OPINION
Celtic Football Club had a summer transfer window to forget, with Brendan Rodgers failing to make a signing of note and losing one of his best players in Moussa Dembele.
It is yet to be seen what kind of effect such a summer will have on the club’s fortunes in the coming season, but the Hoops will certainly have a tougher time of things than they have done in recent years.
One of the more surprising signings that the club did make over the summer was promising Australia international Daniel Arzani, who arrived on a two-year loan from Manchester City.
Arzani was coming off an impressive World Cup showing with Australia, and is expected to make a similar impact to Patrick Roberts, who also joined the club on loan from City.
However, the 19-year-old attacking midfielder has been dealt an early blow to his Celtic career after he was left out of their Europa League squad, as reported by the Scottish Sun.
The exclusion of the young attacker from the squad to play in Europe will come as a surprise to many fans, who will have been raring to see the Australian in action.
It also highlights another failure in Celtic’s summer recruitment policy, with one of their most-hyped signings not even being given a chance in squad made up of 23 non-homegrown players out of 45.
While Arzani is still young, at just 19, and has plenty of time left in his Celtic loan, there is no hiding the fact that this merely serves to highlight the ineffectiveness of the club’s summer business.
The Hoops could not afford to grow complacent in their success this summer, and that is exactly what they have done, with their failures surely set to badly damage their prospects in the coming season.
They needed to bring in players that would have an impact for them in European competition, an area where they have made no progress in recent years, and instead their squad has ended up significantly weaker.
Arzani’s European snub is merely another damning indictment of the club’s summer business, and they need to buck up their ideas if they are to retain their dominance in domestic football in the coming years.