Pundit Tam McManus has recently slammed Nick Hammond for having missed out on signing Steven Fletcher.
McManus appeared on the latest episode of the PLZ Soccer Youtube channel and the panel talked about multiple issues involving Scottish football. One topic of discussion was the situation at Celtic and the sacking of Neil Lennon. McManus also criticised Hammond for not doing his job well and revealed that he also messed up Celtic’s potential signing of Steven Fletcher.
In the summer transfer window, Lennon had confirmed that Celtic did hold talks to sign Fletcher from Sheffield Wednesday and it was reported that the Hoops had offered a one-year deal to the striker as well. Stoke City though, ended up signing Fletcher and Celtic missed out.
Does Nick Hammond deserve to get sacked too?
Yes
No
McManus revealed that Hammond had messed about with Fletcher and his agent, which led to the move falling through and he criticised Hammond for it.
The pundit said (13:05) “Nick Hammond, I think he’s got to come under close scrutiny. I know for a fact that the players at Celtic and Neil Lennon wanted to bring Steven Fletcher in. I know that, I know for a fact that they wanted to bring him in. Nick Hammond messed him and his agent about and they eventually walked away. Steven Fletcher was desperate to join Celtic.”
TIF Thoughts on Nick Hammond…
While Celtic did miss out on Fletcher – as McManus says, but Hammond managed to get the Hoops to sign quite a lot of players in the summer transfer window.
Albian Ajeti, David Turnbull, Shane Duffy, Diego Laxalt and Vasilis Barkas had arrived. Ajeti hasn’t been a regular in the season. Duffy has come under criticism and Laxalt hasn’t been a regular in recent weeks either. Vasilis Barkas has played limited minutes and he’s already being linked with an exit.
This clearly shows that the business done in the summer wasn’t great and apart from the failure to sign Fletcher, Hammond deserves criticism for poor business too.