There's a perfect Celtic director of football candidate they should be banging on the door to land

Mark Lawwell and his assistant Joe Dudgeon might be on gardening leave but it’s not the Parkhead roses that need pruning right now.

Peter Lawwell and Michael Nicholson need to use this opportunity for a root and branch approach to football structure at Celtic Park. And that doesn’t mean digging up Gordon Strachan’s review from a couple of seasons ago which seems to have been buried in the Parkhead garden. We never did find out what Strach came up with when he was asked to have a look at the set-up in one of the many panic measures taken during the disastrous 10-in-a-row campaign. Ange Postecoglou – unearthed by Lawwell junior by the way – winning matches helped take the focus off all of those bigger-picture issues. But it’s clear they never went away and now need to be addressed.

Celtic are still bang in the hunt for the Premiership title but if it ends up at Ibrox, Rangers will be given a turbo charged cash infusion from the Champions League that could make the next few seasons far from rosy on the other side of the city. Look, it’s understandable why Celtic’s suits get a little prickly when they cop flak for the way the club is run. This is an outfit that turns profit year on year, has nearly £70million in the bank and has hoovered up trophies for fun for more than a decade.

They also regularly pocket fortunes for players who have been signed for relative buttons along the way. Celtic fans may hold up anti-board banners but it’s not as if their club is a basket case. Yet the punters are entitled to demand more bang for their buck – especially in Europe. To do so, Celtic need to get with the times. They need a proper structure in place to support the manger rather than handcuff him.

Lawwell senior admitting the board