slipping 4 points behind Rangers, before getting back to winning ways. The pressure was on as we now faced the task of chasing down the Ibrox side. On the eve of the next Glasgow derby, we found ourselves 2-0 down to Ross County before Oh Hyeon-Gyu rescued a point with late strikes in the 79th and 94th minutes. Could that be the catalyst to drive on?
The derby games have been electric up to now and the fourth meeting of the season so far did not disappoint. We raced into a 2-0 lead with goals from Liel Abada and Jota before Rangers pulled one back before half time. Massively on top, we looked to crack on in the second half and bring the league deficit back to a single point. Kent equalised in the 49th minute and Tillman put Rangers ahead in the 78th… this hurt. This really hurt.
With the gap back at 7 points we were in trouble and needed some help before the final derby game of the season, away at Ibrox. Thankfully, we got that bit of help and the gap came down again as we headed into a massive fixture. We needed to win, simple as that. Callum McGregor scored a penalty to put us ahead before Matondo equalised two minutes later! We battled on and Cameron Carter-Vickers powered home a header to see us take the lead again on the auspicious 67-minute mark and we looked good for the win… until Tillman dragged Rangers level in the last 5 minutes.
Again, the hurt, the agony, I don’t care if it’s just a game because this was brutal. We’d end up losing the league by 2 points, finishing the season without a single trophy. This was fine margins, but simply not good enough.
Contract Warfare
A contract saga that rumbled on all season finally came to a conclusion as Abada took key player squad status and his £30k per week salary to go along with it. I did not think that this deal was getting done and we must have entered negotiations at least five times. I’m finding contracts to be a particular nightmare, I’m having to be very patient and also very disciplined to stick to my wage budgets outlined in the previous post.
In that post I highlighted Abada as already being a key player so again, thankfully, I haven’t gone over budget with this. However, Carter-Vickers is attracting attention, so is Kyogo Furuhashi, plus Jota and contract renewals on all of these players would see me break the structure so I need to think of a way around this further conundrum because I want to keep these players. No, I need to keep them! I thought that I could fly through the seasons but this is madness and all this wheeling and dealing is taking up a lot of time! Still, it’s exciting.
Shortlisting Targets
With our players under constant speculation, my shortlist needs to be constantly updated. One sale that could be finalised is Stephen Welsh to Leeds United and he wants to go. As a replacement, we have arranged a future free transfer of Billy Koumetio from Liverpool. He’s a unit of a ball-playing defender and comes in on £10k per week as a fringe player.
I find myself shortlisting quite a few players from Scandinavia, which fits in nicely with my manager persona being super Swede Henrik Larsson. If any of our attacking midfielders were to leave then we have a pool of around 12 players to choose from to replace them including Casper Tengstedt, Emil Ceide, Jens Petter Hauge and Johan Hove. We could be seeing a pattern in our recruitment focus begin to develop.
As we head into the summer, I have more players looking to increase their pay packet, further interest in my star players and potentially a lot of work on to keep this squad together.
Final Thoughts
I’ve skirted around the elephant in the room for long enough now. The longevity of the save is on a knife edge. If you hadn’t noticed, I’d just failed to win a single trophy as manager of Celtic FC – an undeniable failure that’s actually quite comical. Unfortunately, the board is not laughing.
I was called into a board meeting where I gave the weak excuse of ‘trust the process’ and whilst I’m still ‘insecure’ I have not been sacked yet. Any failures in pre-season or a tricky start to next season and I’m probably gone. Is this harsh? Yes, I think so – but that’s Glasgow. If you look back at those derby games, all I needed was one of those games to go the other way and I’d be sitting here as league champion. If one penalty went in for us and not for Aberdeen we’d be a double winner. The margins are tight but as a fan, I wouldn’t be happy so I get it.
The summer will be busy. I need to tie down a couple of players and trim the fat from the squad. We have an abundance of loan players coming back like Shaw, Ajeti, Barkas, Johnston etc… Some will find a spot in the squad, others will need to be moved on. I really want to start bringing in some players from my shortlist but I can’t and won’t do this if it will break my squad structure.
Strap yourselves in, it will be a whirlwind of a summer!
Football Manager Addict 
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