The word Brendan Rodgers kept using was ‘assessing’.
Asked about a number of players during Thursday’s media call, the Celtic manager did not give much away. Only a few weeks into pre-season, it’s likely he has not made all his decisions either way, but you suspect the group which travelled to Portugal in preparation for a more extensive tour of Japan will look quite different by the time Ross County come to Celtic Park on August 3.
With new signings arriving and loanees returning from a season elsewhere, there are 31 named players for Rodgers to make judgments on. The majority of those will be simple ones; there is a core of around 18 who, transfer overtures aside, we can predict with reasonable confidence will form part of the new manager’s plans.
For some, the future will almost certainly lie away from Glasgow.
Albian Ajeti, Ismaila Soro, Liam Shaw, Liam Scales, and Osaze Urhoghide are the most likely to be moving on this summer – none of whom were involved at all last season. Scales was among those Rodgers referenced earlier this week and he was decidedly non-committal, but the chances of the Irish defender, back from a mixed season at Aberdeen, being of the new Celtic era feel remote.
It’s why trimming numbers will run parallel to the recruitment drive Rodgers prioritizes. Celtic are, of course, cash-rich following Jota’s departure and there are several targets on the manager’s mind, but doing so will require clearing the decks to make some space.
There’s no chance of the infamous ‘players sitting on the floor because there’s no more chairs’ scenario which emerged at Chelsea last season, but managers do not like to run with a bloated squad, no more than players like to be part of one.
And while there are obvious candidates for departure, others’ futures are not so clear.
Take James McCarthy, who will surely be surplus to requirements yet would require Celtic to pay off the remaining two years of the strangely extensive deal he was offered in 2021. The 32-year-old midfielder has hardly kicked a ball in the past two years, but offloading him may not be as simple as it might seem.
Having last played for Crystal Palace in the Premier League, McCarthy will have commanded a sizeable wage on his way to Glasgow. He has been out of the picture at Celtic for some time, but there has been little if any, indication of interest in him. The Ireland international’s luck with injuries has been harsh, but combine that record with a high salary plus advancing age, and it creates a formula that will leave potential suitors with significant reservations about pursuing a transfer.
But such potential complications could easily be mitigated by what McCarthy feels is the best for his career. He will be 33 in November, and the last three years of his career have featured only 14 starts between Palace and Celtic. If he still has ambitions to play regularly, then negotiating an end to his contract is surely the best outcome for all parties.
Celtic are very well stocked for quality midfield options, the extent of which has resulted in David Turnbull’s career to stutter. Callum McGregor, Reo Hatate, Matt O’Riley, and Aaron Mooy were generally the four vying for three midfield starting spots with Turnbull largely utilised off the bench and on occasions Postecoglou opted to rotate heavily.
At 24, though, Turnbull will feel he has reached an age where he ought to be playing every week, and the case may be that his best chance of doing that is elsewhere. He will be one of several who will no doubt sit down for a frank conversation with Rodgers if he hasn’t already. Turnbull is a real talent and one of the few bright sparks in Celtic’s 2020/21 season, and while he featured regularly in Postecoglou’s earlier tenure, the arrivals of Hatate and O’Riley, in particular, have pushed the former Motherwell youth down the pecking order. The addition of Odin Thiago Holm also creates further competition for Turnbull to overcome. He will be acutely aware that this has coincided with repeated omissions from the Scotland squad, a disappointment considering he was a late addition to Steve Clarke’s Euro 2020 contingent.
Stephen Welsh finds himself in a similar scenario. The centre-back is only a few months younger than Turnbull and also found himself in no man’s land last season. Injuries didn’t help, but neither did the near-constant presence of Cameron Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt at the heart of Celtic’s back four. 23 is still early days for a central defender but it’s unlikely Welsh will be completely satisfied with his current role in the side.
Where they end up next season will be decided after Rodgers concludes his ongoing assessments. If the manager was to tell any of the above players he envisioned a role for them in the upcoming campaign, there won’t be many who brush that aside in search of a different challenge. Squad shaping must also account for UEFA rules around homegrown talent.
For the Champions League campaign, Celtic must satisfy criteria that require eight squad members who are ‘locally trained’ - players who were in the club’s academy for three years between ages 15 and 21 – and ‘association trained’ – players who were in another Scottish club’s academy for three years between the same ages. UEFA stipulates that no more than four can be included from the latter category, which means Celtic need to have a certain number of their academy graduates involved. This potential issue can largely be addressed by promoting B-team players, but Rodgers will not want to shoehorn too many youngsters into the squad simply for the sake of meeting a quota.
Mikey Johnston may have found himself among the group to leave this summer, but a cruel injury setback has ruled the returning winger out for several months. He spent a productive season with Vitoria Guimaraes in Portugal, one that earned international recognition with Ireland, and the return of Rodgers may just have heightened his chances of a Celtic revival. The manager is a known fan of Johnston, and the current pre-season could have been pivotal as to where the 24-year-old’s career would veer next.
Fate dictates his is a case that will be put on hold for now, one less decision for Rodgers to make in a summer set to be chock-full of them.
