John Hartson blasts Celtic for signing Albian Ajeti and Vasilis Barkas

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Celtic were dreaming of winning a tenth league title in a row this season – but the campaign has become a disaster.

The Bhoys have lost twice to Rangers last season and sit 21 points behind their bitter rivals in the race for the Scottish Premiership title, with many already giving up hope of winning the league.

Add in that Celtic were dumped out of the Champions League qualifiers by Ferencvaros and then endured a disastrous Europa League group stage campaign.

Neil Lennon is somewhat fortunate to be clinging onto his job, and pandemic-related issues are now causing mayhem at Parkhead.

Lennon’s former Celtic teammate John Hartson has now offered his view to Ten10 Podcasts, and has slammed a host of decisions made last summer.

Hartson can’t understand why Celtic decided to bring in Albian Ajeti after a dismal year at West Ham; the Swiss striker has managed five goals in 13 league outings, but Celtic surely expected more than just 510 minutes out of him.

The Welshman can’t understand why Ivan Toney wasn’t signed instead, highlighting that Toney is simply outrageous form for Brentford, believing that he would have been a much better signing than Ajeti.

Hartson added that he doesn’t understand that Gavin Strachan contributes to Lennon’s coaching staff, and criticised the signing of Vasilis Barkas given that he has already been axed for youngster Conor Hazard.

“it’s just been so disappointing. The players just haven’t been at it and I don’t think the recruitment has been great,” said Hartson. “You can go through the players and name them one by one, asking if they’re good enough. I think Ajeti played four games for West Ham in 16 months and we paid £5million for him. What happened to the boy Toney at Brentford? He’s on 15 goals in 15 games, so I don’t know why we didn’t get him. At least we’d get someone who is proven already.”

“Barkas, the keeper,    has been dropped   already for Conor Hazard. You could talk about the staff. What does Gavin Strachan do? What does John Kennedy do? Are they helping Neil? Does Neil not need to bring in his own person, someone he relies on and someone he wants to work with? Or are the board deciding who he works with? We don’t know half of these things. It has just been so frustrating,” he added.