As Ajax contemplate the impossible (winning the Champions League the season after being knocked out of the Europa qualifiers by Rosenborg), it’s appropriate to note the stark European facts of Brendan Rodgers’ tenure.
Excluding qualifiers, Brendan’s Celtic played 6 home games in the Champions League and 5 in the Europa, he won three, all in the Europa, drew 1 and lost 7.
Gordon Strachan also played 11 home games excluding qualifiers, all in the Champions League, 2 in the knock out rounds. Gordon won 7 of those games, drew 3 and lost only 1, a 2-3 defeat to Barcelona. Among others, the wins came against reigning champions, Milan, as well as Manchester United, Villarreal and Benfica (twice).
While Gordon Strachan’s Celtic never came close to what Ajax have achieved this season, they were eye-wateringly good compared to our recent seasons in Europe. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think Periier Doumbe, McManus, Naylor, Hartley, Donati or Jarosik, players Gordon started in that win against Milan, would get near this Celtic team.
It is possible to do much better in Europe with our existing resources. We will always love what was achieved under Brendan, but his stubbornness in Europe is irrefutable.
And a big thanks to Kevin (brother) for throwing this comparison at me after the Valencia defeats.
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Not Should….SHOWED.
HH
Fold /….FOLK !
HH
As for Celtic’s greatest ever goalscorer, while I watched and loved Joe McBride….You are all forgetting Jimmy McGrory…Shame on you all.
HH
GREENPINATA @ 8:22 AM,
Our wage big is high I grant you but that does not equate to the Manager being backed.
We know that is the total wage bill, we don’t know how much is spent on players. We spend a small fortune on “moneyball” projects and loanees… money down the drain for the most part.
Now the new contracts for Rogic, Forrest, McGregor, Ajer, Tierney etc is for me (a lot of) money well spent.
Getting Edouard on a loan with a view to buying, (try before you buy) is also money well spent.
High wages for Scott Brown, Dembele, Sinclair etc also money well spent.
But we waste huge amounts of money that is unaccountable.
Now if we had backed the Manager and bought a right back, centre back, John McGinn, Edouard (who we did buy of course).
Kept Dembele for one more Season, sold Boyata and Armstrong (which of course we did).
We would have forked out an extra £20m but had a squad heading for £150m in value.
We would not have needed to pay the fees and high wages for Benkovic, Weah, Burke, Tolijan etc… these deals are expensive- throwing good money after bad.
Our spend in and off itself is not the issue, the issue is what we spend it on. We should be going for quality not quantity.
As I’ve said many a time there is a systemic problem with our recruitment and it costs us big time.
Hail Hail
Spread the word!!!!
Can you help out by signing this petition?
http://chng.it/VVvZzh4v
We’re asking Celtic to review its decision to link up with Mr Green – unbelievably awful decision:((((((
HH
Chairbhoy
“WGS did very well to get there, Celtic Park was a fortress in Europe in the noughties.
WGS had a squad of less than 30 all first team players many internationalists.
I don’t think it is co-incidental that we did better in Europe before “moneyball”.
I think it is more than co-incidental.
Whether the catch all term “Moneyball” was used at the time or not I can’t recall. I think it was bandied about before the film ever came out, is my recollection but it was “Speculate to accumulate” that was the counter criticism to whatever is applied by our Brian Quinn inspired strategy. The point is that a different strategy was there immediately on MON leaving. Many Seville players quickly left the room, some were already out of the team picture like Lambert, with the notable exception of Neil Lennon (and Bobo Balde but the strategy was applied to him). Stan Petrov, to his credit, behaved honourably in his departure.
We may not have had fully developed Moneyball as we were still buying mature players with little sell on value, like Zurawski, but, most of the bigger purchases were eminently sellable (just as at Ajax), though shopping in that market left us more vulnerable to buying duds. This is in contrast to the MON big buys, and wages, who left without much profit to us- Sutton, McNamara, or Hartson, plus the frozen out Thompson and Balde. Even Agathe did not fetch what he was potentially worth. MON may have had fewer duds but he earned us very little in the transfer market.
During our high water mark Euro achievements (with both WGS and NFL) the club were getting it in the neck regularly as we were still pining for a return to the MON approach.
My point though was this, if you are going to compare records between managers then that’s what you do, of course it can be subjective and in that case you do a bit of analysis with it that fholk could look at and agree or disagree (as on your Europa League conjecture).”
I think that’s a very fair point and I try hard not to cherrypick or revise history. Two of the main differences between the MON era and what followed were:-
1) MON got us back as a semi-relevant club on the Euro stage where we had been absent as a relevant club since either 1974 or 1980 , at best.
2) The full impact of Bosman, CL elite clubs and the distortion of TV money was in an earlier stage and the gap to a Juventus or a Liverpool was not as big as it subsequently became.
Nevertheless, we have to acknowledge that WGS had disasters in Artmedia and Aalborg, but Artmedia apart, we were pretty competitive in our away defeats (and yes a defeat is a defeat) with 3:0 defeats at Old Trafford and Benfica being the worst.
NFL, despite getting the last 16 in 2013 had a longer run of poor Euro performances (Braga,, Utrecht, Sion, and Karagandy, so it is not all about the gap to the big teams in these comparisons. It is also about doing well against lesser clubs or near equals, such as Dinamo Zagreb or AEK).
In the spirit off fully acknowledging our Euro weaknesses, Brendan contributed a Red Imps defeat, scary performances in Astana and Be’er Sheva, record defeats in Barcelona and Paris, and a failure vs AEK. Alongside that, he had to his credit, 2 promising performances against Man City and an away win in Belgium. All the rest of his 42 Euro ties were either par for our position in Europe or sub-par.
Brendan, sadly, while raising our domestic performances, did not do well in Europe. The evidence is just not there.
so the petition says the following
“Celtic FC states that it is a club for all, open to all. Does this include gambling addicts? ”
the answer to that is yes
i once asked the question on here about what people take from the phrase ‘a club open to all’
unfortunately a few of the 1 brain cell brigade couldnt handle it and just hit back with idiot remarks
so i took that as them wanting the club to be open to “all” – so that must include nazis, rapists, war criminals etc
so if fans are willing to welcome those type of people into the club, then i definitely think we should be open to gambling addicts
Big Jimmy
I’m dredging my mind here – but I also vaguely remember a trophy for a six a side tournament ? Maybe others will remember.
That Celtic team, along with the Brazilians in ’70, were the best thing that ever happened to the game.
HH
There’s quite a difference from being “open to gambling addicts” to actively enabling this brutal and life-wrecking addiction.
All in my humble opinion of course!
HH
“There’s quite a difference from being “open to gambling addicts” to actively enabling this brutal and life-wrecking addiction.”
—-
so a badly worded petition?
TEUCHTER ÁR LÁ on 18TH APRIL 2019 9:26 AM
Big Jimmy
I’m dredging my mind here – but I also vaguely remember a trophy for a six a side tournament ? Maybe others will remember.
That Celtic team, along with the Brazilians in ’70, were the best thing that ever happened to the game.
HH
……………………………..
Again with the utmost respect…..
Matt McGinn certainly wasn’t singing/ or including any victory in a 6-a-side Tourney, that we MAY have won that Year also ?
It was the Victory and the Trophy we received after gubbing Real Madrid, 1-0.
HH
You’d have to take that up with the STH who started the petition – above my pay grade :)))
However, . I fully support the sentiment and concern behind it and find it reprehensible that our club is making decisions such as these.
It appears that the welfare and mental health of the Celtic family is a poor second to the bank balance.
HH
Celtic : A club open to all, is a self explanatory simplistic statement that even those of us with ” one brain cell” can interpret in the manner it is described.
Like No other
What do you think would be the outcome for gambling addicts if Celtic Celtic , after reviewing the decision, decided to cut links with the gambling industry?
Your efforts in this matter speak well of you but I feel the answer lies in treating the CAUSE of addictions.
Off out on the bike now.
JJ
One Celtic would have sufficed !
SFtBs @ 8:59 AM,
Yes, the Micheal Lewis book was certainly out but maybe speculate to accumulate (StoA) is a better expression.
At the time of WGS my opinion was the Board got it right. We had been spending money on the prospect of an EPL invite that never came. We had gone into debt, nothing unmanageable but it had to be sorted.
As you say it wasn’t long after WGS took over that our StoA policy took hold. Although we certainly were still buying experienced players that could go straight into the first team.
Now a criticism of MO’N was always the lack of opportunity for Celtic youngsters, although a few reached the squad only Maloney and McGeady got through, Wallace, JFK should be mentioned.
Under Gordon a lot more youngsters got into the squad but were they good enough, Caddis, O’Dea, McGowan, Conroy, McGovern etc.
Also we brought in many prospects, Sno worth a punt no doubt, Ben Hutchinson, not so much.
It was then our squads enlarged, initially I thought this was the way to go. Prospects and Academy lhads. Supplementing the squad.
As things went the squad got too big, with some noticeable exceptions we were not very good at implementing the StoA. The squad had less and less first team players, more and more prospects and projects coming in.
Yet we have continued this for ten years. My initial support of the strategy has waned, basically for the reasons stated, we have got the player mix all wrong and we are just not very good at implementing this.
As a wiser man than I once said, “when the facts change, I change my mind.”
Yes, many of us endured decades of Celtic irrelevance in Europe and that may becoming the case again but there’s no doubt we’ve had opportunities to build on European success that wasn’t taken.
For all my criticism of Paul67s leader a couple of points re BR. Our hammering at the hands of Europe’s elite could have been minimized (thought Dembele lost a lot of heart that night in Paris) and our home record in Europe was relatively poor.
Could BR and his team have got that right? Possibly!?
We’ll never know.
Hail Hail
HOT SMOKED on 18TH APRIL 2019 9:46 AM
Like No other
What do you think would be the outcome for gambling addicts if Celtic Celtic , after reviewing the decision, decided to cut links with the gambling industry?
Your efforts in this matter speak well of you but I feel the answer lies in treating the CAUSE of addictions.
Off out on the bike now
——————————————————————-
Thanks for your thoughts HS. I feel that Celtic have crossed a line here, from sponsorship to actively encouraging supporters to gamble.
I appreciate that there will be some on here who will disagree but to my mind, this is much more than just a name across a shirt.
For my part, I’m calling on Celtic to review this particular decision wrt Mr Green.
Enjoy your bike ride!
HH
CELTIC40ME on 17TH APRIL 2019 10:49 PM
“Pep has won 2 champions leagues in ten years with the Barcelona of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta, Bayern Munich and now City. He’s not been in a final since 2011. Is that not just choking? It felt like it tonight, against a spurs team without their best player and half a team at walking pace at the end
If he doesn’t win the league this season that’ll be one league in three years in the EPL.”
*****
It wasn’t Pep who missed the penalty, or who had 2 terrible first touches leading to goals over the 2 legs.
Some great managers would have been delighted with 2 Big Cups.
As for the leagues, 3 in Spain, 3 in Germany, both including 2 doubles, as well as the one in England, so far.
In the last 2 seasons he has amassed 183 points in yet another of Europe’s top leagues, with 5 games still to play, with his team playing some wonderful football in the process (no Xavi, Iniesta, nor GOAT)
The better side lost last night, but I’d imagine the Scousers might think that their priority, the Premiership title, might have been made a little bit harder to achieve now.
I think Pep’s job is safe, whatever happens in the remainder of the season.
CHAIRBHOY on 17TH APRIL 2019 6:03 PM
TIMALOY29 @ 4:53 PM,
Not the way I see it.
Celtic played a semi-final on Sunday, Lenny used 14 players, although Brendan Rodgers improved many of those ghuys only 4 were BR players.
Our most successful Manager of the PL era and was not backed. In fact none of PL’s managers have done well in Europe.
In the summer BR was planning to build a great Celtic side, not move on. He moved on because like the previous managers he wasn’t backed.
BR would have done great in Europe with the right players of that I’m certain.
Aff Oot
Hail Hail
_____
None of these managers are PL managers. The choice is made by Desmond.
Brendan Rodgers decided that Jack Hendry and Marvin Compper were better for Celtic than Erik Sviatchenko. That’s nothing to do with money and everything to do with an inability to identify a good defender.
Thank god BR is good at developing players he inherited because he’s certainly not very good at signing them.
“In the summer BR was planning to build a great Celtic side, not move on. He moved on because like the previous managers he wasn’t backed.”
Anybody who knows anything about what was going on this summer knows that he was trying to engineer his way out. Journalists spoke about it as if it was a known fact in the pressroom.
He wanted to go to China and bring Big Moussa with him. The board convinced him to stay on but Leicester were always in the background.
Was BR ‘backed’ when he signed Marvin Compper? was he alerted to his availability, ran the rule over his suitability, and price, then said yes?
This daily ‘since he left’ internet cliché ditching Celtic for ‘not getting backed’ and no other reason, so tiresome and devoid of argument or basis including from the witnesses themselves. Celtic fans can parrot the cliché, but cannot under any circumstances evidence was ‘not backed’ never mind establish it on the basis of SMSM tit bits, the prediliction remains ‘poor Brendan’ . We didn’t get John McGinn or A. N. Other, so BR wasn’t backed, anti Celtic blame culture, that points conveniently to the big bogey man.
Rodgers unlike Owen Coyle’s granny was happy with the budget, when he was selling his autobiographies by the bushel snapped up, by luminaries such as TBB and EC67 to name but two. In the end, he always knew he’d not have £296,550,000 (Milion) to spend, like what he did at Liverpool but it would never have resulted in his P45, either.
Brendan Rodgers’ signings are pretty scary when you list them out. Especially when you consider his best signing, Moussa Dembele had already been identified by the club and pursued under Ronny Deila.
Jury is out: Gutman, Perez, Bayo, Shved, Arzani
Good signings: Benkovic, Weah, Sinclair, Edouard, Bain, Ntcham, Dembele
Poor: Toljan, Burke, Mulumbu, Hendry, Musonda, Morgan, Compper, Benyu, Kouassi, Gamboa, De Vries, Kolo Toure
Average (not bad player but we maybe could have done without): Hayes, Izaguirre
___
If you think about our core group during the invincibles season: Gordon, Tierney, Sviatchenko/Boyata, Simunovic, Lustig, Brown, Armstrong/Rogic, Forrest/Roberts, Sinclair, McGregor, Dembele/Griffiths.
Rodgers only added Sinclair and Dembele to what we already had.
How did the squad evolve? Has Rodgers management of the squad really improved it since then?
TIMALOY29 @ 11:05 AM,
Firstly apologies, looks like you were talking about next summer and me last Summer.
Interesting take on managers, once again I’ve got a different version of the roles and responsibilities in Celtic FC. If Desmond Dermot does hire the Managers what does our Chief Exec do?
It’s a puzzle because he’s not responsible for any of our Football issues… that’s been focussed on Brendan Rodgers and now he doesn’t appoint the Manager and Coaching staff.
If this is the case he can have very few roles and responsibilities. Of course we don’t actually know that the case because we don’t know what those are.
There is no openness and transparency.
However his salary and huge bonus would suggest he’s responsible for something.
I’ve said on many occasions and repeated in a comment earlier that the issues with Celtic recruitment spans several Managers and is systemic.
Now I accept totally after last summer’s debacle that BR was always going to leave, however it is my opinion that if he was backed he would certainly have stayed longer.
Even, having been backed, if he left this summer we would have a squad worth £150m with players the likes of Dembele for the off, the new manager could build on a very strong team. A clear out would be needed whomever was in charge.
It was always a win-win.
A smooth transition with a like for like management /coaching team coming in.
There is several China-crisis sagas doing the rounds all that I’ve heard and seen materially different so unless you can fill me in on the “true story” I’ll give that nonsense a wide berth.
What we do know is how the recruitment policy is supposed to work. Let me give you an example of its failure last Summer.
Firstly what happens…
Brendan Rodgers highlights a position that needs strengthening
Lee Congerton puts forward the candidates
Peter Lawwell negotiates the transfer.
Now John McGinn was requested for the mf role, BR felt he needed a replacement for Gary Armstrong.
John McGinn wanted to come to Celtic, Hibs didn’t play JMcG in the European qualifiers so he wouldn’t be cup tied.
Celtic failed to close the deal, even though they had first dibs and Scott Allan as a make weight (save some wages an awe).
He went to Aston Villa for £2.7m.
Celtic brought in Mulumbu on a free.
Peter Lawwell told the AGM that he was satisfied they had done everything they could to bring him to Celtic.
It is a failure that is often repeated and it’s no wonder why managers get frustrated.
Another point on John McGinn. When he was at St Mirren there were a lot of guys came on here and said Celtic out to buy him. Where is our scouts in this regard. At least a dozen Celtic supporters are playing in the English Premier and Championship that would have loved to go to Celtic. Many of them highlighted here before their move South.
No, our recruitment is very, very poor and it can’t be pinned on Brendan Rodgers.
If there is a marked improvement by our next manager I may have to rethink but not holding my breath;)
Hail Hail
Rather bemused at the outrage re Mr Green. Celtic are sponsored by a betting company and a drinks company but Supporters buy the shirts nonetheless. At the end of the day people will gamble and drink irrespective of what Celtic do or don’t do.
Hail hail
BSR
i dont discount or necessarily disagree but you failed to mention the right back and the centre half we didnt get, think we are all guilty at times of revisionism?
asking for a friend CSC
Big Eck has been mutually-consented.
McLeish bagged
Big Eck gone, surely not………………………………….
Schadenfruede CSC (All copyrighted by BSR)
Chairbhoy, I don’t know what happened behind the scenes last summer, and neither do you.
We didn’t get John McGinn; but we did “find” Ryan Christie, who was on his way out till BR was just about forced to play him. Positive result for us.
You blandly say that we should have/could have kept Dembele; you don’t know if that was possible.
If BR was angling for a move during the window, PL would have been negligent had he allowed signings, only for BR to leave suddenly. We will never know the full story, so it’s maybe unwise to base your views re the board on guesswork by commentators, most of whom hate Celtic, and love to cause divisions among us,
GO TELL THE SPARTIM
Too right, thats what the internet is for, shirley?
In fact I mentioned both of those positions just the other day, and how I long that the next manager fills them.
“Not being backed” is a sweeping generalisation and because we didn’t fill those two positions doesn’t prove
the manager ( who ever it is ) wasn’t backed IMHO
We do not know why the RB chose Valencia in the end, or John McGinn chose Aston Villa, but I prefer Celtic’s position and stay away from blaming bogey men, its easy to do that, when you look at the list of names we have signed since 2003, never mind treble, trebles or 10 in a row.
HH
Betting on Scotland job ?
Draw up a list of people who have a EBT bill on their desk and
eliminate as appropriate
BSR…the internet is for speculating about what goes on behind the scenes at Celtic and then posting it as Fact….(and that’s a fact!)
JC2 on 18TH APRIL 2019 12:35 PM
Betting on Scotland job ?
Draw up a list of people who have a EBT bill on their desk and
eliminate as appropriate
————————————————————————————————————
Funnily enough , that’s exactly what the SFA are doing right now.
new article posted.
How can you sack a man when World Cup success was within tangible reach???
CHAIRBHOY on 18TH APRIL 2019 11:45 AM
Interesting take on managers, once again I’ve got a different version of the roles and responsibilities in Celtic FC. If Desmond Dermot does hire the Managers what does our Chief Exec do?
____
Peter Lawwell will be involved in the process. He may advise the board or speak to a manager or their agent on behalf of the board.
But Lawwell reports to the board. He doesn’t have the authority to decide such things without them.
The Chief Exec has many duties within the non-footballing side of the business. His involvement on the football side is usually financial. This includes negotiating contracts on behalf of the club.
__
John McGinn wanted to come to Celtic, Hibs didn’t play JMcG in the European qualifiers so he wouldn’t be cup tied.
___
Hibs did play in the qualifiers. He scored against Asteras Tripolis and was cup tied for the Celtic qualifiers.
Hibs also allowed McGinn to travel to Birmingham, meet Steve Bruce for dinner, agree personal terms and have a medical without agreeing the final fee.
Celtic matched the bid and Rodgers spoke to McGinn but he had decided he wanted to go to Villa instead of Celtic.
It was his decision.
It wasn’t in Hibs interest to sell McGinn prior to playing the Europa League qualifiers (much like Celtic did with Van Dijk)
They waited as long as they could and sold McGinn on the final day of the English transfer window.
We don’t have the correspondence between Celtic and Hibs. Maybe Celtic were penny pinching over a couple of hundred grand or maybe Hibs were demanding significantly more than the accepted from Villa.
It’s important to point out how disliked Celtic are and most Scottish clubs would much rather sell to England. We will see this come through when we try to sign McKenna.
TIMALOY
Stern appraisal of some of our squad:
Bit too premature for me to judge Morgan, Kouassi as Poor. They can come good, like Ryan did.
I’d quickly move from POOR to AVERAGE the following; Toljan, Toure and Gamboa, (who I think’s been escape-goated more than need be).
I also think Burke is a real player just looking for the right position.
HH