News on Lawwell’s replacement: Celtic may turn to the intriguing new scout who discovered van Dijk.

According to a new update on Celtic’s behind-the-scenes work, the club may have found the ideal successor to Mark Lawwell as chief scout.

Mark Lawwell leaves Celtic.

Lawwell, the club’s head of first-team scouting and recruitment, left the club earlier this month after two years in charge. He is chairman Peter Lawwell’s son, but his reputation had suffered as a result of inconsistent transfer market performance.

Celtic officially announced earlier in March that he and lead first-team scout Joe Dudgeon had left the club “to pursue fresh challenges,” with the two immediately placed “on gardening leave.”

In fact, one such negative story surrounding Lawwell was the arrival of Adam Idah on loan from Norwich City during the January transfer window, with the striker remaining until the end of the season. Unfortunately, the former Hoops transfer guru failed to ensure that his contract included a permanent signing option, which means he could now leave Parkhead this summer rather than stay.

It was an error that summed up Lawwell’s shortcomings in his role, and the search is now on for a better replacement who can improve the Scottish Premiership champions’ efforts to bring in the right players.

Celtic consider “interesting” Lawwell replacement.

According to a new report from reliable journalist Mark Hendry for Football Scotland, Neil McGuinness, who was a first-team scout for Celtic for six years, could return to the club as Lawwell’s replacement.

“He was at the club as a first team scout back between 2010 and 2016 before moving to Qatar. He knows the club and how its run considering all the main board members are essentially still in place!

“He has also built, over the past five years or so, a winning team with Columbus Crew and has a proven track record in unearthing gems. He was seemingly the real main man who identified Virgil van Dijk for Celts and would be an interesting appointment.”

The fact that Hendry brought Virgil van Dijk to Celtic immediately stands out in his update, highlighting his desire to sign a top player.

The Dutchman has since had an incredible career at Liverpool, winning numerous major trophies while also standing out as one of, if not the best, centre-backs of his generation. McGuinness even talked about finding the Reds superstar and explaining the qualities he saw in him.

“Virgil was more of a young kid finding his feet in the first-team. I remember going over to watch Virgil, and I specifically picked a game where he was playing against Vitesse, away. The striker at the time for Vitesse was Wilfred Bony.

“The reason I picked that game was because I looked at it and I said to myself ‘well if he can defend against a guy like Bony, he’s going to be more suited to the physical aspect of British football’.

“You’re up against a lot of big lumps when you play in Britain. A lot of the teams you play against, specifically in Scotland, if they are going to attack you, it’s going to be a long ball approach.”

In other news, Outcast to “Golden Boy” – Chris Sutton’s claim in Celtic’s title push