I’m pleased to read Ronny Deila ask for patience with Nadir Ciftci, the player needs a bit of support right now. Had Nadir knocked a goal or two in against our Icelandic opponents, Stjarnan, he would have been in a different zone at the moment, but he missed a few chances – not uncommon among players newly arrived at a club, and has since found opportunities limited by a domestic suspension.
Dundee United started training after Celtic, so Nadir was behind the curve during those games against Stjarnan. Without a full 90 minutes in a month, he will still have ground to make up when we resume after the international break, but he’ll hopefully feel the benefit of the work he’s put in on the training field in recent weeks.
Remember the Jock Stein Charity Match, which takes place at East End Park, Dunfermline on Sunday, kick-off 2pm. There’s a host of former players are playing, including Tom Boyd, Chris Sutton, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Neil Lennon and Stiliyan Petrov, while several from the Hollywood set are also playing, including James McAvoy, Martin Compston and Gianni Capaldi.
Funds from the event go to the Celtic and Dunfermline Foundations. You can pay at the gate to mark the 30th anniversary of Jock’s passing. There’s going to be a lot of memories on that field.
Three years after football fans in Scotland became experts in insolvency law, we now have to become familiar with Serious Organised Crime (I had to look up what it was today). The Scottish Government suggest it involves “drugs, human trafficking and fraud”.
Fraud is one of the small number of crimes where a life imprisonment sentence can be imposed on someone convicted of the crime in Scotland (it carries a maximum of 10 years in England). Even if you were 100% innocent of all charges and the possibility of contamination from dubious characters, the sheer scale of the matters in hand would be an enormous worry.
My hunch is that conspiracies and criminal plans to subvert information are difficult to maintain under the weight of these charges.
I’ve been looking all morning but cannot find what I’m searching for. Does anyone know of an enterprise which operates in the shadow of a Serious Organised Crime investigation which has been able to raise money which didn’t come from the proceeds of Serious Organised Crime?
I’m sure the audit will be just fine.
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Worth a read IMHO
http://thesefootballtimes.co/2015/09/03/sebastian-deisler-and-the-pressures-of-elite-sport/
HH jamesgang
Paul67
something wrong with CQN since the new format.
Doesnt matter what browser or what OS
reponse is crap.
maybe too much loading simultaneously
peepil are leaving :)
Gordybhoy,
Are you watching it?
What about that point there??? :-0
TTR
I’m sorry but that’s at best, acceptance and at worst, defeatist.
I appreciate in sport anything can happen but in my opinion we’ve not done enough to give us the best chance of getting through.
Ciftci needs time but he’s been poor so far. Griffiths is carrying the burden. I hope he remains fit
Jamesgang
Yes I’ve noticed their absences, possibly they’re holidaying together in Wishaw or somewhere! :-)
Not the Minx, she’s so scunnered with CQN that she practically never reads never mind posts.
Geordie,
no just on live scores tracker,i see he missed 5 break points in the 1st game in 4th set
Right Bhoys off for the night, will check CQNbadge email tomorrow n hopefully we will have LOADS of orders ;-)
Again,1st two designs are badges and 3rd is cufflinks
https://goo.gl/photos/DtHXqC7jo4ry1CGi6#sthash.6ODckWl2.dpuf
Badges will be £5 and cufflinks £8 (plus postage)
Get ordering :)
HH
BundoranBhoy
I’m watching the Murray game, the intensity of Murrats play now is impressive.
He is battering the other lad now. Although 2-1 down in sets now 2-1 up in games with a break.
And looking like he means it now.
CRC
Top man! You were missed tonight ;)
HH
BIG-CUP-WINNERS on 3RD SEPTEMBER 2015 10:26 PM
He also has to loose a few pounds….
…………………………..
I am on a diet because she is a size 10…1 meal a day so I can still have a wee braw beer half a stone I,ve lost …smiley thing …buy the 26th I ,ll probably be able to slip under the doors of Celtic Park ….hahahaha hope you and yours are well Captain…..yer a braw braw bhoy …
braw
Order at cqnbadges@gmail.com
See, we are a double act:-)
Sorry Doc :(
hahaha Twins
Gordybhoy,
He’s not playing all that bad. The French dude is hitting some shots.
The point I mentioned earlier was just amazing. Long rally with umpteen drop shots.
Braw likes
HH
SFTB
“I think you have a chalk and cheese example. Cambiasso playing for Leicester would have been weighed in for his troubles and he will have gone to Greece because they will weigh him in with even more. Cambiasso is a good player but he’s no Larsson and he would be expecting a wedge way beyond what we pay. Rosenberg would have been gettable but is he really all that good. I saw him kick a few in Sweden but I did not see him have a great game, We have bought experienced pros like Majstorovic and Ljunberg who both disappointed. It seems we DID go after Fletcher who fits this category but, when CQN is presented with a real life non-exotic example of the type of player you describe, they suddenly become sniffy and say, Aye he is old and expensive and comes from a higher standard of football but, Naw- no him is the verdict.”
Cambiasso & Rosenberg are just two examples of the type of player we desperately need at the club. You may well be correct with the former being paid far more than we can offer but I suspect neither of us know this for sure. I agree with you on Rosenberg being no great shakes but this distinctly average striker was far too street smart for our inexperienced back four. This fact is even more of an indictment of our failed strategy.
Again though the two players I mentioned are merely examples of the type of player we should be looking to bring to the club. Kids/projects need to learn from someone & playing next to a player with smarts will in my view only aid their development.
With regards to Fletcher, I never rated him at Hibs & he’s done little down south or with Scotland to change my view of him. However you’re right, he does fit the bill in terms of experience & while he would never be my first choice. I think Fletcher would have still been an improvement on what we currently have.
Again this is a sad reflection of our current strategy.
“Your argument has evolved a wee bit from where I left it. For Rooney at Man U read Broony at Celtic. We already operate a differentiated pay structure. Young players and fringe players will (mostly) be on a lower salary but it is not GREATLY differentiated. My point was that you cannot have 2 or 3 superstars on £30k to £40k a week supplemented by journeymen and kids on less than 5k a week. That is too imbalanced. We saw what happened to Sutton, Agathe, Thompson, McNamara and Hartson at the first sign that their request to crank up their wages to “nearer what Henrik gets” led to discontent and a mass exodus- foreigners and Celtic men alike jumped ship.”
My argument evolved due to you mentioning disharmony with wage differentials.
I am not entirely sure how our wage structure works but I suspect you’re correct in suggesting it isn’t “GREATLY differentiated”
Though our players will still be paid in relation to experience…
Kids will be on a set wage structure (perhaps 5k), there will be players who fall within mid range (8-12k), then the more experienced players will be amongst the highest earners (15-18k) with our captain being the highest paid at around (20-25k)
Bringing in a few players on similar wages to Brown would not cause disharmony, unless of course the current crop would prefer to keep failing? Though I suspect if you asked any of our squad they would welcome some more experience to the squad.
Also current circumstances are far removed from the days & team of superstars MON created, plus our strategy of creating sellable assets would likely remove any real prospect of disharmony.
“We bought 8 players this window and it looks like we tried for 9. Some of them you can get before or during the qualifiers. Most become available to us if moves to bigger clubs breaks down. All over Europe deals accelerate in the last two days of the window- we are not unique in suffering from that. As always you can buy your List C and D candidates early on in the window and you will have a stable but less capable squad for the qualifiers or you can wait to see if hte List A and B guys will come when you have achieved qualification. The gamble remains a gamble no matter what you do. That’s why the bookies will lay odds on it. If Celtic bought a £5m forward their odds in the Malmo tie would not have changed.”
I understand all this but the fact remains we had 12 months to plan for qualifying & we should have been better prepared for when the summer window opened. We basically went with the same starting 11 (barring a few additions & omissions) who failed to qualify last season. You may have a different opinion, but in my view we had a weaker team for this years CPL qualifiers than we had last year.
Despite selling Matthews immediately when the window opened, surely we never planned on being weaker?
“We both believe the alternative view has little merit (is nonsense) – yet we are both repeating it year after year. Anyway things change every year even as a strategy is in place. Change is constant and inevitable. The Balde/Pukki window was an example of our strategy. So was the Armstrong/GMS window. You can see them as both the same but I see different outcomes from 2 examples of the same strategy. It is far too early to see if the Ciftci/Simunovic/Boyata/Blackett/Allan/Janko/Christie/Bailly window is a success, a failure or somewhere in between. Its certainly a change.”
I don’t see it as a change at all but you’re right it’s far too early to make an accurate assessment. However I can make a prediction but it’s not one you’re going to like. I think we will struggle badly in the Europa League so much so it will likely cost Ronny his job.
Hopefully this prediction is proved entirely wrong, HH!
Jamesgang…
Reckon they have taken to FB or waiting until the blog levels out re Malmo.
Kip time. HH
“I am on a diet because she is a size 10”
Nbraw,
Does she struggle to get fancy shoes? :)
HH
HT
It’s being realistic. We have a young squad, with a lot of new players and have been playing with a flawed system. For me it’s about showing signs of progress, and that we have learned from previous mistakes whilst at the same time giving the younger players the opportunity to gain more valuable experience.
I’m looking forward to the EL matches more than i was last year. If we get through nobody will be happier than me.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=in1eK3x1PBI
Sips
Hope so
HT
Feared/guessed so
Night Timdom
HH jamesgang
HT
“Yes the goals are shared around but that’s largely domestically. And that’s the problem, as I see it anyway.”
I think it applies to Europe too. Griff scored only 3 of the 10 goals we scored in European ties this year (Johansen, Boyata and Bitton have 2 each).
Last year In the Europa League stages (i.e. after qualifying)- we scored 10 goals- only 2 were scored by a striker- Scepovic (4 if you count Commons as a striker) but the other 6 were scored by Johansen (3), Brown, Wakaso and OG. Incidentally we scored more goals away from home than at CP so your view that the rest are too hard pressed to help the striker does not bear up. Looks more like they are too hard pressed to help the defence when we are away from home.
Maybe we needed to spend big on a defender- wait a minute!
Jamesgang, thanks for posting the article about Sebastian Deisler, a good but sad read about his treatment at his last club.
Deisler seems to have similar personality traits to our own lost terrific footballer, George Connolly.
Careful now, you will be thought of as a sycophant for saying you are missing Delaney’s posts .
Good night all and sleep well.
Go Andy!
2-2
SFTB
Biggest spend in 14 years by all accounts. I am ownly saying what was printed and I have not checked the facts. Sounds familiar :-)
See you tomorrow night
HH
CRC
TTR
I’d pretty much agree with all of that with the exception of the first sentence.
However, I maintain your points actually reinforce why we needed to add an additional striker.
Don’t get me wrong I’m in agreement with Celtic supporters who would rather we’d signed nobody than another dud to add to the list.
I just think we had the time and evidence to indicate that we needed someone in.
Elbhoy
I think we have some players on wages near Broonie’s- I’d suspect Commons and Johansen at least with VVD, Bitton and Gordon in a bracket just below. How many do we need at near Broony’s level before we have made a difference to the set-up?
I share the same prediction that we will struggle in the Europa League- why should we expect not to struggle? When did we ever not struggle in Europe? Once you dismiss teams from Gibralter, Andorra and The Faroes, everyone can give you a game. We now face a top Dutch club, one of Turkey’s Big Two clubs and Molde, last year’s Norwegian champions but not a big club historically. We are in the running to finish 2nd but we could easily contrive to finish 4th. It is a harder group than last year’s and I think it would be just as hard with one more forward signed.
HT
I am not sure our not signing a striker will make a huge difference in Europe.
We win games domestically because our players are man for man better than the opposition.
When we play in Europe we broadly come up against 3 different types
Teams with inferior players and tactics that we tend to win against
Teams with marginally inferior or superior players but better systems that we tend to lose against ((Malmö, Red Bull)
Teams with better players and better tactics that we lose against (inter)
Despite all the puff, RD still hasn’t one a game against a team with superior resources, but has lost a good few to teams with inferior resources.
Under our current system, we can almost guarantee we will lose on average two goals / game against half decent European opposition.
Until we sort out three areas, IMHO, we can sign any number of forwards and it won’t make any difference
IMHO, we need to
1) Hold possession better in opposition half by playing two strikers. Our current attacking midfielders aren’t good enough to hold possession, so we need a guy who can literally win a corner or a shy, and let the team consolidate its shape
2) We need to tweak the zonal defensive set piece game , by blocking opposition runs
3) We need midfield and defense to defend as two banks of four, as opposed to current where CBs are dragged out to cover for full backs who are miles out of position.
I am sure some on here will agree, some won’t, fair enuff, but IMHO, the problem in Europe, lies with our tactics and formation more than with the players
Andy goes 2-0 in the 5th.
crc
See you tomorrow
P.S. I have no idea what the “biggest spend” comment referred to. Don’t think it is anything I have said.
“I think it applies to Europe too. Griff scored only 3 of the 10 goals we scored in European ties this year (Johansen, Boyata and Bitton have 2 each)”
Sftb & HT,
Sevilla played 15 games in Europe last season on their way to winning the europa league.
Bacca played in all 15 and managed only 7 goals. He finished their top scorer.
I’d rather the goals came from all around the team. Injuries and suspensions can leave you short when you only have the one goalscorer.
That said, I wish we had just found our next Henrik in the window gone by :)
HH
setting free the bears
On the blog a few days ago as a header
Take care my friend
HH
CRC
The gap is closing at International level too.
Kazakhstan were 15 minutes from turning over the Czechs in Prague, Malta were 20 minutes away from doing the same to Italy. Latvia drew in Turkey, Norway won in Bulgaria and Iceland did the Dutch in Amsterdam.
crc
Never read the blog headers.
I’ll let Paul answer for that one. Do you think he was counting Fletcher as a done deal? Or just factoring in wages for 8 new signings- it all adds up.
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 3RD SEPTEMBER 2015 11:02 PM
HT
“Yes the goals are shared around but that’s largely domestically. And that’s the problem, as I see it anyway.”
I think it applies to Europe too. Griff scored only 3 of the 10 goals we scored in European ties this year (Johansen, Boyata and Bitton have 2 each)
——-
Yes but 7 of those goals came against opposition I’d consider on par with or poorer than SPFL standard.
Malmö would be the exception.
Against them? Griffiths scored two of our three goals.
As I said, the burden lies too heavily.
Against Ajax and Fenerbache are a further step up.
Andy serving for the match.
Just reading the last few pages of comment & unusually I find myself agreeing with most of it.
No question Ronny’s blind spot for 4-2-3-1 is hampering us at a higher level, this was easily visible early on. He did tweak it a little by not committing both fullbacks at the same time but we are still far too exposed against better teams.
Someone mentioned James Forrest playing as a striker, I think this is a great idea. In fact when he first burst onto the scene, it was noticeable how good a finisher he was. I remember thinking at the time that he reminded me of Michael Owen. It’s too much to ask him to lead the line on his own but he’d no doubt frighten the life out of some big centre halves.
SFTB
Fly away Peter, fly away Paul
HH
CRC
HT
“Yes but 7 of those goals came against opposition I’d consider on par with or poorer than SPFL standard. ”
That may apply to the qualifiers, though I’d argue that Stjarnan would beat all bar Aberdeen and Quarabag would beat all of them bar Celtic.
It is not true of the Europa League Group stage. Salzburg and Zagreb are superior to Aberdeen (Salzburg were better than us) and Astra gubbed ICT who “won” our Cup and finished 3rd in our league.
Off for an early-ish night.
Hope Scotland win tomorrow but I fear they will not.