Hindsight and all that, but looking back, Celtic’s form slipped in mid-April this year. We were imperious until that point, but even wins, like the Scottish Cup semi-final win over Newco, were not as impressive than the League Cup Final win over the same opponents a few weeks earlier.
The season petered out amid home draws against Motherwell and St Mirren and heavy defeats at Ibrox and Easter Road. The Scottish Cup Final win over Inverness was laboured compared to the League Cup Final performance.
Potency was lost when Aaron Mooy was injured in the second week of March. He returned for the odd cameo – one start and three substitute appearances, but the sharpness was gone. Adding to the issue, Cameron Carter-Vickers dropped out of the team after the Scottish Cup semi-final win in April. Aaron is now gone and it has been Cameron’s turn to put in cameo appearances this season.
Watching our midfield this season, it should be clear to all that the other big absence from the side is Reo Hatate. Callum McGregor has been partnered with two from Matt O’Riley, David Turnbull and Odin Holm. Stacks of potential there but we are missing the laser-like craft of Reo, nor have we replaced the strength of Aaron. Until this is addressed, nothing will change.
This is your timely reminder that Carter-Vickers and Jota didn’t join Celtic until deadline day two years ago. Without that day’s business, Tottenham fans would not be able to pronounce the name Postecoglou right now. We are not witnessing a managerial issue, just the normal process of rebuilding a team, while targeting valued players in demand with others fill their trollies with frees and journeymen.
Our own Mouldy67 has suffered injury in recent years, which stopped him participating in the recent Road to Seville cycle event from Celtic Park to the city we descended upon 20 years ago. I spoke to him last week for the video below and asked about his extraordinary work on behalf of the Celtic FC Foundation and the enormous challenge he is about undertake.
He will complete a virtual cycle of over 1,000 miles, including gradients, to raise money for our Foundation. For a man carrying an injury, it is a magnificent commitment, one that is an example to a few in the modern game. It was a moving insight into where we have been as a community in recent years, and Mouldy67’s take on being a Celtic supporter. I recommend it to you.
You can read more about his story, support his cycling and the work of the Foundation by donating here. Thank you.
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Monday so soon?
5 in please.
No, its not managerial. Its quality. 5 please.
No it’s about 75% managerial.
Afternoon
It’s not managerial. Tell us something we don’t know.
Mooy retired in May and Jota left at the beginning of July.
Neither has been replaced.
As an aside I’m looking forward to the CL draw.
not my recollection of the end of the game – large burst of jeering at the final whistle which had stopped by the time i was out my seat and halfway to the exit.
The walk round was largely respectful but i can’t comment on what GB did as i was out by then – there is no doubt that the vitriol is “largely” directed at the executive
First team?
Good points Pablo. I hope your right. Bhoys all looked scunnered on Saturday.
Not sure Ange ever got the midfield balance right at all, we do miss Reo, Iwatta has to get a game with the bull experiment now over. Holm will come good, but it’s early.
Exciting week ahead.
Consider this, how poor we have been and we are top of the pile, worse case scenario we are 2 pts off the top with a whole team of injuries to come back after being at Pittodrie and faux.fc.
Brendan let Kyogo play his game.
KLV
Spot on P67.
Our form noticeably went down hill in final quarter of last season.
A lot of fans have ignored that in the rush to criticise Brendan.
If we are witnessing the normal process of rebuilding a team, why do it at the last minute when it was apparent well before the end of last season that form had dipped so much. The Huns may be buying frees and journeymen but at least they get their business done in good time.
Like most on here I find myself sliding from a summer of wild excitement, about the season ahead to FFS
I also find when times are good I read and enjoy the words of wisdom, humour and insights on CQN
I rarely post BUT when I get nervous the keyboard gets it, so here I go
The Summer hype had me thinking there was a chance Kieran Tierney would come home
Possibly a punt on Dier or Holding any one of them would be great for us
The Croatian goalkeeper – brilliant
Oh this is our time – the next level and a good run in Europe
BTW I think Brendan was sold the same story
So what happened
Did Brendon try and get Kieran Tierney?
If trying to get one of our own is impossible – where does that leave us ????
I wish Kieron all the very best in Spain
I think (only my opinion) he would have come back to Celtic this year if it was possible
His contract goes until June 2026 and he earns £5.7m a year (£110k a week)
https://www.spotrac.com/epl/arsenal-fc/kieran-tierney-32750/
It tells 2 stories
It’s nearly impossible to shop in the EPL Market unless they are in the last year of their contract
And even if they want to come it’s probably too expensive for Celtic
From KTs point of view he could well run down his contract at Arsenal and come back to Celtic possibly next year most likely the year after when he will be in his final year
Meaning, and my point today – the Cavalry is not coming
Not Dier not Holding not any established footballer from the EPL
I foolishly started believing that we were about to take it to another level
Selling Jota was understandable especially if we were going to shop in the big shop
Could we afford KT for a year or Dier or Holding – yes I think we could afford one of them
But I think players of that quality are beyond Lawwell’s (both) imagination/budget
Are we back where we ended in Feb 2019
Brendan shopping in Harrods
Lawwell (the younger) shopping in Lidl
So the next 4 days
Palma is coming (from Greece)
I hope we have some influence with Man City and get one of their wonderkids
I pray there is a first team ready goalkeeper and left back that has never been mentioned in the speculation column but I am losing faith
In Ange’s time we seemed to buy early and he seemed to know them
Kyogo, Hatate, Johnson, Jota, O’Reilly, even CCV and a few more, all relatively unknown
Does this tell us our successful recruitment over the past 2 years was the Manager – NOT the recruitment team
Is Brendon pissed off because he was sold a “new look” recruitment department only to find nothing has changed
I am a self confessed Brendan fan and I am delighted he is back
BUT I do not get the impression he is happy – even before we went to Kilmarnock
The next four days (why does it always come to this) are now becoming a critical time in our season
Have our recruitment team got first team influential players available and about to come to Celtic
Or are we panicking and gambling on more projects
Is this why Brendans face is tripping him (is that the right word)
Only Celtic could spin me from super confident to FFS in a few weeks
Brendan I sense we may need you to work your magic starting on Sunday
Hail Hail one and all
67ECW
AN DÚN on 28TH AUGUST 2023 12:23 PM
Incorrect. Our league form dropped off after we won it, 5 of the last 6 league games of the season, when it didnt matter any more and when we rested played and CCV was our injured. Before that our league form was record breaking
We also beat the Huns in a cup semi and won the final
This season isn’t a continuation of the end of the last – we won when it mattered.
TURKEYBHOY on 28TH AUGUST 2023 11:35 AM
“Weaker than last season.” The in phase at the moment.On inspection,does not hold up
——————-
You disagree with the manager then.
Yes injuries have played a part, especially Hatate and Oh and we had no other option at centre forward but thats the risk a club takes if it only has 2 centre forwards on its books for matches in Scotland.
Mooy is a huge loss.
He was the best midfielder in Scotland from after the world cup until his injury.
Our best 3 players in midfield last season were McGregor, Hatate and Mooy.
On Saturdays match, if our 2 new midfielders couldn’t get any game time from the misfunctioning midfield that played on Saturday then that maybe answers the question if we are stronger or weaker.
‘..the lust for Bling..’
Try and calm down.
Thats cringeworthy.
Maybe that shows up your mentality.
Looking for players to take us to a better level who can step in and do a job is now ‘the lust for bling.’
We had 60 million in the bank at last accounts.
The money is there to buy automatic first team starters who can make our midfield highly functional rather than one paced.
We have no box to box midfielder or proper tackler for matches against quality.
But thats a ‘lust for bling’, hey, but you are definitely a Celtic fan………..
ELTIC40ME on 28TH AUGUST 2023 11:45 AM
LAMBERT14 on 28TH AUGUST 2023 10:55 AM
I don’t agree with your point of view
Honestly, I find it hard to understand why you can’t see the merits of our strategy. I struggle to get my head around your short-term thinking; it’s as plain to me as the failure of the strategy is to you.
But that’s me. I don’t think you’re less of a Celtic supporter because I think your vision of Celtic is wrong
I think calling Celtic supporters names on blogs because they disagree with you reflects more poorly on you than them.
————————
What name did I call you?
Tom McLaughlin from previous blog.
Yes, I watched it in McHales. Good pub.
Celtic
1st October 2022 till 7th May 2023
Played 35
Won 33
Drew 2.
when did “the form drop off ?”
oh , do they mean after we won the league ? and saved peoples legs for the final which i am sure we won in reasonable style.
E67, give me young cheap hungry players over epl millionaires any day.
Not one of the signings so far have failed, all the guys who have been thrown in due to injuries have all held their own. Tillio and Palma still to come in. And no doubt a couple more this week. Its not shopping at Lidl, better players have better options and unfortunately the league up here isn’t one of those, so we need to hang fire until the guys we want don’t get the option they want.
Stepping-stone. Csc
KLV
This season isn’t a continuation of the end of the last
—
It’s exactly a continuation of the end of last season. No CCV, no AJ, no Mooy, Ralston in, Turnbull in = bad results.
St. S are you having a laugh?
We were poor for months. In fact we struggled from Feb to we won the treble, the hun games were all tight but due to mistakes we kept beating them, maeda, jota, kyogo all benefitted from their mistakes at key times, pulling teeth home and away. P67 is bang on, we do have big loses but we pay Brendan the big bucks to find a solution.
KLV
LAMBERT14 on 28TH AUGUST 2023 12:15 PM
CELTIC40ME on 28TH AUGUST 2023 11:45 AM
LAMBERT14 on 28TH AUGUST 2023 10:55 AM
I don’t agree with your point of view
Honestly, I find it hard to understand why you can’t see the merits of our strategy. I struggle to get my head around your short-term thinking; it’s as plain to me as the failure of the strategy is to you.
But that’s me. I don’t think you’re less of a Celtic supporter because I think your vision of Celtic is wrong
=========================
There is nothing wrong with buying projects and potentials.
However we need automatic starters too to try to compete at a higher level.
Your argument is nonsensical.
Teams with a blend normally do best.
We are lacking in key areas and projects won’t do for what we should be trying to achieve.
Were you at the AGM last year?
The strategy that you value was being replaced.
‘Dont get used to having your heroes here for long’ Ange said.
Buy high and sell high was the new motto so as we could try and bring in better players to give us a better chance in Europe.
Jota was sold for £27 million, where are the new ready made replacements in keeping with the new policy change?
Was it ditched when Ange left?
P67 on here was adamant too that this was the best way to go.
So why is bringing in better quality that should help us improve in key positions which in turn should yield better results, which brings in greater income, which in turn gets these new players big moves for big fees, which means having more money to spend on better players which starts the whole ball rolling again, which the last manager, the board and P67 endorsed going to lead to ‘short term failure and a failure of strategy’?
As far as I can see, the failure of strategy is showing up from our European results over a number of years, buy you seem to think that still the way to go.
Why repeat the same mistakes and expect different results, as someone famous once said.
Can you explain why, with clear deficiencies in a number of positions, and with money in the bank to improve significantly, why you would rather stick with projects, very few of whom every make it with us?
BR worst decision decision so far was to select Turnbull instead of Hatate, best player in Scotland, for the opening day fixture.
Maybe not managerial, but change of managerial (to butcher the English language)
Which isn’t a criticism of Brendan, its just how things are.
You look at Spurs now and the players are absolutely loving playing for Ange. The fans already love him – they were all singing “we’ve got our Tottenham back” at the weekend. Thats about as important as it gets for everyone. The media in England is full of stories about how united everyone in the Spurs family is and solely because of him. They love him on the tv, he gave a typically dry quick funny and perceptive interview straight after the game in the studio.
He’s got last year’s fringe players playing their best football, new signings singing his praises.
He’s obviously a very charismatic figure who the players love and when you add in trophies you can understand why Celtic’s players.many of whom were brought in by him might be missing him.
Most mangers leave under a cloud, after failure players are often keen to see a new face with new ideas and the promise of success. This isn’t the case with Ange.
This is no criticism of Brendan, Ange is clearly a very difficult act to follow and when they’re being asked to do different things that dont come as naturally to them as playing in Anges system had become and you aren’t winning becoming a bit despondent is natural.
It will take time and hard work. I dont think all Anges signings were with his system in mind – the midfield signings weren’t the most dynamic, Hart’s no good with the ball at his feet, our CBs weren’t the best either. I think he was able, over time, to get them playing his way until eventually it was second nature.
I think Brendan is a good enough manager to do the same. He doesnt have the same relationship with players that Ange has but once we start winning players will buy into his methods.
It wont not work. Brendan has proved he’s too good for it not to, but it might take a bit longer than we had thought.
AJ lifted the place alone on Saturday as did CCV out giving the presentation.
We are missing many heroes just now,
The one we do have need to be played to their strengths. We will have new heroes out of the new guys you can see glimpses once they are up to the scottish game we will be laughing.
Gustav looks good, big quick bhoy. Love the quick balls out from the back. Lustig 2.0
Yang looks exciting already, great feet but tired on Sat.
Nawrocki also looked good, different pace here, he will adapt.
Holm looks good as well, cool wee guy who will adjust to our game and once the middle is settled he will learn from Cal and Reo.
So that’s 4 of the 6 new signings all up and running. Why the negativity? That’s a good average. We will see Tillio next month with Palma give us much needed aggression and directness. Lawell Jnr doing well.
Kwon we will see, acclimatisation takes time for some.
KLV
KEVINLASVEGAS on 28TH AUGUST 2023 12:45 PM
St. S are you having a laugh?
We were poor for months. In fact we struggled from Feb to we won the treble, the hun games were all tight but due to mistakes we kept beating them, maeda, jota, kyogo all benefitted from their mistakes at key times, pulling teeth home and away.
—————
I completely disagree. From January
We won by scoring 3 or more goals on 11 occasions.
We won all the away games, we won all the home games,
we bet the huns due only to their mistakes – rubbish, the chances gifted had to be converted, often with wonderful skills, breath taking speed, and bravery one on one.
If that was poor form, what actually is good form ?
what do you want ? an invincible season with 200 goals scored and none conceded.
it is football for goodness sake, the other team is there to stop us.
we have had 2 not so good games, a defeat and a draw, but we have only played 4 games in a whole month,
as said earlier players look scunnered , maeda has not cracked a smile this season.
I think the penny is beginning to drop with me.
Turks ‘lust for bling’ comment about fans wanting players signed who will make us far better, using some of the 60 million in the bank kind of confirms that CQN is different from other sites like Sentinel Celts, KDS and the Huddleboard.
I think turks, like stivs and burnley, and now celtic40me are probably PLC fans first and the team after that.
Having lots of money in the bank will keep the share price respectable with dividends each year.
If that is the thing that is their premium interest, which it looks like because I find it hard to believe that any fan of the team itself could come out with cringeworthy stuff like ‘a lust for bling’ because they want to see the money we have spent on better quality, then they should be upfront about it.
I have the same opinion of P67, that its PLC first then the team after that.
The split on here is people like myself who see that profits should be invested into quality players who would make us successful.
Never been a fan of Brendan’s style of football, too slow, too many sideways passes, which in turn gives opponent time to get behind the ball. OK, Ange’s 100mph wasn’t without it’s flaws, but at least we beat teams by the speed of passing and movemnt, which to me is the way forward.
Brendan’s style has alienated so many, CalMac, Taylor Kyog etc but we will see, and hope.
KINGLuBO
AN DÚN on 28TH AUGUST 2023 12:43 PM
“It’s exactly a continuation of the end of last season”
No it isnt.
We didnt lose a single meaningful game. We won a cup semi against the Huns and a cup final against ICT at the end of last season. We won the league by being 7 points ahead.
This season we lost a cup game against a team we beat in the League cup semi final and drew one of our opening games against St J. We havent scored a goal in two important games.
Hello Mr Agent, i know it is only May but I want to buy your guy now.
Em, can we wait, till he comes back from holiday, and after the season starts, and maybe after the european qualifiers, and if we dont get any better offers we can talk to you on deadline day, is that ok ?
Jota and ccv aside our strategy just now is the same as Anges. For every Reo there is a bernibi, for every for every maeda there is a haska and so on, Ange got Reo Maeda and Kyogo from same markers and scouting network as we have got Yang, Tillio, AJ, Holm etc. Nothing has changed, people don’t like Lawell because of his dad and people don’t like Brendan as he left us.
Take the emotion out of it and look at the facts. Same successful business model just different names.
But sometimes it’s easier to rant and rave.
KLV
Thats not a criticism of Brendan. Its just how it is.
I think we thought it would be easier but thats probably on us not him
Agree with most of that P67…..however we need to get the finger out pronto….we’ve got our punts in early enough….my fear and its starting to manifest into an eczema explosion, that these players are actually the replacements for Jota, Mooy and Starfelt….and possibly I can get over Starfelt with two centre back projects tho neither is as good at defending as starfelt.
I too had dreams of a back 4 of AJ CCV DIER/or Similar AND KT…I had dreams of Reider and Mcatee ( loan) ( can you imagine) in mid and a real match winner on the left terrorising Tavpen…..its now down to about 80 hours give or take ….and im startiing to think maybe someone wants BR to fail ?!!!
SAINT STIVS on 28TH AUGUST 2023 1:00 PM
Is it a great surprise that Jota was signed on the last day of the window when his agent is George Mendez?
Or that it took us weeks after the end of his first season to get him tied. down to a permanent deal when the fee was already agreed with Benfica?
Our victory against Hearts to win the league came at the end of a record breaking run.
For a thousand time,
I am neither a fan of the current PLC structure, nor a supporter of any individual on the board. I know none of them and have never met a single one.
Just because I know why they do what they do as a corporate business does not mean I favour their decision making with regard to the football team. however if I cant affect a change why bother moaning about it.
Particularly if I personally dont have all the facts.
As an aside, how would you know what other sites I post on, do you think i would use the same blog name ?
i sat with 3 Sentinel celtcs on friday night. We had a good laugh about anyone thinking i was a PLC supporter.
St stirs, yeah take the sarcasm out it. Players actually do have lots of moving pieces in their lives, families first and foremost, the guys we have brought in are younger less ties, older guys have families and as i said if they are better quality then they have better options.
We were very poor from January, we were not winning that game at paradise until the ball hit Jota in the nuts and yes our wee Japanese genius converted, sloppy back pass for Jota to put away the 3rd, the cup semi they went to sleep, Dazien never sleeps. Lol
Like just now, with CCV we look ropey just like when Ange was here.
RC et al, the players do not look happy or relaxed. No direction for warm ups and coaches all look flat, which is my bigger worry rather than scales or lawell.
Messing around with what Kyogo does is managerial.
I would run the entire team on what he can do in and around the box. The Hun named him as the difference between the teams. Let him play his game. He is the player they all fear.
Good to see the players not getting called up to play for the sfa.
Stop paying for VAR to cheat us and stop giving an association our players who always cheat us. Its not hard Celtic, if we say nothing they will pile on.
Protect your assets and fans.
KLV
I’m away back to bed, lots of emotions the past week, time for cool heads on and off the park.
Exciting week ahead, Brendan could make us all eat our words this time next week.
Hail Hail Bhoys.
KLV