There is so little going on with Celtic it is difficult to know how we will fare next season – which is a concern in itself. Our positives are we have retained a winning manager, although not yet the coaching staff who did much of the lifting for him. We also have all key players under contract, though will surely sell Daizen Maeda and perhaps one or two other first-team regulars.
One of my (many) gripes about Brendan Rodgers was his fondness for working with agents he knew to recruit players from top leagues. Preparatory work would happen but if Brendan wanted a fancied striker from (even) Belgium, we would need to wait until the player or club realised they were not fancied by anyone else.
We signed Virgil van Dijk, Moussa Dembele and Christopher Jullien in June. Work had gone into each deal from early in the year and they proved successful signings. This should be one of our clear transfer market lessons but we are running out of road this term.
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This June the Board have brought Phelim McArbe into Celtic…
Hail Hail
Where is everyone?
“ I’ve never seen a situation so dismal that this Celtic board couldn’t make worse “ Brendan Behan-ish
🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪👍
Jullien was not a success, slow and sadly ran into a goalpost doing significant knee damage ,which did not prevent him travelling to dubai 1 day later, returning with covid as several did. Sold for a pittance.
Paul67
Now that would be because he didn’t have any alternatives mind you a good job he had Iheanacho’s number, all those crucial goals.
Oh wait – “ the finest striking talent in Scotland “ quoting you.
“Lets be aving you (Hic!)”
Delia Smith CSC
I’d pay good money to see Dermot do that.
Peter Lawwell liked to do business with preferred agents as well. Duda Dusan (?) in Israel. If we needed a player PL gave him a call.
Spot on, Paul. Wim Jansen signed a player he knew and he gave away a goal in his first game. If we had learned from that we could have avoided duds like Moravcik and Sinclair.
One of my (many) gripes about Brendan Rodgers was his fondness for working with agents he knew to recruit players from top leagues
Are there any Professional players without an agent, isn’t a prerequisite that to sign a player in professional football you must deal with his agent ?
Top youth talent have football agents
Bosman happened 1995
The reality of the football landscape in 2026 is that managers will have relationships with agents
No wonder this place has tumbleweed
Lionsroar
BR also taught Paul67’s parrot to say Honda Civics – Honda Civics – Honda Civics 🦜🦜🦜
Dessybhoy @ 12:12 pm,
Yeah, paid a similar amount for Idah who according to some was a waste of money, paid less for Trusty who according to some was a waste of money.
Got to agree with Moussa though, attitude apart, was a good signing, even beat Tottenham to sign him… remember them days…
“The manager [Brendan Rodgers] told me that Celtic is a good team for me. When I come here I will have game-time but I have to show that I can stay in the team, and it’s a good way for me to progress here with a massive stadium and the fans and the city. Everyone lives for Celtic and for me it’s unbelievable to play for a massive club like this.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jun/28/celtic-sign-moussa-dembele-fulham-brendan-rodgers
Hail Hail
Its ALL about networking.
The concern is Martin has basically come out of retirement, his network is not there. he is then relying on others. As we speak, unknown others.
He was lucky he inherited a word class striker first time astound and he was smart enough to built the team around him. He did also sign his fair share of duffers!
No such luxuries this time. Also starting from a standing start.
Paul67 et al
I suppose one analogy might be the Celtic Fans Collective Steering Committee………
Nobody knows who’s at the wheel….
NewBallsCSC
Now, now, don’t turn into one of those “bedwetters” you were so fond of decrying over the last few years.
This transfer window is shamelessly following the last four: virtually no business will be done until Maeda, and Engels are sold.
The sole purpose of this Board isn’t the football team, it is turning a profit from every single window.
Still, it looks as if the penny is finally dropping.
Somebody remind me…….
When did the SPL Transfer Window actually open?
And when does it close……?
Nice one, Paul, you managed to get pretty much a full house within half an hour.
Surely a record?
What I will say is I believe Martin O’Neill is not a stupid man, nor do I believe the Celtic hierarchy have the intention of legging-him-over so I am hopeful he has some kind of guarantee and there’s some semblance of a plan.
Brendan blamers reporting for duty …….Saahhh🫡
Well Paul67 has become controversial in some ways but you can’t deny he was at the vanguard of the aul’ click-bait revolution.
More power to his elbow…
Hail Hail
Didn’t Ange’s agent basically do the heavy lifting during his first window? In which case, not unique to Rodgers!
Given MON has been out of football for some time, he won’t have much by way of agent relationships. Just as well we have a fully stacked scouting, recruitment and coaching team to pick up the slack…oh…
We’ve got five years that’s all we’ve got…….
Correction……five years that’s what he got…..
FakeNewsCSC
Hey for the 2nd time in about 20 years Chairboy might be correct in his negativity about our club and its chances.
Personally not quite betting on it yet though. His track record ain’t too good really.
As for all the other ‘experts’ with your half empty glasses….Hope you are getting as much joy from projecting the negativity as you seem to. Better than kicking a dog or other I would imagine.
I must be missing something.
What about that recruitment infrastructure which remains in place.
Utter bollocks.
One of my many gripes with Brendan Rodgers is that he fuckin delivered trophies.
The board have learned feck all from last year.
It might well a very rough ride for them, if they are brave enough to show face.
Shower of chancers.
And their leading apologist, your pals in the board ran out of road a long, long time ago.
Meantime in the real football world standby for an incredible final series of group games. Plenty of dead rubber for sure. Plenty of manipulation of mutually beneficial draws. Sadly none of this will help Scotland if stuck on 3 points after tomorrow. The teams who play their final group games later have a clear advantage esp with new rules re ‘head to head’.
Lionroars67 @ 12:22 pm,
Yea, that is some gripe…
If that doesn’t deserve a fraudgers label, a toxic character assassination and plenty of daggers in the back and the demolition of the whole Lennextown first team set up, I don’t know what does…
Hail Hail
Hope you are all playing CQN Bingo blame game
Brendan Rodgers
Chairboy (Soon to overtake BR)
Chairboys gang ?
Celtic collective
Celtic podcasts/Youtubers
Celtic bloggers
Celtic trust
David Low
Honda Civics
Feel free to add
A very troubling statement, weird in fact
Celtic hierarchy have the intention of legging-him-over
Mind boggles, not sure how a 74 year old would cope with that, could be a criminal offence
It’s not panic time yet, but the situation is odd. MON can only be figurehead and motivator. We know he is not on top of recruitment nor involved in day to day coaching. Before appointing him the crucial steps were identifying a decent recruitment strategy (identifying key positions), recruitment team and coaches. All three might be in the pipeline but we see no evidence of it. If even the host of this site is getting twitchy, the signs are not good…
GENE @ ages ago
True dat.
Wouldn’t be a surprise if it went beyond Friday first training day, before the full set up was known. MON is a non tracksuit manager and lots of players at the WC or injured etc, so no great Celtic rush. 🤣
Stephen McManus definitely in for Friday. 👍
Thete is a very perinent point today around the timing of siignings.
Unsurprisingly the more insight we have on a player via scouting or try before you buy, the better return on investment.
What I would like to see is us using the analytics from our successful signings vs those who flop
As examples
In the last 15 years we’ve had good value from the Nordics when we sign guys on the way up ( Nygren, Ajer, Lustig) . Conversely guys topping up their pensions like Ljunberg flop.
Same with England – O’Riley, Hooper, Matthews all worked, while Carlton Cole and others flopped.
Under BR we signed two guys from Bayo and Kouassi who flopped.
Japan is interesting as midfield / forwards have tended to work while defenders like Iamura and Kobiyashi haven’t.
Equally if we look at managers who have operated in different leagues ( Ange, BR, MoN, WGS) they perform better than Nancy and Deilia.
There are exceptions, but we could do a lot worse than get someone going through our own data and creating profiles of guys who are likely to succeed.
I’m sure Shaun Maloney said that McManus and Strachan led most of the on the pitch training.
We’ve only had since January to sort out our management and recruitment team. Quality takes time
Even the Glasgow taxi drivers have given up
I think it was FANADPATRIOT that suggested we sign Saracchi and Araujo and play them in front of KT and AJ.
Now , I’m not sure about four fullbacks but I did think on occasions last season it would have been a good idea down our left side.
I’m not sure if any team actually tries this tactic.
After seeing Robertson and KT the other day I can see why.
So that’s P67 and Celtic Mac thrown out of the 🪱🐛.
It’s going to be lonely for B2B, B78 and Blogger.
They’ll need to work twice as hard.
Anyone outed any of those hunterlopers yet?
Unsurprised CSC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c77y64gzvzgo
He was always on our radar then so he is a player I have been aware of for a while, and of course I had seen him – but that was just a lot of clips maybe, or a few highlights from a downloaded game. That is how it is presented to you when you are scouting someone to sign them, unless it is a top priority and you would watch full games.
Now, though, I have just watched him play a whole match against Germany, so I saw everything about him. I will hopefully see him again over two or three, or even more, matches in the coming weeks too.
I could look up some clips or study his data any time, but now what he can do is stored in the hard disk in my head. As a coach, that is always how you prefer to remember players, and what they can bring.
……….
Again, you only get this kind of full impression of a player from seeing him with your own eyes. There’s no other way of doing it.
garygillespieshamstring, 12:08pm: “Where is everyone?”
_____________________
Away scouting for potential signings?
🤔
Nonsense, Lawwell had Duhan on speed dial
Lionroars67 @ 1:37 pm,
Concerning…
Seems the groupies are getting very marginalised and desperate.
Got to say though – twenty years ago on these very pages I did voice my concerns about the 2006 share issue.
It seemed rather dodgy, though my concerns were assuaged by the ITK guys.
Turns out the ITK guys were placemen and that my concerns, on top of the transfer to the AIM stock exchange were, if anything, far too cautious.
From my perspectivd, Dermot Desmond and his coterie have taken over our Club and using AIM and their disregard for best practice in governance would see them run the firm like a defacto private enterprise.
Hail Hail
I think we should be worried that P67 is expressing concern about our lack of finalising our management team and hence our recruitment team