Michael Gannon Gives Celtic a ‘B Minus’ After £30m Spend – Seriously?

Michael Gannon has delivered a remarkably lukewarm verdict on Celtic’s summer business despite admitting the club has committed around £30million to new signings.

Writing in the Daily Record, Gannon assessed Celtic’s improvement by declaring:

“The club has gone from a F last summer to a B minus at best.”

Seriously?

That feels particularly harsh when his own column acknowledges how dramatically Celtic’s position has changed.

Celtic £30m spending deserves more than a ‘B minus’

Gannon describes the money spent on Kasper Høgh, Camilo Durán, Haissem Hassan and Mika Baur as “serious”.

He also concedes:

“Celtic are in far better shape than they were a month ago.”

Those two statements make the subsequent negativity difficult to reconcile.

Celtic supporters have spent years demanding the club show greater ambition in the transfer market. Too often, Champions League qualifiers have arrived while obvious weaknesses remained unresolved.

Gannon highlights that painful history himself, pointing towards Celtic failing at the qualifying hurdles in seven of nine attempts.

Surely, then, spending heavily to strengthen Martin O’Neill’s squad represents precisely the kind of response critics have demanded?

Nobody should pretend everything is perfect. More business would strengthen Celtic further, while the timing of Arne Engels’ expected departure creates another issue.

However, there is a substantial difference between identifying remaining weaknesses and suggesting £30million of investment merits only a “B minus at best”.

Celtic Champions League warning feels premature

Perhaps the most eye-catching element is the suggestion that Celtic still risk another Champions League “bellyflop” against LASK.

Of course they could lose. Football offers no guarantees, regardless of expenditure.

Yet there appears to be a strange reluctance to acknowledge Celtic doing exactly what they have previously been criticised for failing to do.

Spend too little and the club lacks ambition. Spend around £30million and apparently it is still only worthy of a B minus.

Gannon even writes that “the penny might be dropping”.

Maybe it has.

Celtic have recruited aggressively, strengthened Martin O’Neill’s options and appear determined to avoid repeating previous qualifying disasters.

There are legitimate questions still to be answered before the window closes.

But after £30million of investment and a significant transformation of the squad, Gannon’s “B minus at best” feels less like a fair assessment and more like moving the goalposts.