Celtic’s plan to enact a reshuffle of their Academy staff has been an open secret over the last few weeks, though the full nature of these changes have now been confirmed by the club.

We have already told that Darren O’Dea has moved from his coaching position with the B Team to take up the newly created Professional Player Pathway Manager role — working to develop Hoops youngsters internally and on loan.

Former Celtic man Jonny Hayes has already been at Lennoxtown after being brought in as B Team assistant. Meanwhile, Adam Asghar confirmed himself as the new Under-18s manager on Linkedin despite no official communication from club channels, replacing Stuart McLaren.

With O’Dea’s recent job change, it has been suspected that Stephen McManus will have sole custody as B Team boss.

Now, confirmation has broken, addressing a number of questions regarding the coaching set-up at youth level.

Celtic confirm Academy hires to Brendan Rodgers’ delight

Earlier today, Celtic confirmed via their official website that they have completed their desired Academy appointments.

McManus has been installed as the sole B Team head coach, with Hayes in the number two position. O’Dea has moved on to his new capacity; meanwhile, Asghar is now ‘lead coach’ of the Under-18s, ending vague coverage of the reshuffle.

Long-serving Chris Hendry has moved over to support Asghar’s work with his new group, coming in as a coach to work in conjunction with the former Southampton Under-21 boss.

Brendan Rodgers spoke of his delight at the announcement, stating: “We are delighted to makes these new appointments. Stephen is an excellent coach who knows the club inside out and he will do a fantastic job as our B Team Head Coach, and I am really pleased to welcome Jonny back to Celtic. I know his ability, energy and his passion for developing younger players will be really useful to us.

“We are also delighted to welcome Adam and Chris to their new roles and I am sure they will be very successful in working with our U18 players and giving them that opportunity to progress through our levels at Celtic, a hugely important area for us and something we want to see more and more of in the future.”

Chris McCart on Celtic’s new coaching hires

Head of Celtic’s Youth Academy Chris McCart has also endorsed the new hires, stating [Celtic FC]: “We are really pleased to announce these new appointments. Our B Team will be in great hands under Stephen and we are delighted that Jonny has joined the coaching team to assist in the development of our young players.

Adam has great coaching experience, too, so we are pleased to welcome him to Celtic to work alongside Chris Hendry who has a wealth of knowledge of the Academy.”

This is excellent news for the club, with a fresh approach being taken to maximise the potential for a production line of Parkhead stars in the future.

Nurturing talent takes time and patience; it doesn’t come overnight. However, Celtic have gone to great lengths to restructure their set-up behind the scenes, which can hopefully inject fresh impetus in the hunt to cultivate homegrown talent.

Rodgers has made bringing through Lennoxtown products a core aim of his second spell at Parkhead. If these alterations can help accelerate that process, then it will be a job well done by the Bhoys.