Over the last few days of the European transfer window I was keen to find out what business Ajax would be able to complete (what Milan and Barca did is of scant interest). Between Friday and yesterday Ajax lost two players, Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen moved to Tottenham, and yesterday, Belgian defender, Toby Alderweireld joined Atletico Madrid.
Both were big players for the Dutch champions, who could realise €20m from the sales, but attempts to sign Ola John from Benfica and Eljero lia of Werder Bremen failed, instead they paid Heracles Almelo €2.5m for midfielder Lerin Duarte.
The Amsterdamers had a frustrating final few hours of the window. No doubt potential targets were worried about having to face three huge teams in the Champions League. In a difficult group, this is what counts as a break for Celtic. Only five games into their league season and without Champions League qualifiers to use as a yardstick, the group stage will come early for Ajax.
Living adjacent to an over-monied behemoth has considerable drawbacks as even our top clubs struggle to retain teenagers in the face of English lower league competition but such a rich market can also bring enough transfer income to make the difference between feast and famine.
The English Premier League spent £445m on transfers outside England but apart from Celtic and Hamilton Accies, who between them will earn around 4% of that total, I don’t think anyone else in Scotland got a piece of the action.
Nurturing and selling talent to England has to be a strategy for dozens of clubs here. Paying (for them) top wages to players who are no longer able to gain employment in England can only be considered a waste by comparison.
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No game this weekend, but don’t forget to stand up for Stan… just don’t move laterally whilst doing so!
;o)
Don’t believe it
bAZZZINGA
Am in
Podi
Oh,late again…..
Hoops… there it is
top team ?
read the article too
Anyway,we now enter a blinkin’ international hiatus straight after a fractious transfer window.
The perfect storm….
May God have mercy on our souls.
i’m Podi
darn, just missed out
markderrybhoy, what article?
The teams from the Greatest League in the World will really struggle in the CL this year.
We might indeed wipe the floor with ajax … deep fry milans pizzas .. and batter barca into submission
tonydonnelly67
It could be a cashflow problem, no idea.
I doubt they were registered before, but it’s the sfa we are talking about, so you never know.
bobby murdoch’s curled-up winklepickers forza oscar and mackenzie
12:47 on 3 September, 2013
Fair do’s …….. Just feel we should concentrating on the good work the Board are doing, in difficult circumstances, and on our team’s brilliant progress ……. We have enough bigoted critics without all the anti-Board agenda-based shoite from within …..HAIL HAIL
Paul,
I think it shows how important it is to get sell-on clauses. Even if this means sacrificing a bit on the transfer fee.
THM
Ah a question mark now ? I thought the Pope was on the phone to you there mate .. asking advice ;-)
No my beleif is that those that WISH TO exclude-marginialise-judge-pidegon-hole-malign another Celtic supporter (whether he be Happyclapper mineshafter) due to a legitimately held opinion he holds and expresses as being one that should exclude him from being a Celtic supporter as it is different to their opinion is simpy not adhering to the clubs mission statement about tolerance and is in fact a green hun.
I have to say though that its the happy clappers that do this the most 90 odd perecent if we were to get an honest show of hands. It mainly arises I feel due to the inability of the offended to understand the argument that is being presented.
HH
67Heaven, you no workin today? ;-)
Celtic_First
From earlier…
We still have a couple of basket cases in Scottish football, one in a zombie basket, another – Hearts – looking likely to re-emerge clean, and a third – Kilmarnock – treading water with a debt 50% greater than their turnover.
Aberdeen are something of an exception insofar as while their debt position is very poor, they do have the wherewithal between Milne and the oil boys to sort it whenever they want to, which I would think will coincide with the Loriston stadium project (if it ever proceeds).
Most other top flight clubs are in reasonable and improving condition financially, though modestly sized, but the corollary to that is their cloth has necessarily been cut too tight, and quality is compromised as a consequence.
What they need, above all else, are the resources to be able to hold onto their best prospects through to age 24. At the moment they leave at 19, 20, 21 years old for little more than training compensation and a bottle of irn bru.
This is a double whammy because on the one hand the value they receive for their talented kids is marginal versus the cost to develop them; and on the other hand, the team loses the talent before they have become established professionals making a competitive difference to the team.
Were Celtic in the mood for largesse and benefaction, given our extraordinary situation, we could prime a not-for-profit investment fund for top flight teams whereby the fund supported the enhanced wages of the top youngsters at each competitor club, in return for a weighted slice of any subsequent transfer fee to maintain the fund’s finances.
My fag packet says seed funding of £3M will support (English) market competitive wages for 1 new young player at each top flight club every year for 3 years, 3 years being the investment cycle, the fund self-sustaining thereafter.
In application, Aberdeen might be fielding a team this season including Fraser Fyvie, Ryan Fraser and Jack Grimmer, such players being supported by the scheme.
Dundee Utd might still have Johnny Russell and Scott Allan.
And so on with the other clubs, all of whom have good and improving youth development programmes delivering on average one good young player for the first team each season.
At the end of the cycle, the player is sold as a proven professional, with associated uplift in value, providing each top flight club with the basis to copy Celtic’s current approach to talent development, but with the investment risk underwritten by the fund.
While SPFL clubs will not see players’ values uplift on a spectacular par with the likes of Fletcher and McCarthy for recent example – by virtue of the relative standard of the proving ground – they will benefit significantly nevertheless, with corollary impacts on football competition, fan engagement and perhaps, European performances.
Away to light my pipe and dream a little more…
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS forza Oscar and Mackenzie
12:59 on
3 September, 2013
TONYDONNELLY67
Like you,I will have nothing to do with them when they play us again.
No ticket,no telly,no paper,no nothing.
“I see dead people”
Not for me.
That’s why they are called ‘The Zombies’
I personally think that their so-called where’s their Accounts book
should be well scrutinized by UEFA & HMRC.
No doubt, Sevco 1550 will be on the serious fidel yet again, that’s
for sure. Sevco 1550 with one SD3 League title under their belt.
Dundee United, Johnny Russell to Derby (not EPL, but neither are Wigan) for £750k???
the exiled tim
13:11 on 3 September, 2013
What could be a cash-flow problem ……!!!!!!!!??
67HEAVEN
Fair enough,since you put it like that!
Tbh,I think debate is healthy. Questioning of authority is prudent. But point scoring isnae either of those.
I consciously try to “tune-out” poster names when I’m reading back-not always easy,of course-when there is a heated disagreement on here.
I try to avoid the trap of agreeing with a poster rather than with the post.
Doesn’t always work too well,of course,as it makes me look a bit two-faced sometimes!
But little wrong with a good discussion armed with different viewpoints.
So is there a possibility that the ‘trialists’ weren’t registered in time?
Paul, long may the EPL be the overinflated, overrated, overhyped product that it truly is. Selling players to them in that current cash rich environment has to be good if our own revenue streams are hamstrung. Personally I wouldn’t have crossed the road to watch most if not all of what was on offer on Saturday in “Europe’s Premier League”….
Hi Pail67,
“Nurturing and selling talent to England has to be a strategy for dozens of clubs here. Paying (for them) top wages to players who are no longer able to gain employment in England can only be considered a waste by comparison.”
Too true, this summers transfer window had proven the case, selling to England is the best strategy.
I’ve had a quick look at spend throughout Europe and most Clubs are curtailing their spending.
Middle EP League Clubs are out spending most of the UCL Clubs, they are not developing their own talent, so way to go.
Hail Hail
dixiebhoy69
13:14 on 3 September, 2013
….just as hard as you……hahahahahahaha…..just dipping in and out, between crises ..LOL
pod i
13:19 on 3 September, 2013
Oooooooooooh…..tell me more FGS…..LOL
Paul, on the same note, Ajax will note we lost last years spine and consider us weaker………at present, we are.
Paul,
“No doubt potential targets were worried about having to face three huge teams in the Champions League”
Sorry but this went over my head or was it a wee joke?
Árd Macha
Awe naw.
And as I pointed out the happy clappers are enforcing the social mission statement by excluding those without the belief that football is a medium for Healthy pleasure.
Is the social mission statement the green hun manifesto?
.
With the Aussie Dollar in Free fall Australia is Also a Guid place for a Bargain..
Yeez can have SydneyTim for 3 Quid..but He is Non returnable..:-)
Summa
I’ll be at Stan’s fund raising match.
A fellow Tim was informing me over at CPTO yesterday when I
was there to pick up my CLGS Home match ticket package
that said match is apparently been sold out. There was also a
mention of some young fellow being there from that newly
formed Group called ‘One Direction’ so no doubt there will be
some screaming youngsters at Stan’s fund raising match as well.
SoT
Is Robinho not gettin’ a game anymore?
Ajax will note we have signed Virgil Van Dijk, a player who will be twice the quality of the CB who left.
Paul, good article.
Re Ajax: I’m not convinced it will come too early for them but I dearly hope you are correct.
Was up at Paradise earlier collecting the tickets- they look tremendous with the names of Barcelona, Milan and Ajax on them……cannot wait until it all kicks off.