Yesterday @SwissRamble on Twitter dissected Celtic’s finances. His conclusions are as expected, “[Celtic] are in good shape financially… thanks to their sustainable approach, though this owes a lot to their player trading model. Champions League qualification is also important, so the expanded format should help future prospects.”
Player trading is worth exploring. We have had the Asset Management conversation on CQN since our early weeks (2004), “Manage your assets or fail to manage your assets”. Recently, when we wanted to transform our worst season in over a decade, we sold our top striker (Edouard) and our top defender (Ajer) and acquired Kyogo, Jota, Carter-Vickers and others. It’s hard to believe how controversial this was in the early days of CQN, now we have seen the evidence, everyone gets it.
There needs to be clear objectives, though, what are we managing assets for? There are two fundamental targets I think we can all agree on:
Win the league.
Qualify for the Champions League group stage.
The latter will sometimes be fulfilled by the former. After a few years in the Champions League wilderness you might have convinced yourself that this is enough. I read plenty of glowing comments from the “Just being there” brigade, reflecting in the glory of attacking against a vastly superior opponent who scored eight against us over two games.
This is not for me and I believe that it is not sustainable either. Two, maybe three, seasons of cannon fodder in the Champions League and you’ll never hear from the “Just being there” types again. We need to compete, have genuine hopes of reaching the knock out stages and I believe this is achievable.
Having lived through a quadruple treble and now two nine-in-a-rows, I don’t want to settle for a perennial nip-and-tuck title race. I don’t just want to win the league this season, I want to win the league every season. Giovanni van Bronckhorst got perilously close to delivering a European trophy for Newco. If there is any stasis around Celtic Park right now, we will soon lose our dominant position.
But how, how do we make the great leap? You can vary a few metrics around the edges, but player trading is where it’s at. This is the only route open to us, we need to be better at it (despite the plaudits from Swiss Ramble) and we need to do much more of it. Always be ready to trade, be ready to sell and have thoroughly assessed replacements lined up. Don’t wait until our top talent has one or two years left on a contract, then stalls on a new deal with an eye over the border, which is where we have been recently.
The Edouard/Ajer strategy is better than allowing players to leave on a free, or holding them on increasingly high contracts until their talents wither (see 2000-05), but it underachieves. At best, it allows stagnation, but it more commonly sees us decline.
If we want to be part of the Champions League story, if we want to go on another long run of league titles, we need to learn lessons, and you and I have had some painful lessons in recent seasons. Edouard should have been sold in 2019, two years before he actually left. Sure, there would have been distress on the comments pages here, but we kept a player who eventually became ineffective – too busy working on his next gig. We need to dare to dream big!
As well as our (now) excellent recruitment setup, Celtic need the vision and strength to up their game. Look at Ajax and Benfica, they are also trapped in small leagues, but sell players for multiples of the £24m we got for Kieran Tierney. Do this and like these clubs, we can shop for more expensive talent ourselves.
If you can think of a brilliant alternative strategy, I’m all ears, but for now, we are faced with two alternate futures: repeat the glories and inevitable decline of the O’Neill, Strachan and Rodgers eras, or increase the velocity of player trading to a level that demonstrates the courage required to be a competitive Champions League outfit.
When we embark on our Champions League campaign in September, I want to have genuine hopes of reaching the knockout stage. That will not happen without a radical overhaul of the current squad, which means selling for top money and buying more quality players. “Learning lessons” from this season’s campaign will never bridge the gap, anyone who supported Celtic through the 90s will testify to this, so let’s not pretend otherwise.
The work should be underway already, we have two transfer windows and the rare luxury of a commanding lead in the league. Celtic, you have a talented manager who works hand-in-glove with his scouting system. Aligned both to a level of ambition that would give lesser mortals a nose bleed. No more settling for “Just being there”.
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Jeez Good news of course Tom. Doh.
HH
CELTIC40ME @ 7:47 PM,
Whit!! I didn’t raise the subject, the lead did, Ange says he’s done all his business, the lead is telling him how he should be doing it…
Always be ready to trade, be ready to sell and have thoroughly assessed replacements lined up. Don’t wait until our top talent has one or two years left on a contract, then stalls on a new deal with an eye over the border, which is where we have been recently….
…That will not happen without a radical overhaul of the current squad, which means selling for top money and buying more quality players…
… The work should be underway already, we have two transfer windows and the rare luxury of a commanding lead in the league.
That way has been tried and failed, we see Lenny’s terms, we see Ronny’s term, we see BR’s term – what worked, what failed, your old arguments flounder because we have case studies
So many times, you guys loose the argument than have a pop at people for bringing up the past.
Not me, I’m all for moving on…
Hail Hail
Stuart Armstrong bargain for Southampton
Eduard second top scorer for CP this season and was starting nearly every game injured last few weeks …Viera was raving about hin 3 weeks ago
Ajer was starting nearly every week for Brentford until bad injury ….I’m not surprised our players have been linked …..I’m certainly not against selling….but the caveat would be …not more than one at a time and replacement lined up already
We have to keep in mind the intellectual force we are up against🤣🤣🤣🤣
https://twitter.com/FozzyBhoy67/status/1592263571026608128?t=cvbxGtTBIF9T3QyicCMQOQ&s=19
HH
This season we have garnered some £30 mill from being in the CL group stages plus another £10 mill collected at the turnstyles. First time in a while. £40 mill all in one FY. As Willie Sutton might have said, that’s where the money is. And you do not get there by breaking up your team, selling your best players, or not replacing them. You can wait five years before you get back into the CL with that philosophy. Not to say we should hang on to players who want to go, even KT, we have faced this dilemma for fifty years or more, beit £50 pw for Lou Macari, or £200 pw Charlie Nicholas. Pierre and Paulo, and Scots like Simon an Phil. But not all players want to go do they, did Joe Ledley want to leave, wee Frimpers in a firesale for a knock down price, now heading for the World Cup? Some will some wont. Need to differentiate the two, maximise the former encourage the latter. Need to get back there over the next two seasons, think the 2024-25 format will suit us better, 24 out of 36? We’ll be there.
Don’t disagree with the thrust of the article and I admire the foresight of the club officials prepping the support for possible mid season trading that we are not used to and certain high profile departures in the summer.
I know it’s modern football amd I know it’s necessary but I hope there is still room for a core of players to stay for extended periods too. There’s a need for continuity and identity in a squad. Losing that is as big a risk as allowing a squad to stagnate. So whatever the new aggressive trading strategy there must be room for guys who arrive, settle, play well, love being here and atay, guys who emerge from the academy and firm the backbone of the team for a decade.
Where our host continues to miss the point on Anges European strategy is where he also identifies the need to trade and upgrade. There were occasions in the group stages when a faster more technically gifted player or four would have prevented some of the goals we conceded or finished the chances we made. So, if we persist with the current model it us that simple – better, faster players. That appears to be the point of the strategy? No point getting better players so we can park the bus is there?
Evening all
Not been on for a wee while and hope all are well.
A sentence in P67’s editorial piece rather caught my eye. It reads:
Edouard should have been sold in 2019, two years before he actually left.
I am sure that if he could have our then CEO, whose name escapes me, would have done just that. He did sell our best home-grown player since 1982 that same summer and brought in not much that was good at that time- Taylor is probably the only incomer that summer who has turned out to be any good. I am sure though that the players bought in to replace Edouard in 2019 – quite probably for a sum a bit less than we got for him in 2021- would have been an improvement on the mostly disappointing permanent signings that actually were made not just in the summer of 2019 but in the next three transfer windows leading up to that CEO’s departure. Or maybe they would just have been more of the not very good players who did come in.
Paul67’s editorial does in fact make a bit of sense as there has been a lack of dynamism and imagination in our approach to player comings and goings since, oh the autumn of 2003, but the very idea that selling a player who had been quite good in his first full season would have made sense in the environment that existed at Celtic at that time is frankly preposterous. If Paul thinks we should have been pursuing a very more dynamic and ambitious strategy than was in place in the summer of 2019 he should say so quite unambigously.
Seeing Celtic in this season’s Champions League was not always edifying but given the way we had been run for years and years to expect more would have been unrealistic – but I would that actually trying to do something in the games, something that was not just accepting ‘being there’, was, if ultimately unsuccessful, preferable to a more prosaic approach that would have not got any better results. Paul would do better to admit that much of the strategy pursued by the Celtic CEO at the time Edouard did not leave in 2019- a strategy largely backed at the time in the editorials on this site, but which saw us achieve almost nothing on the European stage after we defeated Spartak Moscow in December 2012- was misguided at best.
Jimbo
“CELTIC MAC on 15TH NOVEMBER 2022 6:56 PM
US intelligence claiming Russian missiles struck target of some kind in Poland.”
Unless you think US Intelligence is the go to source for honest `claims` about Russian behaviour, I don`t know why you posted that on here.
To all others on here, sorry about taking Blog space to make that point……that`s what happens when there is no football. Bloody Qatar !
The passing of Jim O’Rourke had me researching Steins short time at hibs.
Later he said he was embarrased at leaving them in the way he did , although he stayed until Bob Shankly was readt to take over.
Here is a what is for those around at that time , could Jocks Hibs have won the league cup ?
Hibs winners in 65 instead of celtic, would it all have panned out the same only years later ?
—————-
Hibs were near the top of the league and in the last four of the Scottish Cup when Stein departed but they finished fourth and lost to Dunfermline in the cup.
He later admitted that leaving Hibs when he did ranked as ‘probably my most embarrassing experience’ in football.
————————-
https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/sport/football/hibs/when-jock-stein-revived-hibs-and-led-them-to-victory-over-five-time-european-champions-real-madrid-3869650
Hibs league and cup i mean in 65.
CHAIRBHOY on 15TH NOVEMBER 2022 8:05 PM
“Whit!! I didn’t raise the subject, the lead did, Ange says he’s done all his business, the lead is telling him how he should be doing it…”
The article focuses on the importance player trading as referenced in Swiss Rambles tweets, and in the context of what Ange has said recently about pursuing a more aggressive model.
Paul67 outlines how that might work. He isn’t talking about doing it how we have done it in the past, he’s talking about taking a more aggressive approach, as Ange is suggesting.
You should really be criticising Ange not Paul67.
I’m glad you’re for moving on, I’m not sure I can take any more talk about Craig Gordon and Brendan Rodgers
CHAIRBHOY
Can I hold you to “moving on?”
hot smoked
Just ignore it.
Hello again all you young rebels
From an aul tim with very sore legs on the Melbourne peninsula.
Suffering from a training session last night with 32 young mini Roos
under 7s.
Amazingly almost half of them young girls wanting to learn to play
the beautiful game.
Think our under 13 girls winning their first flag last season and getting
plenty of accolades from local politicians and councillors boosted our
first timer spring training programme.
Put in a bit extra last night but suffering today, as I’m off up to Sydney
tomorrow on the big ship.
Most people I know already up there, PADDYMACOZ leaves today for
a holiday apparently with his missus to a place two hours from the
city, she says they won’t make the game, aye right lol, I’ll take a bet on
that one.🤣
Loving big Ange’s philosophy on the way forward for the club, I think/hope
the club is on board with him, as someone notable on here keeps saying
“ we are half of nothing “
COYBIG.
H H. Mick
TOM MCLAUGHLIN
Great news mate!
Delighted for you!
Take care.
CELTIC40ME @ 8:41 PM,
Sure and I should make it clear it seems Paul67 has.
This is no moneyball puff piece, he talks of bringing in quality, not projects and prospects, he says utilise the managers expertise.
A lot to agree, Ajax do have a model to strive to.
We can see the future, the futures bright,
Hail Hail
TOM @5:55pm
Great news.
CHAIRBHOY on 15TH NOVEMBER 2022 9:05 PM
I think you’re missing the key point: velocity. I agree but add volume.
Quick turnaround, and more of it. Not holding out for double market value
Reading back now, great news TOM 👍
H H. Mick
The Board are to be congratulated for Ange’s capture. Along with our flair players he’s a standout talent that I trust we’ll keep for a good while. His contract should fulsomely reflect our faith in him and his performance.
There’s a style of play that we are aligned to that delights our support and captures the imagination of other European teams and world markets. Players who epitomise that should be maintained as a core while appropriate others are brought in at the right time as assets are similarly sold at the right time for the best price.
So much for the theory tho’ eh? If only it were as straightforward.
In ither news……
Look across the city and what do we learn from the indulged hun panto act? It doesn’t seem to matter how bad they behave, the show still goes on…and on.
Increasingly, I wonder why we bother.
HH.
Tom McLaughlin
Excellent news…
Tom,
Keep it Lit Bhoy.
HH
Tom
Great news old chap. 👍
Tom McLaughlin
Tom good on ye mate .hh
Tom: delighted for you.
Big dollop of black and white thinking hubris there, Paul…
‘There are two fundamental targets I think we can all agree on:
Win the league.
Qualify for the Champions League group stage.’
The middle ground of the Europa league is surely more apt given the paucity of the weekly league we play in? Dermot won’t want to ‘do a Leeds’ or the several Italian clubs who have splashed cash not to see Euro rewards.
Yes we need to player trade, but that can also undermine the on-field identity of the club. It’s always good to retain great talent who ‘get’ Celtic and want to play the brand of football we demand and love.
We are a notable historic club but the reputation and marketability of Scottish football is an anchor-weight.
Just back from x2 weeks in Malaysia; in and out of malls and markets. Plenty of EPL strips; not a Celtic one in sight.
Maybe a bit of humility and small adjustment of our ambitions/sights is a 3rd strategy?
PS Good news about your health results Tom.
I can almost remember when Frankie Boyle used to be funny
Musta been before he stopped drinking
Haven’t read back, just have a couple of mins, the leader today is a softening up for losing a few come the Jan window me thinks, I hope I am wrong, but given the state of the club over the water it’s obvious, to me anyways, anything to keep the OF alive and kicking and eff the rest by the looks of things, if we want to win the league, selling your best half way through the season is not the way to do it, if it does happen and I pray it doesn’t, we will also lose our manager, trust me on that.
CELTIC40ME on 15TH NOVEMBER 2022 7:27 PM
LAMBERT14 on 15TH NOVEMBER 2022 6:34 PM
Benfica are the top club in a three horse race and they’ve won one league in 4. They finished third last season.
Pursuing this model means we risk periods when our team isn’t as strong as it might be so that over a longer period the squad is as good as it can be. But for us to be competitive in the champions league for any length of time its the only show in town.
—————————————-
I don’t get the comparison as Benfica are playing clubs who are by a massive distance better than every club in Scotland except ourselves and Sevco.
So there isnt the same excuse.
TET – we could be so far ahead of the ugly sister by Jan 1, that shedding some prized assets would have no impact on us winning the league.
Surely the most sellable jewels in our crown are Matty OR and Jota; and when Calum returns and Mikey J is recalled from a form and confidence building loan in Portugal, we likely won’t miss a beat after shipping out x2 to the EPL.
Tom McLaughlin
Great news 👍
MELBOURNE MICK
What ship are you cruising on ?
Paul 67
“Manage your assets or fail to manage your assets”. Recently, when we wanted to transform our worst season in over a decade, we sold our top striker (Edouard) and our top defender (Ajer) and acquired Kyogo, Jota, Carter-Vickers and others. It’s hard to believe how controversial this was in the early days of CQN, now we have seen the evidence, everyone gets it.”
———————————–
The evidence of today’s replies is that “everyone” is a gross exaggeration.
You have been accused of :-
Preparing us for a couple of high profile January sales
Passing on messages from yir pal Peter ahead of his return to the club
Wanting to sell our better players
Trying to ensure Sevco become competitive again
Ignoring the needs of the football department and just championing the needs of the suits
Basically, after 20 years effort- you are still getting asked “Where’s the Seville money?”
Player Trading is not a choice. It is not a Capitalist philosophy. It is not a thing that “football people” should not have to deal with.
It is an inevitability.
We are a long way away from “McGrory of Arsenal just does not sound right”. We have seen Jock Stein break up and sell our Greatest Team ever. We even saw the “replace them with better” approach fall short as Macari, Dalglish and Hay moved on to. Back then we had all the controls pre-Bosman. We could have kept an unhappy Kenny, and ambitious Charlie but would they have performed for us as unhappy players. We did not need to trade them for financial reasons but we did. We were powerful enough financially to buy McAvennie from a top flight English club.
But Bosman changed all that. Then TV steroid money further leveraged our disadvantage. And the effects widen each year.
The most significant observations in the Swiss Ramble review was this:-
“However, as Postecoglou said, “The reality in the Scottish Premiership is we’ll never have the finances to compete with teams in the Champions League.” This is highlighted by their £61m revenue in 2020/21 being far below the £145m required to be in Deloitte Money League Top 30.
This might seem like a spurious comparison, but the fact is that in 2004 #CelticFC were placed as high as 13th in the Money League. Since then, their revenue has hardly moved, while the club in 20th place has increased by £132m and the top club by £400m (higher pre-COVID).
To further emphasise the point, Norwich City, the club that finished last in the Premier League, had £134m revenue, £46m more than #CelticFC £88m, even though they were behind in both match day and commercial, as they received £102m from the lucrative PL broadcasting deal.”
That is what we are up against. We don’t often sell directly to the elite clubs. Tierney is an outlier sale, not just in the amount he fetched but in the club he went to. Dembele to Lyon is the next best direct destination. Otherwise, we are selling to Southampton, Swansea, Crystal Palace and, FFS, Bournemouth.
We are not in a free market; we are in a bent, gerrymandered market and we cannot change it and certainly cannot ignore it.
A diehard Celt, like Kieran Tierney, was not willing to. be James McGrory or Paul McStay, for two main reasons. One, the money and lifestyle differential on offer, was far greater than James and Paul would have experienced. Home comforts can trump being a little richer when you are already well off but it does not trump being a lot richer. Secondly, England, Spain, Italy< Germany and France offer a more elite and competitive level of football than Scotland does. If you want to be, and have the potential to be, an elite player (as Kieran and VVD had) then you will actively want this arena. For the others- Armstrong and Christie it is mostly about the money.
We cannot buck this trend. We cannot even trade at the level of Benfica or Ajax but we can trade.
Our only choice is to trade well or badly.
All other options are just romantic delusions; thinking as fans rather than as players
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 15TH NOVEMBER 2022 11:22 PM
Paul 67
tour di force.
cap doffed
LAMBERT14 on 15TH NOVEMBER 2022 10:28 PM
Excuse for what, why is it always about blame?
We aspire to their levels of success in Europe, they’ve achieved it by buying and selling at big profits.
When you win one league in 5 as the biggest club in a league suggests they face different pressures to us. They don’t need to win their domestic league like we 100% have to.
Add in being able to run up debts of €250m and not owning their own ground and you’re looking at a very different picture.
Mistakes arent magnified, the gamble isnt as big
TOM MCLAUGHLIN on 15TH NOVEMBER 2022 5:55 PM
Sorry I missed this. Great news
TOM MCLAUGHLIN on 15TH NOVEMBER 2022 5:55 PM
Great News Tom.
I know what it’s like. I have been “undetectable” now for 12 months. Keep it up !!!!
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 15TH NOVEMBER 2022 11:22 PM
Fine essay,
We always have to be inventive and creative in how we approach renewal and with a view to the future,a future that’s the next generations to enjoy and build on.
:-)
HH
Good world cup break watch on Bbc4 iplayer Ronaldo.
What a player
The Phenomenom Ronaldo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ffsj/the-phenomenon-ronaldo
Superb.
HH