Somebody explain to me how Liam Scales deserved a new contract at Celtic, but Stephen Welsh was shown the door??

On Saturday night, Stephen Welsh made his debut for Scotland.

A Celtic academy product, a boyhood Tim, pulling on the dark blue jersey and helping Sebastien Pocognoli to a clean sheet against Slovenia.

You would think that would be a proud moment for the club.

It should be.

Instead, it’s an embarrassment.

Because Stephen Welsh is no longer a Celtic player, and we didn’t get a single penny for him.

Not one.

He walked out of Celtic Park for nothing in the summer, and he is now flourishing at Swansea City – top of the Championship, ahead of West Ham.

If Swansea keep going the way they are, the boy could be playing Premier League football next season.

And the board let him go for NOTHING.

The way Celtic handled Stephen Welsh’s exit from the club was nothing short of shambolic.

Scott Burns wrote a piece in the Daily Record yesterday asking the very same question.

Here is how he explained the club’s thinking:

They wanted to reward the defender for his loyalty to the club. He also helped them defend their title last season. So they ripped up his contract and allowed him to leave without a transfer fee.

Now, I’ll give the club this much.

Letting a loyal servant leave with a bit of dignity is a decent thing to do.

I’ve no argument with that.

But let’s not pretend for one minute that this was some grand gesture of goodwill.

This was a mess of the club’s own making, and ripping up his contract was the only way out of it.

Let me take you back to January.

Welsh was out on loan at Motherwell, playing the best football of his career under Jens Berthel Askou.

He was, as the Daily Record rightly points out, as good as any central defender we had at the time.

In fact, he was better than most of them.

Celtic could have sold him there and then for decent money.

So what did we do?

We recalled him.

And then we stuck him in a Scottish Cup tie against Auchinleck Talbot.

One appearance against Auchinleck Talbot was all it took to wipe out his entire transfer value.

That was it.

That was his only game for Celtic after coming back.

Having played for Motherwell and then Celtic in the same season, the rules meant he couldn’t play for a third club.

Which meant no buyer was going to pay a fee for a player who couldn’t kick a ball for them until the summer.

So Welsh did what any player who wants to play football would do.

He asked to go back to Motherwell, and he got his wish minutes before the deadline slammed shut.

Think about that for a second.

A club that prides itself on maximising its player trading value managed to destroy the value of one of its own players with a single cup tie against a junior side.

You couldn’t make it up.

And this is the same board that will sell anybody who isn’t nailed down if the price is right.

The same board that tells us every summer the model is about buying low and selling high.

Apparently, that only applies when it suits them.

Are we really expected to believe Liam Scales is a better defender than Stephen Welsh?

Because that’s where we’re at.

Liam Scales was handed a new contract.

Stephen Welsh was shown the door.

Now, I’m not here to trash Scales.

He’s a whole-hearted player, he puts in a shift, and he’s had his moments in a Celtic jersey.

But anyone who watched Welsh at Motherwell last season saw a defender who was reading the game better, winning more of his battles, and playing with a confidence we never saw from him at Celtic Park.

Askou gave him something Brendan Rodgers and Martin O’Neill never did.

Belief.

And look what happens when a player gets that.

He’s now an international footballer playing week in, week out for the best team in the Championship.

Scales, meanwhile, is still Scales.

And for that, he gets a new deal?

We are light at the back, and everybody except the board seems to know it.

Take a look at the central defenders we have right now.

Cameron Carter-Vickers, who we all know spends far too much of his time in the treatment room.

Liam Scales.

Auston Trusty, who the jury is still very much out on.

And Dane Murray as back-up.

That’s it.

That’s the heart of the defence of a club that wants to be taken seriously in Europe.

One injury, maybe two, and where does that leave us?

Scrambling around for bodies again, that’s where.

A settled, in-form, 26-year-old centre half who loves the club would have been the perfect addition to that group.

And he was already on our books!

All we had to do was keep him.

Or, failing that, sell him properly.

Instead, we did neither.

Of course, the board will tell you this was all about doing right by the player.

But since when does doing right by the player have to mean doing wrong by the club?

This is just endemic of how badly our club is being run at the moment.

It’s the same story over and over again.

No plan.

No foresight.

And as usual, no accountability.

Decisions are made on a whim, and when they blow up in their faces, the board hides behind a nice line about loyalty and hopes the support doesn’t notice.

Well, we noticed.

Swansea’s gain is Celtic’s loss, and Scotland’s gain too.

I’m genuinely delighted for Stephen Welsh.

He deserves every bit of success that comes his way.

But every time he pulls on that Swansea jersey, it will be another reminder of a club that doesn’t know what it’s doing.

So I’ll ask the question again.

Somebody, anybody, explain to me how Liam Scales deserved a new contract, but Stephen Welsh was shown the door?

I’ll wait…

Choose Read Celtic as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.