The former Sunderland Director arrives at Celtic with his reputation enhanced by bringing Jermain Defoe to the Stadium of Light.
Few people in football know Lee Congerton quite as well as Brendan Rodgers. The duo, who will now be tasked with taking Celtic to the next level by working together as Head of Recruitment at manager, go back a long way, as far back as their Chelsea days in the mid-noughties.
Rodgers describes Congerton as ‘the best’ in the game, as reported by the Daily Mail, though his CV is unlikely to elicit too much unbridled excitement in Celtic supporters.
After leaving Chelsea, his project at Hamburg failed to take off with the Bundesliga giants stuttering at the wrong end of the table and the fact that he played a major role in recruitment at Sunderland doesn’t exactly bode well considering that The Black Cats have only made a profit on three of their last 47 signings.
Furthermore, doubts persist around whether the transfer coup deemed the most impressive of his long career was a masterstroke or just sheer luck. In truth, it probably leans towards the latter.
Sunderland fans may have questioned a vast number of Congerton’s signings but he cannot be blamed for splurging £6 million on Jozy Altidore, as reported by the Daily Mail. However, he has been credited in some quarters for masterminding the deal that sent the American striker, who netted once in 42 games for Sunderland, to Toronto in a swap deal with Jermain Defoe.
The fact that The Black Cats would surely have succumbed to relegation last season, let alone this, without their evergreen talisman paints the picture that Congerton pulled of one hell of a deal.
However, according to The Chronicle, Defoe’s marquee move to Canada appeared doomed from the beginning and Toronto were desperate to replace him with a man proven in the MLS – Altidore.
The deal did not require any cajoling or bargaining from Congerton’s side. Toronto were practically asking Sunderland to take Defoe off their hands in return for their expensive, misfiring flop.
While no one could accuse Congerton of being a fraud, Celtic maybe shouldn’t get ahead of themselves.
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