News that Hull City had a £6m bid for Robert Snodgrass accepted took the wind out of my sails this morning. Snodgrass was one of the outstanding performers for clubs in the bottom half of the English Premier League last season, so it’s easy to understand his ticket price, despite only having a year left on his Norwich City contract.
He is a Celtic fan and has not hidden his desire to play for the club, but Hull City (good grief) are now bidding £6m for players from relegated clubs, after spending £8m on a Spurs squad filler.
This all begs the question, can we afford to compete with Hull City? Probably, yes, but we can no more afford to splurge £14m on a couple of players than Hull, who a year ago were reporting debts close to £80m.
We’re operating in an environment where indirect competitors for players are spending unsustainable amounts of money, pretty much like Rangers did for 20 years under Sir David Murray. For a few years after Fergus left, we played the same game as Rangers, running up millions of pounds of losses year after year, before pulling away from the edge, while they kept the pedal to the metal and careered into liquidation.
The decision not to match the Bank of Scotland money flowing into Rangers cost us trophies, and caused a great deal of dispute in the Celtic family, but story ended sweetly. So, so, sweetly.
The crash may never hit England, but the job for Celtic is to find a way of remaining competitive in the Champions League while matching income to expenditure.
Visit the CQN Bookstore to get Tommy Gemmell to sign your personal copy of his book, All the Best.
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Cheers HT
HH
HH
Well done Vogupunter HH
Damn you lol
Just a fan/VP
Many congratulations to you and your wives, great achievement!
Vogupunter = voguepunter lol
Macjay-I am a fan and supporter,so how dare i say “stupid” about anything Celtic.I must be a pesky malcontent.
Amazed at how much progress Sammi has made as a player in the last ten days. Truly amazing. Celtic should sign him immediately and pay him whatever his agent wants.
Bada, how dare you have your own opinion lol ;-)
Paul. If we sell one player for 6m we can replace him for one player for 6m
kevjungle – murdo macleod is my favorit celtic player ever.
13:35 on 27 June, 2014
In for a wee break from painting the fence for 15 mins or so…….
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon
13:04 on 27 June, 2014
There was a period in the mid nineties when our top scorers over a season were Pat McGinley one year and our new assistant manager the next. Don’t think either scored 20 goals.
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Aye, and when ye think that Pat McGinley was gotten rid of in preference for, Peter(the original ghost) Grant to stay in the midfield, is it any surprise that, Tommy Burns(RIP) was, I would say only marginally better than Lou Macari as a manager – given the amount of money both men had to spend?
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You’ve excelled yourself today with that post.
I have to argue with Jambo’s on a yearly basis regarding the poppy debate and the war memorial which Hearts fans feel strongly about which is their right. It’s their club and tthey have a pride for that team.
What they always forget though is that they were offered to play a match to raise funds for their war memorial and the team who offered them that game was Celtic. I don;t believe the club name even features on that memorial even though thousands of Celtic supporters helped pay for it.
Do not let that slip your mind when this debacle is mentioned in the future. It is continually thrown in my direction living in Edinburgh. I even had a Jambo email me once during a minutes silence in the office saying I hope you are keeping quiet. This is during the silence itself. That is how stupid these people are.
We always sing about if you know your history but fans of other clubs remember what they want to. Celtic fans remember everything about our history.
The peice by Ralston is a disgrace. Using a war and people’s death for petty point scoring. He should be brought to task by Celtic and he should print an apology. This is one instance where a ban should be mandatory.
Very angry about this article.
LB
Bundoran Bhoy -I think some guys would still prefer the Kellys’ and the Whites’ still in charge,sit at the back say nothing,but give us your money.HH
georgios samaras games against rangers
total games-23
total goals..-03
hail hail
“Competing with the crazies” that must be the Podium Chasers.
Bada
I get it all the time, I cant afford a season ticket (but get merchandies n go to the odd game when i can) so get told im not a supporter then?
Cant please some people :-)
HH
LB
Good post.
The crash may never hit England
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The sooner the better.
HH
This all begs the question, can we afford to compete with Hull City? Probably, yes, but we can no more afford to splurge £14m on a couple of players than Hull, who a year ago were reporting debts close to £80m can.
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Sorry Paul, but 17th place in the EPL for 5 years will see Hull City earn more than a quarter of a BILLION pounds (around £320 million), whilst we will receive around £10 million. It’s simply mathematics – we are nowhere near the power of a Hull City now.
We are now struggling to compete with the Championship. I don’t believe a Hooper would sign now, nor could we afford him. In five years time we will be struggling to compete with Division one.
One day we would all like to hear what the SPFL/CFC solution to this problem is- or are we just accepting we will never be competitive again at the top level in our lifetime?
Hamiltontim that you off on your 52 weeks school hols now? lol
Paul 67
I think that the biggest and, immediate challenge to the new management team is to show that they can ‘manage’ as best they can, with the tools they already have in the box.
I think that, Balde, Pukki etc….can be better ‘managed’ than they were before.
For example – how many chances did Balde miss?
How many did he score?
How many were created for him?
How much game time did he get?
Who bought him?
If it was Neil, who came out and said at the last transfer window that he needed improvements in the striking area – after having spent what? £11mill in the previous window?
It begs the question, when was Neil going to be questioned for not getting these players ‘working’ rather than adopting the ole hun attitude of – if there’s a problem, throw money at it?
So, for me…RD & JC should be going all out to prove that they can ‘manage’ before spending. imho
Hail Hail
Repost.
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
13:43 on
27 June, 2014
!!Bada Bing!!
13:34 on
27 June, 2014
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
12:58 on
27 June, 2014
JaseBhoy
12:53 on
27 June, 2014
Celtic stupid?
Who`s side are you on?
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
13:27 on
27 June, 2014
!!Bada Bing!!
13:16 on
27 June, 2014
I have no reason to believe him or disbelieve him.
Nor do I have any reason to call Celtic stupid.
Maybe that`s because I support Celtic.
How about you?
Not had enough chocolate today ? Guys are on questioning the “wisdom” of not offering GS a new contract.A decision that has cost the club between £3-5 mil IMO.Now that is stupid.
Clink\o/
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Bada and Jase call Celtic “stupid.”
Any more for the “stupid Celtic” bandwagon?
Incidentally,please outline your experience in running multi million pound businesses.
Or are you just fag packet capitalists with delusions of grandeur?
Bundoranbhoy
I’m starting a petition to lengthen years to 53 weeks, just so we can get more holidays :-)
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
I applaud you for you staunch support of the club, there are not may fans who wont moan about things the club do, its good to know that there is at least one guy who wont disagree with anything the club do, bearate any of the players for having a bad game or critise even where its shown it may be deserved!
I take it back you are a much better fan than I!
HT
I’ll sign your petition lol
You deserve all the hols you get :p
From previous……
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SydneyTim
13:39 on 27 June, 2014
___________________
Aye, Peter Grant(the original ghost) – Joe Ledley being the most recent. imho
And, to think that PG played in the 1st team for what? 13 years?
Bundoranbhoy
Trust me, I know I do :-)
Apologies that we won’t make it tomorrow mate.
Embarrassed to say I googled “Gary ralston Celtic”
To save anyone else giving the daily record website the traffic, the piece states that Celtic should move to have the 1915 league title shared with Hearts as the latter suffered casualties in WW1 – while glossing over the fact that so did Celtic
The following is from celticnewsnow
—–/
Record Hack And Clyde Pundit Needs Help!
The news must be really thin on the ground these days. Especially when the hacks have to try and dig up some cock and bull story about Celtic’s moral compass.
The hack in question, Gary Ralston, has for some obscure reason gone with a story that Celtic should start the season with an act of good faith by retrospectively ‘sharing’ the, wait for it, 1914-15 league title with Hearts!
By doing so, Celtic would be honouring the WW1 heroes of the Edinburgh team as they lost the league that season due to some of their players being sent of to war. Celtic too lost players during the war but that doesn’t really figure in Ralston’s story. He chooses to blame the SFA for postponing the league and Hearts losing the last two games of the season, which Celtic won, and ultimately took the league.
Just how he can come up with this nonsense is staggering when you consider he was one of the journalists who stood by as Rangers (IL) cheated their way to title after title while paying players illegally.
Those who have experienced Ralston’s view on Clyde Super Scoreboard won’t be surprised that he can come up with this crap.
Maybe Gary should take his lard arse down to Govan and see if his new club can show an act of good faith to retrospectively pay the creditors the old club shafted only two years ago, never mind 100 years ago!
macjay1 -That was well worth a repost………….FWIW I do run my own successful business,what has that to do with anything ? I appreciate running CFC will not keep everyone happy all the time,so do you not think CFC has ever done anything stupid ?
No doubt PL will have read the Ralston article.
The CFC PR dept(?) will have been briefed.
Can we expect a statement soon?
I feckin hope so!
HH!!
bundoran bhoy
Podium chaser :-))))))
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
13:50 on
27 June, 2014
JaseBhoy
13:35 on
27 June, 2014
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
Again I ask you does that make me any less of a fan than you?
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I support Celtic.
You know…..SUPPORT.
No sustenance to the journalistic prats who seek to embarrass Celtic with their offensive suggestions about WW1 casualties.
They would love your criticism of Celtic.
Love it.
JaseBhoy
13:55 on
27 June, 2014
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
I applaud you for you staunch support of the club, there are not may fans who wont moan about things the club do, its good to know that there is at least one guy who wont disagree with anything the club do, bearate any of the players for having a bad game or critise even where its shown it may be deserved!
I take it back you are a much better fan than I!
Art of War
13:58 on
27 June, 2014
jasebhoy – you ruined that by using `staunch’ and `bearate’ or was it intentional?
thickcsc
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FGF makes a change from you ;-)
HT no probs buddy, catch up with you both soon :-)
Anyway lunchtime over for me catch you bhoys n ghirls later
HH
TALLYBHOY
Ralston has been very clever with this one. Celtic cannot retaliate,only stay silent.
To do otherwise maligns our dead in that worst of all wars.
That said,I doubt he’ll get away with it over time.
perhaps ralston should read this:
http://www.hellfirecorner.co.uk/celtic.htm
macjay1 for neil lennon
14:03 on 27 June, 2014
I’ve never, ever doubted you’re a Tim but can you define your ‘support’ in that post please?
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
Oh how right you are, apologies for my abysmal use of the english language!
p.s. just for clarity does critising other Celtic fans not count as critism of the club? Just for my furture reference and learnings from a TRUE celtic supporter!
Thanks in anticipation!
Coolmore Mafia
I’ve often wondered what will be the straw that breaks the camels back for Scottish football supporters. We have many clubs with a large core support but seemingly our football is only worth a tiny fraction of what it is a few hundred miles down the road.
The EPL is filled largely by regional clubs and you can survive comfortably with a crowd of 20k, never really doing anything but being cannon fodder for the few bigger clubs.
If things are to change for the better for Scottish football, and I think they will, fan power will again play a large part.
Its happening already imo, albeit slowly.
HH