Brendan Rodgers declared himself delighted with his first transfer window as Celtic manager, which is now over, after the additions of Kolo Toure, Scott Sinclair, Moussa Dembele, Dorus de Vries and Cristian Gamboa.
Toure, Dembele and Sinclair, the managers three primary targets, were acquired early, while de Vries and right back, Gamboa, were added recently. Deals went close to the wire today but the hoped-for midfield player (which was never James McCarthy) didn’t materialise.
A permanent deal for a (known around these parts) central defender to backfill Jozo Simunovic, who was wanted by Torino, couldn’t be tied up either, so Torino also look to have missed their target.
You’ll hear direct from the manager soon enough but he’s got the calibre of recruit he wanted – which he didn’t know would be possible three months ago.
There was never anything possible to make a formidable Champions League group look any easier, but we’ll compete at the top table, and we’ll wipe the floor with all-comers domestically.
More tomorrow.
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I’m happy with what we got. But that’s normal for me.
Quality midfielder. Defensive?
We have many midfielders available that haven’t been given a chance. Christie and Henderson in particular. Armstrong, like Christie, played as a left winger provides no chance to evaluate.
We still have Ajer. Again only seen fleetingly and even that was a centre back.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Roberts and Gamboa combine. Where does the rejuvenated James Forrest fit in. Sinclair and Tierney on the left. Griff up front. Dembele to hit his stride, I hope.
At the back we have Erik and Kolo. Simo, Lustig, Efe and Boyata as back up.
Tom Rogic now completing 90 minutes, scoring in the last minutes to dispel the lack of stamina myth. He always had it, but would get hooked after 60 minutes. How does that help you prove / build stamina?
Bitton is still the major under performer in mid. And I can see Broony getting rested ahead of big games.
Roll on the 10th when I won’t be attending, out of choice, but my sons will be utilising my season tickets. I’d prefer they didn’t but can’t deny them their right to experience the “occasion”.
Hail, Hail.
The midfield is crying out for improvement ,which was clear to everyone . The opportunity to rectify the midfield situation has now gone . It’s very disappointing , but what is more disappointing is that it looks like Brendan is not in sole charge of football matters . I would have thought bringing in a coach of his calibre ,he would have been given the reigns on team matters , full control . Brendan Rodgers knows what is required in the team . He wanted a midfielder , what stopped him getting one .
SUPERSUTTON –
Good post.
I am told Brendan rates Kristoffer Ajer very highly and possibly sees him as a defensive midfield option, but he wants to groom him carefully rather than throw him in too soon.
I was very impressed with the young Norwegian againt Inter in Limerick, the way he read the game and his positional sense and distribution against vastly more senior and more experienced opponents
Given time, he could be the answer to our defensive midfielder conundrum.
VFR800A8
_____________________________________________________
Beatbhoy, the section of the Liquidation Act you quite relates to the names of the Companies that ran Rangers Football Club (1872 to 2012) and The Rangers (2012 till present).
The names Rangers/The Rangers are those by which the old and new clubs were/are known in the footballing arena; therefore it’s why Celtic use that name.
As for why it’s Rangers rather than The Rangers that is used; that will be in a similar to our use of Hearts and Hibs rather Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian.”
*****
Sorry, missed your reply at the time Too busy making lists!
Interesting, how you seem to be treating the club as separate from the company to make your point about to whom the section of the Act on prohibited names refers.
The “footballing arena” here also has a four year old club listed on an official website as having 54 top tier titles to its name, as well as dozens of other trophies.
So Celtic should go along with that too, then?
We’ll see what the programme says before the farce o’clock kick-off.
Hearts, Hibernian, call them what we want. They didn’t go bust, so no need to differentiate, as there is with Sevco.
Hail! Hail!!
Morning Bhoys well thats the window closed until January and for me we faired ok we have a pool of players who should be good enough to sweep the board in Scotland.Now the CL is different I dont believe there was any player who we could have brought in who would have made us challengers in the group so for me Brendan can sort things out in the mid field for europe in the next transfer window ready for the CL play offs.H.H.
Saint Stivs
Fat fingers contrived that one :-)
LHR T5
HH
JIMTIM –
You can’t have it both ways. Since the new signings arrived we have been told on here ad infinitum that Rodgers was in full control of team matters and that Lawwell had been pushed aside.
As soon as an attempted signing doesn’t materialise, we’re now back to Lawwell’s running the show and Brendan’s a puppet.
Oh well, there it is then.
Where do we stand?
Keeper
Competition for places, probably as string as we’ve been in years.
Right back
Still a bit slim with Janko gone, Lustig is fairly injury prone and I think his legs have gone a bit for what’s expected of this position so we might be relying on the development squad for backup.
Centre back
Now that Jozo has remained we’ve got a lot of numbers. A lot of numbers who shouldn’t be near the first team mind you but 3 or 4 who should be able to form a strong partnership.
Left back
Two good left backs. Barring injury we’re ok here.
Wingers
Two good players and some backup.
Centre mid
We have far too many players but the wrong mix. We must have about 6 or 7 number 10s at the club and don’t really play with that system anymore and it feels like none of them are quite right for the energy needed in the middle. Christie, Armstrong, Commons, Allan (loan), Rogic… They all have potential but I’m not sure any fit the system.
Brown gives drive when he’s on form but when he’s not feeling like receiving the ball from the back it causes problems. Rogic is the only one who can be relied on to take the ball under pressure and that’s one of our main issues.
Bitton is starting to fall into the Samaras category. Everyone can see he could be a top player but he’s languid, and unlike Samaras who I think it was just body language (personally I felt he did put in a shift), I don’t think Bitton does. Henderson is decent I’m just unsure he’s quite the right standard… Yet.
Strikers
Leigh is great and Dembele has raw potential. Would have had a powerhouse striker in an ideal world but we’re relying on development squad or some of the number 10s for backup.
JFH,
I have to agree with much of that. I fully expect us to be way too good for the SPFL and way too poor for the CL. I don’t think there was very much the manager could do to remedy that. Actually, I doubt if there is anything he can do in upcoming windows.
Imo, we need to be stretched here in Scotland on a regular basis and I doubt that is going to happen. Nobody is really going to go toe to toe (copyright McInnes) with us here.
Imo, the true class are not going to come here to play 6 games in the CL. Maybe Ajer might be the real deal.
Bring on the The Rangers.
In short I don’t think we have the right pairing for a midfield 2 in a 442. We’ll get away with it again SPL guff but not against more technically able teams or those who press well. 352 or 433 we’re probably ok.
Forgot Mcgregor but he falls into the number 10 role.
MALONE BHOY –
Right Back
Did you forget about Cristiano Gamboa?
“A Club and Bhlog Undermined By Sleekit(s)……………………”
thur wan objective….
– Snyde, spoiler………….obscuring debate and discourse between good Celtic folk……
(There’s 40 shades of green and probably as many differing opinions within our Support, thankfully we retain the ability to discern the difference between..
…The Guid, The Bad and The Ugly)
;)
HHH.
Just having a read back at last night. Some barely heard from in weeks yet predictable full scale attacks on the PLC. It must have been tough for them in the last few months with things going so well. Of course you will get folk on here who say ahh but they are Celtic fans. Do me a favour. If nothing else it’s embarrassing that they emerge at ANY opportunity to attack Celtic. The lack of balance in their posts smashes their credibility to pieces . It’s not nice to see such angry and bitter people.
SID on 31ST AUGUST 2016 11:46 PM
I tried to temper expectations only 5 days ago when we had posters talking about 10 and 15M spends.
VFR disagreed with me saying we shouldn’t hope we spend 10M strengthening but we should expect it.
Again once it doesn’t transpire VFR Is now telling disappointed posters that they should be happy with beating the rest in our league.
VFR no offence you’re posts are all over the shop, as for Macjay well he just backs the board whatever transpires, so no surprise there.
_________________________________
Sid, I stand by what I said; it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that the Club should go out and spend £10M if they could get the right deal. As The Bunnet said on TV last week, you don’t spend £10M on a £5M player. For the record, I also said I didn’t think James McCarthy was that player.
I still find it strange that many posters on here think pushing a deal through is straightforward. It’s a complex negotiation involving at least 3 parties and at least 1 agent; so never easy. It is also evident that a good number of posters are of the opinion that the Club made no serious attempt to strengthen our weakness in midfield; I suspect they did but couldn’t get the deals they wanted done.
I will state that I am happy with the business in the transfer window; we have had a good window. We have De Vries, Toure, Gamboa, Sinclair, Dembele, Ajer and Crossan in this summer. Ajer will, I think, get game time this season but it’s unlikely Crossan will. The 4 of other 5 will be regular starters and Dembele will feature regularly either as a starter or from the bench.
Would I have liked a Wanyama style defensive midfielder? Yes I would. Do I think it’s the end of the world we didn’t get one? No it’s not. It means that Brendan Rodgers and the coaching staff need to work harder with the players to get the right formation for us, but I am sure it will work out. We have a strong enough team to dominate in Scotland: that’s our bread and butter. I think we will do better than many think I Europe and with a wee bit of luck could get third place. We will, IMHO, pick up points at home. It’s unlikely that we will get anything at Camp Nou or the Etihad. As it was with any Group draw, we are realistically aiming for 3rd place against Borrusia Monchengladbach and our games against them will define our progress. We are good enough to get a home win against them; how we do in Germany and at home against Barca and Man City will be the litmus test.
I ask myself the question: could I have hoped for this progress at the end of last season’s Scottish Cup semi-final? No I couldn’t. Am I happy at what we have achieved? Damn right I am. Could we have done more? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean I’m howling at the moon and berating anyone and everyone. We are where we are and I accept that. We WILL be stronger at the end of January and again this time next year. There’s still a lot to be grateful for, so I am!
KTF
Auld Tam on 1st September 2016 8:13 am
JIMTIM –
You can’t have it both ways. Since the new signings arrived we have been told on here ad infinitum that Rodgers was in full control of team matters and that Lawwell had been pushed aside.
As soon as an attempted signing doesn’t materialise, we’re now back to Lawwell’s running the show and Brendan’s a puppet.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Spot on. Rome was not built in a day.
I’v argued with Huns when they get pissed at me calling the new club Sevco, and I tell them, don’t get upset at me calling the new club Sevco, because it doesent bother me at all when you choose to call them Rangers, you call them what you want, I’ll call them by they’r name.
That when you strange looks on they’r faces like this.
https://youtu.be/_8H-bZiyuLU
Have a look at this.
A famous Italian club who were liquidated at the turn of the new millenium.
Re-established under a ‘slightly’ different name and ‘demoted’ from the first tier to the fourth.
Fought their way back to the top flight over a decade ago, and changed their name again but ever so slightly.
To all intents and purposes they are ‘the same club.’
Sound familiar?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACF_Fiorentina
HH!!
THTIMREAPER –
Spot on.
I’d like to add that some of the abuse meted out to Paul67 was beyond the pale.
James McCarthy, in summary,
Where we even interested?
Is he good enough?
Does he represent value for money at £50k a week and £10m+?
Is he fit?
Don’t know
Probably
No
And No
Why are Celtic fans in such a state over this?
Thetimreaper
Those of whom you speak may well be Celtic fans but, to paraphrase Paul 67, they are a part of our Club I could do without.
JJ
PS Before knickers are twisted, I am NOT stifling debate. I am sure most posters are aware of the type to whom I refer.
Tallybhoy
What’s Italian for Sevco??
Good enough to win the league.
Might just scrape third place in CL, though it’s very unlikely.
Season books sold well.
Old Firm well on its way to being reestablished.
Job Done.
Some amount of whingers on CQN now, first transfer window for the new boss and most are moaning.
One more player be it a midfield man or a striker wont make a blind bit of difference in the CL group stages.
We will still struggle away from home in the group stages.
As THETIMREAPER say’s
Why are Celtic fans in such a state over this?
THE TIMREAPER –
Paul67 told us on Tuesday afternoon that Celtic had no interest in McCarthy. All day yesterday Sky Sports Deadline Day linked him with 3 possible destinations. Not once was Celtic mentioned, all of which would tend to confirm what Paul was telling us, yet in the early hours of this morning, we had posters slaughtering the club for “losing out on McCarthy”.
SID
“Yes, very good post, however you do miss the point somewhat.
We have a weak area of our team that needed strengthening, we have failed to attempt to fix it. ”
You and I have no idea if we made any “attempt” to fix this weakness. All we know is that we did not buy another midfielder to add to the surplus we already have. Brendan is only a month or so into competitive fixtures- let him develop and improve players we have rather than reach for the cheque book solution each time.
Fergus said – “Don’t do bad deals”.
We need to resist the pressure to just buy anyone to show you are listening to the fans. Some of the names touted- even journeymen like Jeff Hendriks , went for amounts that were too rich for our taste.
Reacting to pressure to “just buy someone” leads to Willo Flood and Thomas Gravesen, to Freddie LLjungberg and Ian Wright, to Markus Hedman and Pawel Brozek. It takes a brave and confident manager to say I’d rather go with what I’ve got than just continue to stack the shelves with more of the same.
We didn’t need a midfielder to help us challenge to win the CL group.
We required a solid midfielder to help stop us being embarrassed in the CL group.
That is my Opinion. If your opinion is you are happy with your board failing to back the manager in filling a position he wanted and stated he wanted filled then it’s my opinion you are not supporting your manager in his attempts at strengthening the team to his requirements but backing the accountants.
Show me the balance sheets.
MWD
TALLYBHOY on 1ST SEPTEMBER 2016 8:30 AM
How does the law on corporate insolvency in Italy compare to the law in the UK?
So the spin this morning is we tried to sign James Morrison on loan from West Brom.
Ernie –
As ringleader of the “Old Firm” obsessives, your job will never be done on here.
Right! A £10 million signing would have changed our whole outcome on how our C L travel will take us? IMO I doubt it, then again that’s me.
Brendan Rogers is happy? I’m fine with that, what we have we go with obviously.
Brendan Rogers is not in charge of the club signings? Who are these people? I have my own ideas so I’m not going there, don’t want to upset them as they are to busy with kill ultra these days, so I’ll leave that where it is.
All in all domesticly we are sound, and we’ve qualified for the group stages of the C L I’m happy with that and look forward to the new season ahead, knowing full well that some no matter what will never be happy, and to be honest, I honestly feel sorry for the misery they bring upon themselves.
Lurking Huns and level 5 helpers and the SMSM GIRFUYs
Tony D 67
That clip sure sums Them up !
Tallybhoy
`refounded `? Was the first founding declared a false start ? 0:-))
JJ
West End of East End, was never an issue, I caught the :-)
Jude, mind yer own:-)
Quick flash through the night shift, a couple of rare posters, a few from Rudi surprise, surprise, an interesting newby Beasties Bhoy, my new question to newbies is not, Are you a Hun? it is are you, any of Horrid Henry, Thompson Twin, Fred Quimby,Mr. Pastry.Mats Nilloc and the other 6 or 7 monikers that escape me this morning.
Make no mistake like McArthur, he will be back.
Glad the window is shut was getting a pain in the neck from the draught.
A little disappointed this fine morning but hopefully we will get Jozo back on the pitch soon. He was our “Big” signing but like many “big” signings it hasn’t worked out too well so far.
Hopefully he will now kick on and become the player we hoped for, thus releasing Eric to move forward into a Wanyama type role. If this comes to pass maybe it won’t have been a bad window at all.
SFTB
agree on most of what you say. But I don’t believe Brendan wanted just anyone. I believe he had a target his bosses failed to secure. Now he knows his job, knows the parameters he is to work to. Therefore I suggest his target would be within those set parameters.
That I think we can both agree on.
My opinion and only my opinion. His target failed to materialise because a certain defender failed a medical and therefor failed to move on. So it looks like, again in my opinion, the parameters BR has agreed to work to are not much different to those of his predecessors no matter how much money is brought in from friendlies or future revenue from CL to borrow against. He had his wee but extra and spent it on SS.
Sadly Peter still has too much influence and I for one think it’s Tims to freshen that department and it’s ideas.
MWD
Tallybhoy, there’s a “slight” difference. From the text
“but even this soon proved to be insufficient resources to sustain the club. Fiorentina were relegated at the end of the 2001–02 season and went into judicially-controlled administration in June 2002. This form of bankruptcy (sports companies cannot exactly fail in this way in Italy, but they can suffer a similar procedure) meant that the club was refused a place in Serie B for the 2002–03 season, and as a result effectively ceased to exist.”
KevJ, thanks, heavy duty drugs taking a toll, but a call from Tom Boyd fair lifted her spirits last night.
KickintheNakas, top banana for arranging that:-)
We just cant keep on signing players, at some point we have to take into account what we aready have, 13 midfielders, 13 defenders, all in the first team squad, surely that’ll be enough to get by.