“If you don’t spend, you stand still. You have to improve,” Paul Lambert

Former Celtic captain Paul Lambert has stated categorically that this Celtic squad is not strong enough for the challenges the club will face this season…

IMAGO/Sven Simon. Paul Lambert (vorn) und Stefan Reuter (beide BVB) laufen mit dem Pokal eine Ehrenrunde nach dem Champions League Sieg 1996/1997

The former Hoops midfielder knows a thing or two about competing at Paradise and has confessed that this current crop aren’t fit for purpose as it stands heading into the new season which starts for Celtic on  Monday 3rd August when Dundee are the visitors to Celtic Park.

Never mind Champions League, Celtic will be lucky to stay in the cups next season at this rate, with others strengthening around us yet again, whilst we sit idly by as pedestrian as ever in the marketplace.

Excuses, excuses, excuses…

The same old rehashed lines have been rolled out by the money men at the top of the club, treating the supporters as fools and morons for being loyal to a fault.

5th April 2026; Dens Park, Dundee, Scotland; Scottish Premiership Football, Dundee versus Celtic; Kelechi Iheanacho of Celtic applauds the fans

Martin O’Neill specifically requested deals for Kelechi Iheanacho and Marcelo Saracchi be tied up as a matter of urgency, and lo and behold, was left with egg on his face yet again. Lambert admits that it will be a bridge too far for this group under O’Neill to compete again in it’s current state, if no major improvements are made this summer.

“I’ve seen Celtic, they’re nowhere near good enough at this moment in time”

Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland’s Sportsound, he said: “The squad’s not strong enough. I’ve seen Celtic, they’re nowhere near good enough at this moment in time, nowhere near it. Everybody recognises it. They’ll compete, but I don’t think they’re strong enough to go and win it [the league] again at this moment in time.”

26 May 2001: Celtic duo Paul Lambert and Captain Tom Boyd lift the trophy aloft after the Scottish cup final win against Hibernian at Hampden. Celtic won the game 3 – 0. Photo Michael Steele /Allsport

The former captain even revealed his old boss Martin O’Neill knows these issues exist, saying: “The problems were there last season, so they’re not going to change again this season. The squad was very, very limited on what it was last season. They won’t get away with that again – the manager knows it.”

Despite this, the man who Celtic signed from Borussia Dortmund in 1997 said: “I don’t think it’s time for panic stations. What I do know from being in the Championship and being in the Premier League, the Championship now is a league where the Premier League was about 10, 15 years ago,”the 56-year-old said.

“You’re talking off the scale in some of the clubs in the Championship. Celtic is not a development club, it’s a winning club where you have to win titles. You have to compete. You have to compete domestically and you have to compete in European terms,”the candid former Celtic captain advised his old club in a concerned tone.

“You can’t buy young kids to come in there and grasp that club because it’s too big and it’s too demanding.

“You need ready-made players to come into the club, especially if they’re going to compete in the Champions League.”

Middlesbrough manager Kim Hellberg greets Celtic manager Martin O Neill Celtic v Middlesbrough, Pre Season Friendly, Football, Celtic Park, Glasgow, 18 July 2026 Celtic Park. Photo Phil Oldham

IMAGO Shutterstock

“They’re in a little bit of predicament. How they do it and the only way you can do it is spend the money. If you don’t spend, you stand still. You have to improve,” Paul Lambert stated bluntly.

And logically if you don’t spend but can’t wait to cash in on players like Engels, Maeda, Johnston, Hatate and Nygren then you are going backwards at a fast rate of knots.

Paul Gillespie

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