Davie Provan hits out at Peter Lawwell after Celtic's Europa League defeat

Originally published at: https://www.67hailhail.com/news/davie-provan-hits-out-at-peter-lawwell-after-celtics-europa-league-defeat/

Celtic great Davie Provan has hit out at Peter Lawwell for the club’s transfer dealings after we bowed out of the Europa League on Thursday. The Hoops qualified for the last-32 of the competition before Christmas. However, we didn’t strengthen to any real degree in January. Patryk Klimala and Ismaila Soro have come in, but…

I think Brendan Rodgers left Celtic for a reason and that reason is he was fed up going head to head with Peter Lawwell over transfer matters. There were three transfer windows that Rodgers had earmarked players that he wanted and as usual Lawwell dragged his heels. Sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate but Lawwell just isn’t interested in progressing in Europe, all he’s interested in is his bank balance, Celtics bank balance and just, and only just keeping us ahead of the Huns. He’s a power monger and likes the managers to know who’s boss. He also let bad feeling with the Hibs chairman get in the way of signing John McGinn and look at him now, all this over a few grand. If Celtic have any ambition we need someone a bit more forward thinking than his only interest is bank balances, buying disco lights and funding the building of a hotel!!! Disappointed!!!

The John McGinn stuff was criminal. Still to this day I can’t believe we didn’t get that deal over the line. His potential was there for all to see.

I think having a pop at Lennon and calling him the “junior partner” is a tad much though. He’s brought some good talent to the club including a £7m centre-back and two £3m left-backs. Not to mention Elyounoussi’s wages won’t be cheap either.

Our January business always generally disappoints regardless of the manager. I think you just need to look at Rodgers’ January windows to see that. Whether that’s down to Lawwell refusing to get bigger deals done - we’ll never really know. But I just don’t see where the evidence is to say that Lennon is somehow weaker than Rodgers. Just because of Rodgers’ previous achievements?

Just seems a little baseless to me personally.