Fix the pipeline

Ross Hall sets out the youth/academy challenges.

Introduction:

Celtic’s problems run deeper than a poor transfer window or disappointing youth results. They cut to the foundations of how we recruit players and how we develop our own.

This article is split into two connected parts. First, recruitment: how squad planning, pipelines, and leadership have left us bloated, unbalanced, and reactive instead of strategic. Second, the academy: the environment young players face, the failures in loan pathways and development planning, and what can be done to turn wasted potential into future first-team players.

These areas are inseparable. Recruitment without a functioning academy is short-sighted. An academy without a pathway to the first team is pointless. Fixing both is the only way Celtic can claim to be serious about building a “world-class” football operation.

That words “world class” should haunt everyone inside the club until actions start matching the words. Michael Nicholson said: “the ambition of the club is to be world class in everything we do.” The official website promises:

*Celtic Website – I won’t mention the image used on the website is of Daniel Cummings celebrating

Fine words. But when you look beneath the surface, the reality tells a very different story and the words respect, commitment, integrity and support are not ones that I’ll be using positively.

PART 1 – A Distortion Model

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Recruitment, Numbers and Balance

The squad is bloated. Thirty senior players; ridiculous for a club of our size when you look at the balance of that squad and the player profiles within it.

Of those 30:

• 2 are loan deals running until 2026:

o Jamal Simpson-Pusey

o Marcelo Sarrachi

• 3 are out of contract in 2026:

o James Forrest

o Kasper Schmeichel

o Kelechi Iheanacho (with a one-year option)

We also have to consider those who might return:

• 5 are out on loan, all of whom have featured for the first team before:

o Odin Thiago Holm (loan ends Dec 2025)

o Luis Palma

o Maik Nawrocki

o Adam Montgomery

o Stephen Welsh

Add in B-team players, youth loans, and prospects pushing through, and by next summer Celtic could be juggling 40+players.

That’s not depth, that’s dysfunction. No experienced manager or head of recruitment would ever consider such a structure sustainable. It reflects not planning but panic buying.It reminds me of being a kid trying to get the final sticker for my football album and instead of just filling out the form and getting the one sticker I needed, I’d spend all my pocket money just to end up with a ton of stickers I didn’t need and had little value.

Where the Process Has Failed

At a well-run club, planning for January would have started over a year ago. The summer window would refine those plans, adjusting for form, injuries, or transfer interest. Recruitment and academy pipelines would be aligned.

At Celtic, the opposite is true. Debriefs happen, but nothing changes. The summer window was messy, reactive, and unfocused. Quality was sacrificed for quantity. Youth loans and co-operative deals were treated as afterthoughts.

This isn’t one person’s fault. The whole structure is poor. Paul Tisdale and Jay Leferve have not shown they can lead recruitment. Brendan Rodgers should manage the first team, not dictate the club’s wider transfer process. The board should set budgets and act as a check and balance, not micro-manage football decisions.

The truth: we need a proven leader who is empowered by the board in charge of recruitment. Without that, the cycle of bloated squads and wasted windows will continue.

Short-Term Solutions for the Next Window
In the period leading up to the January transfer window, Celtic must systematically address three fundamental questions:

1. Current Position: Where do we stand in terms of squad balance, performance metrics, and resource allocation?

2. Target Outcomes: What are our realistic objectives by the end of the season, both domestically and in European competition?

3. Resource Deployment: How can we optimally leverage existing pipelines, personnel, and time to achieve these objectives?

Effectively answering these questions requires scenario-based planning, prioritising the areas with the highest potential impact, and aligning decision-making across recruitment, coaching, and player development.

Most likely scenarios:

• Daizen Maeda is sold.

• Odin Holm returns.

50/50 scenarios:

• Simpson-Pusey returns to Man City.

• Trusty, Yang, Engels, Bernardo, Hatate or Johnston leave permanently or on loan.

Other considerations:

• What happens with Yamada, Inamura, and Osmand; “ club” signings without clear pathways?

• Potential tactical changes

What is clear:

• We still need a natural right winger.

• We still need a long-term striker.

• We still need pace and power in midfield.

• We need to move players on and manage our budget.

• Above all, we need balance and quality

Blockers

January is a difficult window, especially for a club with a poor reputation. Clubs are mid-season and reluctant to sell, players in form cost inflated fees, and we have no winter break to bedin new arrivals. Uncertainty over future management also clouds long-term planning so whatever we do has to be done with a balanced mindset.

Smarter Strategies

To work within those constraints:

• Make leadership decisions now. Someone competent must lead recruitment, and it cannot be Rodgers, Tisdale, or Leferve. They are not competent, not even close to it.

• Target leagues finishing their seasons in November/December (Scandinavia, South America, Asia, MLS) where selling clubs are more flexible due to their season being finished.

• Look to lower European tiers (Championship, Eredivisie mid-table, Bundesliga 2, Serie B, Ligue 2, Ekstraklasa) where Celtic remains a step up.

• Exploit financial or FFP pressure at other clubs.

• Scout smartly: Use tournaments like the U20 World Cup and European group stages (Conference and Europa) as opportunities to see players competing at a good level, and pair that with daily video and data analysis.

• Use our own pipeline properly. Track the B team and youth loans and look to integrate standout performers.

Recruitment doesn’t need to be complicated, it needs to be strategic, disciplined, and led by the right people. Right now,Celtic are failing in this area.

PART 2

Days Gone By…

Academy Issues

This week I spoke with agents who had arranged loan opportunities for Celtic academy players. The club’s response? Either flat rejection or, worse, hints that leaving on loan could damage a player’s future here. One agent described it as a message that could be viewed as a threat.

That approach is indefensible. If a player has progressed through U16s, U18s, and the B team and has the chance to play at a higher standard, the club more often than not should support it. The right response is: let’s assess the move, set development goals, and track progress. If it’s not right, we’ll explain why and suggest alternatives. If the player is genuinely close to first-team minutes, we’ll prove that with a clear plan.

Instead, Celtic’s approach is negative and short-sighted and if I’m being brutal, down-right manipulative.

The Consequences

Colby Donovan’s breakthrough is now being used as proof the system works. In reality, he was close to a season loan at Dundee until injuries opened the door. He has taken his chance and credit to him; but his story is an exception; itdidn’t happen by design and it’s not evidence of a functioning pathway.

Meanwhile:

• Other B team players who were in similar situations have had loan requests rejected.

• U17s and U19s play just 14 league games a season.

• Talented players who could get 30+ games in League One or Two are told staying is better, only to sit on the bench or play out of position.

That is not development. It’s stagnation. We are a club that shows a complete failure to understand that monotony is the enemy of growth.

Leadership Failures

How can senior figures like Maloney, McCart, Hammell, McManus, and Asghar defend this? They can’t. The dysfunction is systemic. From the McManus/O’Dea fiasco to registration transfers pushed through only after legal threats, the negative stories pile up: too many in the academy setup are not good enough at their jobs.

And yet, this should be one of the most exciting times of the year. Young players getting the news that they’ll be offeredpro deals, invited into the boardroom for a proud moment with their families. Instead, doubts are rife, with people realising our issues in the academy, our dealings with agentsand our inability to respect our own principles are more than just noise.

I’m told that many from the last group who had alternative options to go south are now privately considering their options, and that the actions of the club towards a player who did leave have left a sour taste with many people. The club has held a meeting with some agents and parents to try and paint a better picture, but many are still not convinced having heard a lot of the same spiel last year.

Message to Parents

If you’re a parent of a Celtic academy player:

• Get a serious agent with a proven record to help advise you and be aware of their links.

• Look at the best setups in Scotland, England, and Europe.

• Ask questions. Demand clarity. Understand what a real pathway looks like. Be informed before you set foot in the room.

• Do not let an invite to train with the first team for a few days colour your views. Just because something looks shiny, doesn’t make it valuable.

Because right now, Celtic does not measure up to the best, nowhere near it.

I personally want to see us build something special: a benchmark academy that others look at and say, “we aspire to reach that level.” Instead of hearing our own support say, “we should copy Club Brugge’s model”. I want us to be able to say with pride, “Our model is the standard,” and point to recent success stories, not dig through the history books for examples.

The problem is, for too many senior figures at Celtic, the academy has become little more than a tick-box exercise or a steady pay cheque.

The raw talent exists. We have players who could go far in the game. But the truth is brutal: right now, too many of our young players are being held back rather than pushed forward. Their development on and off the pitch is more likely to be stalled than accelerated.

Minutes on the pitch and working with good coaches are the real opportunities to help discover that level that gives you a shot at playing at the highest level, not sitting in the stands, or training under people who have no interest or idea of how to educate young men.

Eddie Pearson (Celtic Da) once read something I wrote and encouraged me to add some “quick wins.” I do listen Eddie,well, sometimes. And Eddie himself is proof of my point. I’m not a young man, and neither is he, yet he continues to inspire me more than any teacher I ever had, because he challenges me and makes me think about what I want to write and how to get better at it.

Quick Wins (Low Cost, High Impact)

Celtic could solve so much with simple, inexpensive changes:

1. Smarter Loan Pathways: Build proper co-ops with clubs in League One and Two, not just Ayr United and explore options abroad (what happened with Admira?).

2. Play the Best: Enter U17s and U19s into major tournaments. Fourteen league games a season isn’t nearly enough.

3. Clear Individual Development Plans: Agreed with player, coach, and shared with agent and family. Reviewed formally twice a season (December and season end).

4. Dedicated Loan Manager: Someone whose sole job is placements, progress tracking, in-person check-ins, and reporting.

None of that costs a fortune. But until Celtic acts, we’ll keep wasting money on players who aren’t up to standard, wasting potential, and watching talented kids either leave for better environments or stall instead of succeed.

• Contracts and Contract Length: Set maximum three-year terms for academy department heads. Structures must be reviewed and refreshed in line with natural cycles. No one should hold a role indefinitely without accountability.

• Head of Academy / Player Pathway Manager: Merge these into one role to create a single point of accountability for development and progression. Right now, responsibility is too diluted.

• Better Recruitment On and Off the Pitch: Appoint leaders who are educators and motivators, chosen for expertise not connections. End the old pals’ act and stop recycling familiar names. Recruitment staff for the academy and first-team must be hired on merit, with proven ability to identify and develop talent.

• Redevelop Youth Leagues: Lead the push for a serious redevelopment of youth leagues. The current structure doesn’t prepare players for senior football, and the SFA has shown it can’t deliver. Celtic should be activelyworking with other clubs to force reform.

• Encourage Engagement: Treat families as partners, not problems. Build a culture of openness and trust, where communication is clear and there are no surprises or hostility.

We don’t need bigger budgets or shinier facilities to fix many of these problems. What we need are competent, driven people in the right roles, people who coach with clarity, set standards, and inspire young players to believe they can progress.

Conclusion:

Celtic talk about being “world class,” but right now it’s empty words. Recruitment is broken. The academy is failing its players. Both need rebuilt from the ground up with leadership that brings expertise, vision and accountability.

The club must act now: appoint proven leaders to oversee recruitment and player pathways, restructure the academy with clear accountability, and end the old pals’ act that has held us back for far too long. Until then, Celtic will continue to be outperformed not just by the clubs we claim to benchmark against, but also by clubs with far fewer resources; stuck in cycles of bloated squads, wasted talent, and hollow slogans.

World class is a standard, a standard the club set for itself. Right now, I’d settle for anything other than being the dunce in the class: sitting in silence while others innovate and push forward, hoping no one notices we’re falling further behind.

Until Celtic align their actions with their words, that standard will remain out of reach, and the club will keep squandering opportunities, money, and the potential of the club.

My Final Notes:

I want to find positives, but there are few, but one thing I want to make absolutely clear is that I have the utmost respect for our young players and their support networks and they arewhy this topic is important. Unless issues are faced head-on, nothing will change.

That’s why this article is free to read. If you agree these problems need solved, share it (Part 1, Part 2 or the whole thing). Put it on forums, send it to fellow supporters, spread it on socials. Change starts with awareness. Celtic must be held to their own standard; and until then, families and supporters must keep the pressure on and continue to demand better.

Thanks as always

Ross