Trevor Carson on Celtic transfer sliding doors moment as boss' quit threat killed deal
Trevor Carson admits he rues missing out on a "life-changing" move to Celtic as he recalled the sliding door moment.
The Northern Irish goalkeeper had impressed at Motherwell when Brendan Rodgers was on the lookout for a reliable back-up goalkeeper in January 2018. He identified his countryman as the man to come in and it was thought a deal was pretty much done to take Carson to Parkhead.
However, there was a spanner in the works with the Steelmen's planned replacement. Aberdeen goalkeeper Joe Lewis picked up an injury that day and that prompted them to go in for Newcastle's Freddie Woodman on loan, trumping Well who thought they were getting the Englishman to replace Carson.
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That put then manager Stephen Robinson in a tricky situation and he was insistent they couldn't sell their shotstopper at the end of the window without a replacement, and threated to quit if that did indeed happen.
Now at Dundee, Carson has appeared on Open Goal and said: "At one point everything was agreed, it was done. I think me and the missus played a game of 'let's see what we could have bought' after. It would have been life-changing, it was a four-year deal. It was a chance to go and win trophies.
"It starts probably three or four days before the window the shuts. I remember Hinchy, the goalie coach at the time because he was pally with Stevie Woods. The morning of training he said 'Celtic are going to come in for you with a bid'... 'F**k off, no they're not.'
"But then obviously it happened. My agent had said all along 'they're going to get there with the fee'. It was just playing a bit of hardball with the fee but we knew they would get there. Then when they finally did, Motherwell were signing Freddie Woodman on loan from Newcastle. Freddie was getting ready to come up and Joe Lewis gets injured at Aberdeen training that day, this was the day before the window shuts.
"Aberdeen come in for him (Woodman) and he picks Aberdeen over Motherwell. I'm in the office with Stephen Robinson and Alan Burrows and Robbo is like 'you can't sell him, I'm resigning if you sell him because I'm not going into the season.
"Listen, we got to a cup final but in the league we weren't doing great, we certainly weren't safe from relegation. Robbo's point was 'Trevor is my number one, we can't sell him'. The window was shut that night.
"In my mind it was all done. We played Hibs that night, I came out and had a few missed calls and I knew something was up. Scott Bain was supposed to be on the bench against us for Hibs but they pulled him out and he signed for Celtic because mine had fallen through.
"Brendan rang me the next day and I spoke to him for about 40 minutes. That felt even worse because it was the first time I'd spoken to him. He was adamant he was coming back in for me in the summer, but obviously circumstances...Scott Bain signed and did really well."