Bucking underperforming recruitment trend

Every year we hear that January is a difficult time to do transfer business. Clubs are reluctant to allow top performers to leave midseason, but we’ve had some creative January activity over the years. Objectives for this month are clear.

We need to better prepare for our Summer Cup Finals. Trying to build a defence, or strike force, while simultaneously qualify for the Champions League is, unsurprisingly, tricky. Summer transfer windows are really two periods, the last days of the month, after European qualification has been taken care of, and earlier in the window, when limited volumes of business will take place.

We’ve done some great business early in summer months, most notably Virgil van Dijk, but instances like this are rare.

The most interesting aspect of this window will be how Ronny Deila is backed. He’s 18 months in the job now, long enough to come to an assessment of the wider scouting infrastructure he inherited. We’ve been underperforming on recruitment since January 2012. Ronny needs to buck this trend, and Celtic need to give him the necessary lateral.