Norwegian football journos I speak to all praise Kristoffer Ajer (17) in the highest terms. The 6’5” midfielder became the youngest captain in Norwegian topflight history when he wore the armband of Start as a 16-year-old last April. He’s a strong and mature individual, apparently.
Despite having made only 36 career starts, Celtic have watched him repeatedly, on top of the loan period he spent at Lennoxtown last month, so they know the player they are getting. The information I hear of him is all positive, but he’ll be learning the game for years, and for the remainder of the year he’ll learn what it’s like to be a Celtic player, something he’ll have little inclination of at the moment.
I like this strategy of recruiting and deploying talent of this age, a policy which has been missing for around 40 years, and has contributed to a similar period of underachievement in producing prodigious talent. It feels right for us.
Welcome to Celtic, Kristoffer.
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@Neg….Reality is a bitch…(you say)12.10am
It does not in any way shape or form have to be.
Believe H.H
Heh Heh ,…Message boys….Flan flingers…Grocery boys…
Heloooooo…H.H
Can see the headlines in the rags now.
…Fenians Flinging Flans Frenzy…
H.H Mick
@MM……LOL.
Distinct lack of music tonight no?
DRAMBOWIECELT
Yes, where is Roy Croppie when we need him?
H.H Mick
MM
Accompanied by a few head buts and boot tae their baws in the flan flying confusion. ;))
YEAH ….Think hes more like Stevie …weekend dude….
Now SFTB can link with the best of them……
Buried my Dear friend Kev on Sat….got back to his house after all the
goodbyes etc….He left me this stuff ..Ronmiel.Guajiro…Honey Rum…
Mabye TET can translate…… anyhoo… 6 bottles to be consumed before him..
What a man ……. RIP…
D D
I can just see them SCRAMBLING for safety.
Think it’s time for my Guinness medication, sleep well bhoys
the future bright it’s green and white.
H.H Mick
Neganon
“Our strategy is not to build a team or get better. It’s simply to make money. We don’t invest that money. We simply make the money to pay DDs dividend. Football results are not part of that strategy.”
That case is overstated. Of course we are very interested in the team, but not at any price. If the job was just to make money – we’d just sell them all and the stadium and the assets. There is a cycle where we sell any players that the predator leagues and predator clubs can prise away from us . Then we re-build with whoever we can predate upon. And whether Lawwell or DD were there, that reality goes on, just as it does for their equivalents at Anderlecht and Ajax and Legia and Sparta Prague. You live and survive in a real world. Not one where every player bought is an instant success, a lifelong fan who will never leave no matter the wages and triumphs on offer elsewhere, and a new Scottish golden generation comes along that we get the pick of. In the absence of this, we survive and get along as best we can. Any dividends paid out do not alter our stars or our riches by much and you know DD has a hand in many more pies that make much more money than Celtic plc dividends make him. For him, its small change that he can lose down the back of the sofa; for us it is our precious team. And football results do matter- otherwise we would just try and lose everything because a win and a cup and a title cost us bonus money for players that could otherwise be given over to build a 4th runway on PL’s heated drive.
“The board and the supporters are not goal congruent. We are divided.
And we do not run the strategy of wanting a successful football club”
Never are and never will be. As fans we want new and better players all the time. So does a manager who is trying to build his rep. But somebody has to be the grown up adult who says “I’m no buying you anymore- you’ve had enough for today (this season). Otherwise, if we answer fans calls, we end up paying whatever the selling club wants (just pay it!) and punting expensively bought players at a massive loss 3 months after they have failed to live up to overblown expectations (just punt him and take the financial bath). Fans as finance managers would bankrupt us at both ends. Only the fan run clubs that are created after a brush with bankruptcy or created after such an actual experience, are capable of showing the prudence necessary to plan for the future.
Even without PL, DD and whatever other “pesky kids” you can name that, “if it weren’t for them”, we’d be up with Juve, Man City and Real, our financial strategy would be based on staying alive in a rigged game where the Bosman ruling, TV money and the CL expenditure treadmill is too rich for anyone outside of the big leagues and the sugar-daddy run clubs. If it were not so, we would see clubs in small leagues, such as Scotland, following this speculate to accumulate, don’t sell stars (just keep them unhappy or not) let them leave on a Bosman, reduced squads playing kids, and yet remaining relevant in any, even minor, European setting.
I look around and I see no clubs like that. Ajax are in our boat- so are Anderlecht and others- occasional visitors to the top table but no threat to the big eaters at that table. There are some 2nd tier clubs like Benfica and Shakter who have done a better job, by accessing Brazil and S. America, and being selling clubs in a richer neighbourhood, but they all have advantages in population, finance and markets that we don’t.
It is a hell of a lot easier to just scapegoat it and say they don’t care- the players or the CEO or the majority shareholder- because it is true- they don’t care in the way we do- and if they did- they’d be prone to the same volatile, knee jerk, emotional over-reactions that we are. I prefer sober and level headed people to be in charge of the more serious side of the business.
I am off to bed now- catch any replies later.
SFTB ..YER AFF TAE bed? fsake nae wunder………..
18 words max……..
ye sent yerself tae sleep……
H.H.
Drambowiecelt, RIP to your friend Kev. He,s left you a fine legacy.
Im very much looking forward to seeing our new Norgie kicka baw, looks like a very astute signing.
Negnon, you said some time ago “Celtic are dead”. Is there a point to your continued posting or do you just do it to get on everyones tits? You,re a moserable prick but I sincerely hope your life takes a turn for the better. Maybe one day you will become posinon1.
Having a night in fun city after the game on sat so hopefully see some Tims in aftermath of pumpin the northern cludgers.
HH Celtic men and wummin & gender non specufic tims…………like Mags McG
A Celier…..Thank You…
And remember Rust Never Sleeps
Im intae my Third DAY god help me.
H.H.
Drambowie..you did! :)
SFTB …true but its more complicated than that…no need to answer … I gottit!
ACGR.. I can assure you specufucally that my genitalia are intact.
Good night
HH
Hail Hail the Angus Goat Protection League, a fine body of men. During the hun rampage through their “journey”, not a single goat was bum savaged in Brechin, Forfar, Arbroath or Montrose.
Those guys did a fine job, especially in Brechin where goats were always on the risk register.
HH the AGPL
A Ceiler Gonof Rust on 18th February 2016 1:10 am
Your kiddin me?
@Mags…Hit me with your rhythm stick…
Whilst you caress…..The Tic..
Aye maggie, but what shape and state are they in……….?
Graffitionthewall, see you sat bruv
HH Love Celtic warts, farts n all.
Mags, naw nay kid…..in.
Mibbe yer wee bro can come out to play on sat. He,s a bad influence and Im easily led.
Love the wee guy so a day.
A Ceiler Gonof Rust on 18th February 2016 1:19 am
Me too! we all do!
:)
Feck me…i hope weans dont read that 1.10am post…]
Alister Crowley Scary……….
ACGR. Celtic are dead but we need to reinvent Celtic.
We have a somewhat chequered history. But we need to reinvent what Celtic is. That’s what they have driven us to.
There may be a bright future but not by the failures who currently hold the power.
SFTB you are simply making increasingly desperate excuses for a terrible terrible performance by our board.
@NEG…..Please listen to youself…..(Celtic are Dead) REALLY?
Celts will be be Alive and Cooking when your family are givin it ]Y.N.W.A
for your nice funeral…..
Cmon relax..and enjoy five in a row Mojo….
H.H.
Emdae do links?
Lady Stardust………………
Neg, what does that mean? Reinvent, is that like bringing them back from the dead? I know huns that think coming back from liquidation is possible, but FFS, the Lazarous project is a non starter.
We,re either dead or we,re not. You are wrong and your continued posting proves your prevoius “dead” bed wetting shite to be just that i.e. shite.
Other than that, a pretty positive entry bro.
Keep the smile going.
Anyway …Feck this….Kev YOU Bassa……I’ve got hills to climb as you know..
So Farewell …And Know yer Honey Rum is Downed….
Well nearly………Thanks Kate if yer Lurkin…xx
H.H
Ha ha, only popped on to see if I could get neg to repeat the celtic are dead line.
Cheers neg, see you at game of the dead on sarurday, or maybe not.
I forgot how much fun you could have on here with deranged ex tims.
I might talk to donily toady next, thats a step down thow.
Sumday thiriow me undir s buss, ffs
ACGR stop pretending you are dumb (to us and yourself). The current board have killed Celtic just as much as liquidation killed the Hun. Legally we didn’t die. That’s the only difference.
I just wonder when we will come back from the dead.
Not anytime soon it seems.
Goodnight all.
Acgr your missing Lesley Judds @@@@ on Film Four, I’m sitting here with a Whiskey in one hand and my fav part of my body in the other having a grand old time ;)
Ed K, ha aha ha, dont strain yoursef bud.
Wish Id recorded that. She,s a wee topper and a wrist strainer anaw………don t tell bxg:_)
Good morning friends and wakey wakey from a crisp, dry and yet again frosty East Kilbride.
Morning Jobo and any other CQN Bhoys up at this time
HH
I thoroughly enjoyed the Nottingham Forest documentary the other night on Bt. Clough was a true genius and there are similarities between him and Stein, in that they took a team/club going nowhere, to the pinnacle of European football. For Gemmell, McNeill, Murdoch, Johnstone and Lennox, read Clarke, Bowyer, Anderson, Woodcock and Robertson.
Forest came from mid table second division in late 76 to only just gain promotion by end of season. To then overcome Liverpool the following season and actually be Champions with two games left, was nothing short of miraculous. Remember, this was the season Dalglish went to the European Champions and although he was a sensation, finished behind Forest. Clough’s achievements defied belief and like Stein, he did it with arguably one World class player, Peter Shilton.
The ‘new’ politics in Scotland.
“OK so we know that we can’t continue to con people that this indy thing would leave Scotland other than bankrupt with a fiscal shortfall of £15 billion per year and rising – so let’s syphon-off as much as we can, before the sheep find out”
http://www.scottishreview.net/KennethRoy40a.html
Despite all the knockers ( ooooh Mrs ) and general negativeness about celtic – i felt a wee buzz as usual when I drove down London Rd this morning
Roll on Saturday
Goooooood morning Vietnam!!!!
TBJ
Works every time for me too mate.
I agree with where, Neganon2 is coming from.
Ah mean, when was the last time that you seen a ‘Celtic’ team on the pitch ?
When was the last time that Celtic Park, felt like Celtic Park ?
When ‘ever’…have the custodians made you feel that, we’re all on the same page ?
The Kelly’s & White’s locked the Celtic supporters out of the club.
The McCann takeover was ‘supposed’ to end with, Celtic supporters in control of the club ?
What happened there ?
What should not be forgotten here is that, Celtic supporters ‘over-subscribed’ several share-issues which were used to build the stadium – YOUR stadium.
McCann put £9 million of his own money into Celtic and, walked away with almost £50 million.
McCann could have had Celtic playing in the English league within weeks of his take-over.
Ernie Walker – Head SFA Honcho – at the time, threatened to put Celtic out of football if….they didn’t pay exorbitant fees for renting Hampden.
Why did Fergus not call a media conference and…tell the world what was going on in Scottish football ?
If Fergus was the hero that, a lot of Celtic supporters seem to think, why did he take that threat on the chin ?
I’ll tell you why.
Because Fergus was ‘sneaky’ when he took over the club.
He was digging tunnels under the rebels and, wanted it all for himself.
He boxed himself into a corner and, had to kowtow to the anti-Celtic SFA.
Michael Kelly might have been a wrong guy at the wrong time but, he was right when he said that – “Celtic had lost their soul under McCann.”
Why did Fergus wait until….days before his departure till he took out Farry ?
I’ll tell you why.
Coz he was ‘sneaky’ again.
He knew that by taking out Farry that, The SFA would come back for revenge and that the remaining Celtic custodians were not equipped to deal with that.
Fergus had brought in DD who invested £4 million into the club.
How much has DD taken back out of the club in the years since ?
Why have we not been told ?
Maybe Mr Pastry will reveal all ?
Getting to the gist of it….
Celtic supporters were duped….on a grand-scale in 1994 or, 1999 rather as that’s when Fergus departed.
Fergus waited 3 years to get a manager that would stop the huns bludgeoning their way 10 in a row.
Wim and Murdo were hunted out the door as Fergus more or less said – “Fluk the fans, Wim & Murdo will be gotten rid of….Jock Brown stays!”
Martin O’Neill was brought in much later on and brought, superb success for the fans with his hunskelping teams and, European finals and, was downsized out the door, smoke screened by the sad illness to his wife which, although was unfortunate….it got the board off the hook re: MO’N’s departure.
Since MO’N’s departure….the Celticness died at Celtic Park….imho.
Neil Lennon resurrected it for the first 2 season’s that he was in charge but, when the board tried to reign him in whilst he brought the cheating referee’s society to their knees then, threw him to the evil-hun-devil-dogs after the ‘shame-game’ where, Celtic had 3 players booked….Celtics’ hierarchy attended a hastily convened Govt-Summit and, effectively sold Celtic’s soul on your behalf.
So, Neganon2 is correct.
On the day that the hierarchy attended a Govt-summit…Mississippi style….Celtic died.
All that remains now is for the died-huns to come back and, mibbery the stake through the Celtic carcass’s heart.
So sad.
….laters….
oh dear
the flaky one has clearly read this mornings scottish political news and his puppet masters have laid the blame firmly at his door
he has been told to ramp up his agitprop on this and other non political blogs so be prepared for many non footballing words of wisdom