BBC’s Jim Spence reports this morning that Dundee United have rejected a £900k bid from Celtic for striker Nadir Ciftci (23), as Ronny Deila continues his quest to recreate the all-conquering (cough) Dundee United team of 2014.
While Ciftci is clearly talented, this is an unexpected move. He can hold the ball up and bring others into play but he never struck me as having Ronny Deila-type industry. Not that he would be the first convert to perpetual motion.
With John Guidetti away and Stefan Scepovic yet to stake a claim, we’ve space for a couple of strikers. It would be good to have at least one before the qualifiers.
Dukla Prague are one of those teams who my generation grew up hearing about. They were one of the finest teams in Europe, with one of the world’s top players, Josef Masopust, who sadly died yesterday. Masopust won the Ballon d’Or in 1962, after leading the great Czechoslovakia to the World Cup final that year, which they lost to Brazil.
He faced Celtic with Dukla in the semi-final of the European Cup in 1967, losing only once in the competition, at Celtic Park. Czech football retains the potential to create great teams, but, denied access to TV deals available in neighbouring parts of the EU, they have been robbed of the ability to achieve meritocratic progression.
The passing of Masopust is a chance to celebrate a great player and team, and to regret what appears forever lost because of television.
Enjoying Phil MacGiollaBhain’s work with the Belfast Telegraph, laid bare in his blog of yesterday. He includes scanned letters from the newspaper’s editor who regards it as “outrageous to suggest that I, or the Belfast Telegraph, would operate a blacklist of any form”, including one which includes Phil, despite how popular such a move would be in places.
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Ron,
Lets ignore one another for the sake of the blog. You will end up like Gold Coast Tom anyway … they always do.
HH
PFayr
In answer to your question…PL has learned nothing
And if Ciftci is the extent of our ambition, id be as well going to watch Maryhill Juniors.
HH
roberttressell….
It has always been about the money whenever the USA is concernered, sadly, the majority of their populace don’t see it that way.
There’s been a few ding dongs on here today, thank feck they don’t have smart bombs;)
Will Jackie Mac be rubbing his hands with glee at another Lawwell windfall or will he twig on that it is INDEED still personal for Peter
HH
Ciftci is entering the last year of his contract …..lacks discipline and is a moderate goalscorer
£900k …utter madness…one can only hope that it MSM rubbish
TET, 150 Euro, I wish. Its 450 Euro. They have some long distance deals and first timer deals but its 450 for us, which is not too bad in fairness.
Nothing like a bit of hun on hun……….
john james (@sitonfence) says:
June 30, 2015 at 5:43 pm
RST :”We contacted the Belfast Telegraph today outlining our member’s concerns and making them aware of the hate speech, lies and background of the man they had chosen to publish. The Belfast Telegraph were prompt in their response and we are satisfied that they had no prior knowledge of Mr MacGiollabhain.
Their response read as follows:
‘Much like the Scottish Sun, we had no prior knowledge of the author. The piece was used on a one-off basis and in the light of the information provided, it’s highly unlikely there will be a two-off. If we’d known then what we know now says it all’.
We would like to thank our members for bringing the article to our attention and we are confident that they will not have to endure Mr MacGiollabhain’s work appearing in the Belfast Telegraph again. Hopefully other newspapers will also be more careful before publishing work from Mr MacGiollabhain or others of a similar ilk who may be unknown to them.”
This claim was vigorously refuted by the editor of The Belfast Telegraph, thus:
file:///C:/Users/Guest/Downloads/Letter-from-Gail-Walker-290615.pdf
It would appear that someone at the RST created some fiction that they attributed to The Belfast Telrgraph. The less than erudite use of ‘two-off’ should have been instructive. Was Chris Graham the author of this piece of creative writing?Mr Graham is getting rather exercised about this glib and shameless mendacity. Apparently we should always defer to our 48 hour director in matters where PMG is involved, irrespective of the truth of the matter.The Midas touch, or the gift of profiting from whatever one undertakes, is named for a legendary king of Phrygia. Mr Graham’s Islamaphobic tweets and RST fiction might suggest he has the SIDAM touch, which is generally accepted as everything that he touches turns to shampoo. A rare talent for a London based PR Agent.
In his long piece attacking this site, he ‘unmasked’ me as Ramsay Smith – no Mr Graham, SIDAM.
He suggested that Ninjaman was actually a pseudonym for Bill. No Mr Graham, SIDAM.
He also decided that The Clumpany was a pseudonym of PMG. I decided to acquaint myself with this individual’s output. Amusing in an anti-Rangers way but not PMG.
More SIDAM Mr Graham.
art of war
19:24 on 30 June, 2015
how do I get in touch with you to order one?
BTW, home for a week from Shetland, anyone going to the game tomorrow? Which pub before the game?
Art of War:
Got your mail, replied and text you.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
eddieinkirkmichael
E-mail me and I will forward it to AoW
lennybhoycfc@gmail.com
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
Yeah…we are prepared for the CL, thats why we tried to sign Ciftci.
Utterly ridiculous…who feck is supposed to be the brains in this outfit.
Bonus culture totally sucks….PL gets richer, while signings get poorer.
It should be stopped.
Corkcelt
My mistake, read it wrong, still it’s no bad value.
The site has changed, a short time ago, there was many pics of the distance members, masel included, even tho they got my name wrong :-)
I seem to remember a rather large bloke was the club sec.
HH
If Ciftci is indeed a target for Celtic and it’s Ronny D who wants him then that’s ok by me. I’ll go along with Ronny any day of the week.
TET
John James is too clever to be a Hun
The concept of living within your means.
What a load of bs.
Lets start with PL’s salary and bonus.
It should be curbed, in an effort to afford a decent striker.
Gravy train needs derailed.
PF
Whatever he is, he has got some quality info.
Bodes well for more hilarity :-)
HH
Lennybhoy
20:23 on
Done
Tho decent enough ( no more than that !)…….ciftci strikes me as a cheap and lazy bid !!!….time for a clear out of scouts !!!
Interesting.The vast majority on here all 100% behind RD.Agree with everything he does and says,except it seems,when the manager,wants to sign a player HE thinks will do a job for him.Seems we have much more astute judges of players on here than the one employed at Celtic Park to run our team.
I will stick with RDs judgement,but thanks for all your views.
eddieinkirkmichael
Replied and copied in Art of War and gave you his e-mail addy.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
green man
20:23 on 30 June, 2015
I would suggest he meant we are ready for the qualifiers…..but we continue to try to buy players .(that’s what the window’s for…… Not rocket science, my fellow Tim …. :)
turkeybhoy
20:32 on 30 June, 2015
Cap doffed ….SPOT ON
REALLY looking forward to the game tomorrow night……not happy it’s not at CP, though
Just before we signed Leigh Griffiths, many on here were saying he wouldn’t do the biz etc, not Celtic class blah. blah.
As for Ciftci, if he is a Ronny boy, I like many others trust his judgement, cos I would rather we spent a mill on someone who we know can score goals, not that many, but he can, as opposed to someone like Balde or Bangura, who couldn’t and didn’t.
Ronny prob has been told his budget is 1-2 mill, and he has to get whom he wants for the budget, a sad state of affairs, but not to worry, when the hun are back, we can back to the old ways and everything will be hunky dory.
HH
RD signings so far have been hit and miss
GUIDETTI FLOP
DENAYER SUCCESS
BERGET FLOP
GORDON SUCCESS
SCEPOVIC FLOP
WAKASO FLOP
TONEV FLOP
HH
ARMSTRONG SUCCESS
GMS SUCCESS
Turkeybhoy
Its called expectation management, which usually occurs when you have gambled other peoples money and failed miserably.
However, you still get your bonus.. so its happy days for the board.
And you don’t have to take responsibility for anything.
Magic eh
But don’t worry, we can still bid for crap Dundee Utd player.
Its all the supporters fault for everything isn’t it….having the cheek to expect a decent player….how ungrateful eh.
Awe Naw
I doubt Ronny had any say in your first list, apart from Berget, who was a panic loan imo, he even said he knew feck all about a few of them, so I assume he knew feck all about any of them, as for the bhoys from DU, they will go on to be stalwarts.
HH
Leicester sack Pearson
Strange one that, wonder if they approach the Warby :-)) fella
Of the permanent signings since RD became manager we’ve had 3 successes (Gordon, Armstrong & GMS) and 1 flop, so far (Scepovic).
The loan signings have been less successful so maybe we should steer clear of them.
I’ve not seen enough of Cifci to offer a valued opinion on whether he’s good enough. That said, I was ecstatic when we signed Thomas Gravesson, so every signing can be a gamble either way. The little I saw of Cifci, he usually troubled our two excellent centre halfs last year. Reminds me of Viduka, physique wise…not sure about skill…seems decent but is he consistent. Certainly didn’t like the kick in the face to Scott Brown and alleged biting. Being a dinosaur, I prefer two up front…or at least two natural finishers.
Maybe Ronny’s decision to go for Ciftci has been influenced by SA and GMS telling him that , having trained and played with him , he’s better than what we have.
Just speculating but doesn’t seem beyond the realms of possibility. Not a big fan of hIm myself but that’s not to say he’s isn’t better than what we have. Apart from Griffiths we don’t have a striker worthy of the name IMHO.
Apart from JD, whom he did know about, so 3 out of 4 ain’t too bad :-)
HH
We’d be fools to blindly agree with everything Ronny does.
I agreed with signing SA and, to a lesser extent GMS.
I probably differ from most in now feeling both players are squad players. I do think SA may develop into a good centre mid, he looks lost out wide.
Cifti, in isolation, would be a decent squad player but if we keep signing SPL players we’ll become an SPL team.
Ronny has ZERO CL experience. He will discover that SA, GMS and Cifti are well short of that standard.
I laugh at fans of the other mob defending every mediocre signing with ‘if Warbs wants him, he’ll do for me’. Ronny is on a learning curve. He is making mistakes and Cifti would be another IMO.
Our attackers, Scep, Griff, Stokes, KC, Jamesy, GMS are not good enough. Any new signings must be better than them.
Sorry for the rambling post but I’ve heard Ronny talk about the need for real quality and also of signing some players in the 18, 19 age range who can become top class.
Then I hear names like Ciftci, Djuric etc…
Decent football debate on the merits or otherwise of the Ciftci lad, is he any better than Griffiths? I don’t know, I do know that I cheered loudly every Griffiths goal, apart from the one put that put my coupon down. Selfish ? Yes.
I suggest Ronny is working within a budget, so strict that he is shopping where he can. Peter Lawell is working to a budget also, if we pull off a surprise and reach the CL then I also suggest we will all roar with delight, then get on with bad mouthing the players and board for the rest of the Autumn. Will I be wrong?
Awe naw.
I don’t consider guidetti to bean unqualified flop. His goals early season got us out of some sticky situations.
A season of two halves. First a success, second a flop. So , overall , middling.
Still wouldn’t keep him though.
Hh
PL is still getting the projects.
How likely is it, that Ronny would want Ciftci.
Surely, he knows better quality in Norway.
It looks like a PL move to me….and we all know how most of them work out.
I also Motherwell have signed a player from Notts Forest and one from Wrexham, wonder if their superstars :-)