The Champions League play-off round can be a horrible place for seeds against teams with lesser reputations. Celtic drew Helsingborgs from a group of five possible teams. Three of the other four were away from home in the first leg but two recorded wins.
Hapoel Kiryat Shmona lost 2-0 away to Bate Borisov while Maribor lost 2-1 away to Dinamo (no longer Croatia) Zagreb.
Romanians, Cluj, recorded an excellent 1-2 away win against our old friends Basel, while AEL Limassol beat Anderlecht 2-1 in Cyprus. Maribor and Cluj will fancy their chances of eliminating the seed, while Limassol have a fighting chance.
In other news, HJK Helsinki are not going to drop to the Europa League group stage after we eliminated them from the Champions League earlier this month. Last season’s finalists, Athletic Bilbao, hit them for six (first cricket metaphor on CQN?) last night.
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ExiledBhoy
Probably Danny Cumerford, my mates brother ,he was a mental case ,sadly passed away a
few years ago.
ExiledBhoy
We never had sheds either, but that was because we didn’t have combs (apart from the ones for corralling nits that is).
Hail hail
Estadio
Wee Oscar for life bucket collection at Celtic Park will take place on 22nd of September. Volunteer collectors required by the bucket load. Please send an email to weeoscar4life@gmail.com if you would like to volunteer and help us collect funds that will go towards helping Wee Oscar get the treatment he requires to help him fight of future attacks of Nueroblastom.
We need 100 volunteers. So please please please get in touch ASAP and we will get back to you with details.
voguepunter
That shed was actually an early prototype of BSR,s gazebo i,ll have you know , and many a good night was had in there with ma 6 cans of Kestrel.
ohits
12:08 on
24 August, 2012
voguepunter
That shed was actually an early prototype of BSR,s gazebo i,ll have you know , and many a good night was had in there with ma 6 cans of Kestrel.
——————————————————————————-
Sorry ,no devil dugs allowed in the Gazebo,they burnsiders get quite flustered.
Arsenal: Are the Club’s Financial Restrictions Hampering Its Title Ambitions?
With three years remaining on his contract, Mirror Football indicated that Arsenal midfielder Alex Song approached club management about improving the terms of his current deal.
Given the season he just had, one where he contributed 11 league assists (14 when all competitions were considered) and manned central midfield—something he’d done since the 2008-09 season—with aplomb, he might have been justified in thinking he could augment his yearly intake.
You play well, you get a promotion, or you get a bonus. Seems like a pillar of capitalism.
Whether Song was justified in the course of action he decided upon in trying to get his new deal—Mirror have indicated that Song’s last days at the club were marked by petulance as management shot his proposal down—is a matter for another story.
What is apparent is that Song, who was making around £55,000 a week at the Emirates, wanted a salary more befitting of a man who had just tied the club’s league assists record.
He wished his salary to reflect his standing as a key member of the team for four seasons on the trot. Considering that Andrei Arshavin was enjoying a better financial package, you might understand his frustration.
Arsene Wenger would not be moved, however, and when FC Barcelona showed interest in acquiring Song, the French manager struck while the iron was hot and sold his midfielder for £15 million.
Never mind the savvy bit of business by Wenger, who enjoyed a £14 million windfall from his sale—he’d bought Song from Bastia for £1 million after bringing him in on loan for the 2005-06 season.
Song has reportedly signed a five-year deal at the Camp Nou that will see him earn £70,000 a week, according to The Daily Mail, roughly a 27-percent increase from his wages at Arsenal.
Not a bad return for the player, either, but you begin to wonder whether Wenger could have ponied up that extra cash considering the £39 million he’s doled out on three new players this summer.
Wenger might rightly have felt that were he to acquiesce to Song’s contractual demands, with the player on books through 2015, he would be setting a dangerous precedent for future players. Have a good season, see your wages increase significantly—the player holds complete power, and could run Arsenal’s finances into the ground with improved contract demands following culmination of every good season.
For a man who has constantly lamented the current financial state of world football, noting that Arsenal cannot cope with the petrodollars being flung about by Manchester City or Paris Saint-Gemain, nor the big-money muscle flexed by Manchester United, Chelsea and Real Madrid’s owners, Song’s departure had to rankle him.
It proved the latest in what is becoming a long line of Gunners who have looked elsewhere to satiate both their fiscal and competitive ambitions.
Ah yes, the trophy side of the argument. We were always going to get there.
With that new wrinkle added to the mix, a two-pronged problem arises at the Emirates. If Arsenal are not able to cope financially with the European powers, it is inevitable that top players will filter away from north London.
Arsenal fans have grown more accustomed to this sort of contract photo.
Will they be able to remain a “big club” if this continues does not abate? To answer that question, you must first qualify what sort of qualities are inherent in a top club, but it seems safe to say that winning silverware is one of them.
Secondly, if Arsenal succeed in improving a talented youth prospect bought on the cheap, as they have done perhaps better than any other club of their stature—all the while, mind you, competing on the continental stage and finishing in their domestic league’s top spots each season (perhaps we should include that in the qualities of a ‘top club’). If that player does not win silverware, however, he might begin to see his future looking far rosier elsewhere.
Because in the end, what separates Arsenal from, say a club like Ajax? The Dutch giants, long bastions of youth development (their academy has produced some of the top players in Europe) have still managed to remain competitive in their league as well as cope with the rigors of Champions League football.
Now, naturally Arsenal hold a crucial advantage over Ajax in that they can offer weekly football in Europe’s top domestic league. But that argument becomes moot when a player sees he can still play in the Premier League, while enjoying increased ambition with, say, Chelsea or the Manchester clubs.
Or he could filter away after falling victim to the Catalan siren song, as Song did.
The latter has been of particular relevancy in recent seasons, when the paths leading from the Emirates to Barcelona (Alexander Hleb, Cesc Fabregas, now Song and to a lesser extent Thierry Henry back in 2007) having become the most well trodden, with Manchester City not far behind.
Obviously, there were extenuating circumstances that affected some of those decisions, but the fact remains that Arsenal were unable to retain their top players, and they believed they were making a step up as far as their career was concerned by moving to the Iberian peninsula.
That Wenger has been unsuccessful in delivering silverware to the club since 2005 plays a giant factor in the players’ decisions to leave.
Take the thoroughly-examined case of Robin van Persie, as of two weeks ago still the Arsenal captain.
It is understood that an unholy cocktail of increased ambition, mixed with his advancing age (he’s 29) and ability to receive better wages at another club, helped influence his move to Manchester United.
Van Persie’s contract had been set to expire at the end of this season, and while Wenger apparently pulled out all the stops in a desperate attempt to keep his talismanic captain, who was last season’s EPL leading scorer, at the club—a £5 million signing fee, coupled with weekly wages of £130,000 were discussed—it was not enough to convince Van Persie that Arsenal were still the right club for him.
The Dutchman, like Song and other former Arsenal players, will receive an increased salary at his new club. Unlike Song, he has passed his prime, so the window for him winning silverware was more acute. But the important takeaway is that he believed he could do so away from Arsenal.
And Now, Finally, We Approach the Point I’m Trying, in a Manner Quite Cumbersome, to Make
Which again leads us to the question: can Arsenal hope to compete for silverware in this sort of market?
Wenger’s great coup—buying young talents on the cheap (Song for £1 million, Van Persie for £2.75 million from Feyenoord in 2004), and hoping to achieve the improbable and win silverware with said youngsters—has faltered, and the French manager’s activity in the transfer market since last summer (he’s reneged on his former policy of not buying elder players quite considerably) appears to reinforce his movement in another direction entirely.
Perhaps Van Persie and Song will prove the final straws that broke Wenger’s back. Because for all Arsenal’s financial responsibility—and let’s not shortchange what Wenger has done, re-building a club in a fiscally responsible manner while maintaining its competitiveness—they have yet been unable to lay fingers on a trophy.
And that has impinged upon their status of “world beaters” that had appeared so inextricably ladled upon them after the Invincibles’ season.
Wenger cannot cope with the financial muscle of other big powers, but he can cut into the stranglehold they’ve exerted on the market.
Even if Van Persie had agreed to the significant package offered by Arsenal this summer, which would have made him the highest-paid player in club history, his weekly wages would still have come some £60,000 short of what Fernando Torres receives at the end of a seven-day cycle at Chelsea.
Considering that Torres’s goal-scoring return last season was a mere shadow of van Persie’s—he scored 24 fewer league goals than did the Dutchman—and that he was still able to rake in those absurdly exorbitant riches, one begins to see the problem Wenger runs into.
Arsenal are a definite step below the Manchester clubs, Chelsea and even perhaps Liverpool in terms of spending power. They remain a step above the likes of Everton and the mid-table clubs.
No matter what Arsenal can offer on the field—and to Wenger’s credit, he has worked tirelessly to bring in the right players in the past calendar year—they can only go “so far” when it comes to doling out riches upon targeted players.
Wenger attested to as much to the club’s official website in the wake of van Persie’s departure.
“This is a situation that is a completely brutal reality of professional sport,” Wenger said.
“But you say we live outside of reality? No, we live in the economic reality that other clubs do not. There are some things we cannot afford to do, it is as simple as that.”
Those clubs can point to silverware earned in recent seasons, coupled with superb contracts, to build themselves up for players.
Unsurprisingly, the two factors are inextricably linked. You pay more, you get better players. Then, you win more. It’s the basic version of Manchester City’s modus operandi since 2008.
“Honestly, I think it is a short-term problem,” Wenger told the official site. “The world cannot go on like this. You cannot imagine that the world will go on just splashing money out without any return because people will get tired of that as you’ll only have a few clubs competing with each other.”
“[Financial Fair Play] will make a big difference, how quickly I cannot answer because I am not responsible for putting it in place.”
Ah, financial fair play. When it comes into effect full-tilt in 2015, it may well exert change by threatening exclusion from the lucrative UEFA Champions League if a club’s books are not in order.
That means the leveraged buyouts used by the Glazers, Gilletts and Hicks in recent years to buy Manchester United (Glazers in 2005) and Liverpool (Gillett, Hicks in 2007) should go the way of the dodo bird, with the spending sprees of recent transfer seasons past will fall softly to the wayside.
Loopholes will abound, as they always tend to do when high-powered lawyers hired by the clubs turn their well-trained eyes to fine print (there are rumors that players bought ahead of the 2009-10 season won’t count against the Fair Play ruling), but that’s a matter for the future. Not to mention mere inevitability.
For now, Arsenal continue to see their best players poached, for myriad reasons. But they are attempting to stem the tide by addressing the most glaring problem.
Wenger has spent the afore-menitioned sum of £39 million this summer, third-most among Premiership clubs, and more players are purported to be on the way.
It could not have come at a better time. Arsenal’s status as a big club may not be in jeopardy—their infrastructure is still too sound to see them tumble down the table—but if they wish to fulfill their title aspirations, the new approach is a very welcome one indeed.
The addition of Santi Cazorla, who cost £16.5 million, showed just what money can buy. The ex-Malaga man was far and away the best player on the pitch during Arsenal’s season opener against Sunderland on Saturday.
Speaking to the club’s official site after his move, Cazorla frequently referred to the “terrific opportunity” available to him at Arsenal, which he called, at least two times, a “big club,” not to mention “a step forward” in his career and a place where he can win trophies.
The gleaming Emirates stadium must only have reinforced his notion. Thankfully, with Wenger’s renewed approach toward solidifying his team, it no longer bears the facade of the final days of Rome—a magnificent bastion of achievement, devastatingly beautiful in terms of its opulence and ornateness.
When, in fact, that was a thin veneer covering the burgeoning rot from within.
That should no longer be the case.
But if Arsenal continue to fire blanks in the trophy department, might Cazorla do as Van Persie just did and move on in two years’ time if he hits age 29 and has yet to taste glory at the Emirates? Those words he spoke of at his introduction would come back to haunt him, as professions of loyalty recently did van Persie.
It’s a troubling proposition, and one that can only be remedied by silverware.
Therein lies our verdict, conclusion, etc.
In the end, success is what entices the best players to stay. Many speak of Arsenal’s uniqueness as a club on the professional level—former legends profess their desire to return as waterboys, current star players pledge their future for life—but in the end, even the staunchest defender may trickle away in search of trophies.
That was, after all, what happened with Henry, whose move to Barcelona was fueled by his insatiable desire to capture the Champions League crown—the only major piece of silverware he’d failed to win in eight years at Arsenal.
He wasn’t going to leap that hurdle, so nearly achieved in Paris in 2006, at a club taking a new direction of youth.
Now, he might begin to recognize his former club, so long devoid of older, powerful stars, as making a turn in the right direction competitively.
Only time will tell if it’s an inexorable trend.
ExiledBhoy
the Grannies would never have got up that hill with there messages , I know I used to struggle sometimes although that was probably the level of alcohol I had consumed.
VP, I think you might be right, I’m sure I got speaking to somone last year that said he had died, and he was a right character, there were some brilliant ones on that bus,
I remember we left somebody in aberdeen once and stopped in Perth on the way back for some refreshment and by the time we were ready to get back on the bus our castaway had managed to catch us up on another supporters bus
Estadio
I reply with a grin (again) after reading your recent, not last (heaven forbid) post.
The hanging gate is a nice we howff in the middle of nowhere-ish run by a very friendly Estonian woman called Luda, who is more than willing to show you her blue room (if you are man enough, and will ply you with cask pulled ales and fine(very-ish) wines and spirits. However, from here on in I will now refer to her as Francesca in your honour and leave her in a permanent state of befuddlement.
Estadio
Get a drink Mahn,you know it makes sense………..unlike yourself :O)
Awe_Naw
Phew!
That was some read!
Very interesting ‘though!
HH!!
Whither the cash strapped scrofulous hillbillies this [scorchio!] day?
It may have been Marie Osmond…..
Hail Hail
Estadio
ohits
That’s her sister!! :-)
Hail hail
Estadio
Delay for castle project near Celtic training ground
WORK to restore a fire-damaged landmark building has been put on hold for another two years.
Members on East Dunbartonshire Council’s planning board agreed to extend P&P Properties planning permission to create 31 flats at Lennox Castle, in Lennoxtown, at a recent meeting.
The developers secured permission for the ambitious project in May 2005 and had been expected to start work in 2012.
However, it is now set to begin revamping the dilapidated former Lennox Castle Hospital building in May 2014.
The A-listed building, which was built in 1837, has fallen into a state of disrepair and was badly damaged by a fire in 2008.
Thomas Glen, the council’s head of planning, said: “Due to the current economic climate, the developers requested an extension to existing consent with a view to bringing forward the development over the next 2 years.
“Discussions with developers are on-going.”
Is it true that Sammi arrives at training in a chariot, fires bolts of lightning at people who annoy him and once caused a tsunami by blowing on his bowl of soup?
voguepunter
11:53 on
24 August, 2012
kdc
11:48 on
24 August, 2012
get sammi’s haircut
Let me guess,you have a chrome dome.
GreeneyedmonsterC.S.C
[shocked] full head of hair here vogue, neatly trimmed with a back and sides :-)
long hair in a footballer is the devil’s work ;)
Tallybhoy
Its all about the money
Song and Van Persie moved fro money … they dont give two tuppeny sucks about the medals … yep if you can get more money then more chance of a medal .. it follows.
HAil Hail
Blog is still feeked………..
What happened to the Lorne Sausage fella…y’know the one…thon Brigton Butcher? He’s slid right off the map.
What of the Rangers Historian with the brown Harris tweed breeches and the establishment brogues? The one on Newsnight slabbering on about Aberdeen and Sporting Integrity. He was the craziest old bat in the cave-excitable as bald man in a wig factory.
What of our man Whytey- surely he is still has more laughs left in the giggle tank?
The Big-House-Must-Stay-Open work dodger should be be in a Zoo so we can pay to see him once in a while…then there was the author of The Law and Taxation of Remuneration, bluebird Porn Lothario and EBT cheerleader Paul Baxendale Walker…so many great characters over the months…any new ones to come in the months ahead?
Lets hope so- its been well worth the ticket price.
Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour de France titles should be “obliterated”.
I like the word ‘obliterated’, hopefully we will be using it soon on here.
Celtic Football Club @celticfc
Neil Lennon: Joe Ledley will be out for a couple of weeks (groin) and Beram Kayal will be out for 3-4 weeks (ankle).
Personally I would like to see Arse-nal go another 7 years without a trophy.
I do not like Arse-ne Wenger either.
What other top four club anywhere would put up with such a dismal record?
I know he is not known for wheeling and dealing in the transfer market but is fiscal well being always better than winning a trophy, especially in the EPL?
Go on Man City, win it again!
You know I talk sense!
Sometimes.
Joe Ledley out for 2 weeks (groin) and Beram Kayal out for 3-4 weeks (ankle).
Glad Victor will be back for next week’s game.
Mort
With Kayal and Ledley out for the return leg v. Helsingsborg, a midfield of Forrest, Brown, Wanyama and Sammi? And back-up – Paddy?
Just seen the news about Kayal. I’m not sure if his injury was caused by a tackle but he really needs to mature and pick and choose which tackles that he goes for.
Blow about Ledley but hopefully he doesn’t miss too much.
Awe_Naw
Money rules, unfortunately, in the mindset of a professional footballer in the modern era.
The player who says – “I have come here to win medals” – is only telling half the truth.
He might have been at a club who won nothing over a 4 year period, and been earning, say,£75k pw. He then joins another club who have also won nothing over the same period, and dont look likely to win anything for at least the forseable future, on a contract worth £125k pw.
Ambition or greed?
HH!!
No having much luck with the injurys
I dont know why I am posting this as I will not see the reply,
Why has page selection and time of individual posts all changed to a Tweet icon,
Kayal isn’t a massive loss, we have Brown but Ledley gives us balance on the left and covers for Izzy is positionally attrocious. Maybe time to play Charlie Mulgrew in left side of midfield (as 2nd half on Tuesday). The need for a centre half becomes even more urgent now.
kdc
Short back and sides,how you liking being back at school ? :O)
Keith Downie @STVkeith
Neil Lennon is keeping tabs on Japanese duo Maya Yoshida and Yuki Otsu. He doesn’t expect any new signings til next week, though.
All this talk of hair is bringing back memories.
follicallychallengedCSC
PL desperate to get back into the Japanese market….
Where is the CH we are screaming out for ?????????
Manchester United shared the charity shield last year Barcelona the Copa Del Rey
Song and RVP have dreamt of having those medals sine they were old enough to talk … aye right
Hail Hail
Not good news on the Ledley, Kayal injuries ……..
THE EXILED TIM
Maya Yoshida is a centre half, as is Efe Ambrose who we have been linked with. Just wish they’d get a move on, F5 Friday now only a week away
Has Kayal ever been fit for more than a month at any time since joining us?
I would offload him in January. He is a total crock and never fully fit