The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
After Neil Lennon resigned we discussed how Celtic have recently appointed managers to address the most glaring deficiency of the previous boss. Gordon Strachan bought in value markets, whereas Martin O’Neill pretty much bought players who appeared on Match of the Day or Sportscene.
Despite his success, Gordon was manager of Celtic, not the leader of the club; there was always some distance between him and a section of the support. As a consequence, we next appointed the guy who ‘invented’ the Celtic huddle.
Tony Mowbray was close to our hearts, but he was also a flop of a Celtic manager. People inside the club knew this from the first week he was there when he asked to spend close to £4m on Marc-Antoine Fortune.
Tony was out of sync with scouts and coaches. How do you fix that? You appoint one of the coaches who saw it all happen.
Neil Lennon didn’t have many obvious deficiencies. If we were to ask what his weakness was, there would be a range of answers.
Perhaps as a consequence, we’ve gone out with a clear remit: our manager should be intelligent, technically capable, insightful, and have a progressive and modern approach to the game. He must dovetail with the infrastructure we have worked so hard to build up, and be in tune with strategy.
All we know today is that the criteria for the job was correct and our man matches that criteria.
Ronny is one of the scientific innovators in the game who has had the ‘Moneyball’ tag applied. Back in 2009 I wrote about the books, Moneyball, and the football spin-off, Why England Lose (now re-launched as Soccernomics). I also put a copy of Why England Lose into the hands of a senior decision maker at the club.
The point about Moneyball and this type of analysis cannot be abbreviated in few short sentences, and it is certainly not as prosaic as ‘buying low and selling high’ – that’s old news now, which makes it a dead topic as far as Moneyball is concerned. The Michael Lewis book which did so much to publicise ‘sports economics’ was actually titled, Moneyball – The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.
The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
The game is unfair because others have more money, or more experience, or more sympathy with officials, or whatever your circumstances dictate. But most sports are also full of enormous inefficiencies.
Football clubs are hostages to ridiculous forces, just listen to the names within the game who urged Celtic to appoint a well-known name in order to put bums on seats. Some clubs do this – put a ‘name’ in, in the hope they sell some tickets, without realising there are enormously difficult football games ahead.
The football industry is top-heavy with fools with big budgets who don’t know what they are doing. Celtic’s job is to build a team who can compete at an ever-higher level in the Champions League. To get there we need a ruthless conviction against the inefficient nonsense which paralyses the rest of the game.
In 10 years I’ve never once agreed with a Celtic managerial appointment. I welcomed Gordon, Tony and Neil while saying the board have made the wrong decision. All of these appointments are risky, there are no guarantees – for short-term or long-term success. Guru managers don’t exist and Ronny has years of work ahead of him to build Celtic ever-higher, but I couldn’t be happier at his appointment. Eye on the prize…. it’s all about winning.
Welcome to Celtic, Ronny, you’re going to love it here, but keep your kilt on.
All of this and 300 Celtic fans at the CQN the Lisbon Lions gig in Greenock tonight! Hold me back!
Lladro replica World Cup trophy
My thanks to Liam, from East Kilbride, who donated his prize memento, a Lladro replica World Cup trophy, commissioned by the Spanish FA in 1978, and acquired by Liam in 1982. It will be auctioned on Saturday with proceeds going to our Mary’s Meals school kitchen appeal. You can get involved in the auction, or keep an eye on it as it happens, here. The auction takes place at Great Western Auctions, on Dumbarton Road.
Visit the CQN Bookstore to get Tommy Gemmell to sign your personal copy of his tome, All the Best.
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The jury is out on any manager that comes in, as it is for any player.
first of the gang to die
11:49 on 7 June, 2014
Maybe just maybe thats what his weans asked for
Stuck the iPod on shuffle about half an hour ago. Around 6,000 songs there and what’s just come on but my scratchy viny-45-without-a- middle (converted to digital) original (hand me down) version of The Crystals Da-Do-Ron-Ron. Never sounded better!
planetsaliginingCSC
I love it when things dovetail into the infrastructure together.
MWD says AYE
TBB
Nice wee tale that earlier.
Finally I made it, I’m in Canada ;) 14 hour delay.
Now that we have a Norwegian manager, any chance of recruiting a couple of Swedish physios??
Malone Bhoy, Absolutely, but if you read some of the posts here yesterday, you would believe we have already hit the jackpot. We may indeed have a good one, but time will tell.
CRC
What do you mean by “budget slashed”?
Our wage bill under Lenny last year was the highest it’s ever been, £40M versus £33M the previous year. Do though factor in player bonuses for performances that season.
In recent times, only WGS had his budget ‘slashed’, reducing it from £37M to £32M in his first year, and Lenny in his first year when we cut the Mowbray legacies from the payroll, going from £36M to £32M.
The big difference in Lenny’s time has been ‘net spend’ on players.
Whereas WGS ran at an average net spend of £4.5M each year, and Mowbray spent net £6M, Lenny has run in surplus over this period, the £7M net gain (McGeady) in 2011 followed by net spends of £2M in each of the following 2 years.
Again, we don’t have sight of the 2013/14, but most fag packets show substantial net gain, with proceeds from Wanyama, Hooper and Wilson far exceeding the spend on Pukki et al. There’s probably +£15M net gain on player trading over Lenny’s time.
The corollary is wages have gone up. Not by as much, but substantially nevertheless.
Consequently, the cash has been highly positive, and we’ll show an 8 figure number in the bank at end June versus £3M last time.
Over to the club to decide how to apply this.
The works in and around Celtic Park are not costed, but I expect there’s a substantial figure allocated, perhaps >£5M if the bar/museum etc completes.
I expect Ronny will be permitted to spend some of it on players this summer. The repeated references to ‘offensive’ football implies a focus on forward players who don’t come cheap (if they’re any good).
I suspect also the board has an eye on keeping a buffer between the club and any local Champions League wannabees. Until that one plays out, I expect we’ll maintain a net cash position, rather than net debt, not least as it’s taken 10 years to get to this point.
In terms of net profit and loss, as at June 2013, Lenny’s years showed a cumulative profit of £24M, but looking further ahead, there’s no point in running the club at a consistent profit, as the tax asset (from the decade of losses) will soon be exhausted, and there is absolutely no point in paying cash to tax given we are essentially run as a not-for-profit-distributing business.
I would expect Celtic to run at break even over the period, which implies that sooner or later we’ll need to spend a bit more than we are currently.
Maybe Lenny left at the wrong time.
TonyD67
Enjoy the time with your family.
Skyisalandfill
Apart from anything else (as WGS has demonstrated) if you have not caught the Celtic bug from past experience it does not take long to become infected.
Thank you
hamiltontim is praying for oscar
12:26 on 7 June, 2014
TonyD67
Enjoy the time with your family.
tonydonnelly67
12:23 on
7 June, 2014
Keep well and keep posting,T.D.
Jobo, I see you’re back on. Delighted with the news re your wife, hope all the chores are done and you can relax for rest of the day.
Bobby Murdochs CUW three weeks and counting till I get a square in a well fired roll washed down with a can of tennents for breakfast. One day home, hope the weather gets better Jobo!, before we head off to Croatia to start the adventure. In budapest for the final. Still waiting for the draw for the Hoops champions league game 22/23 July really hope it is at Celtic Park. Hail Hail.
TinyTim
11:58 on 7 June, 2014
I don’t believe Roy Keane was ever a genuine option.
Neil Lennon’s disclosure that RD had originally been lined up to replace Dolph confirmed by initial scepticism.
I hope it works out, but I’m under no illusions about why he was chosen.
TONYDONNELLY67
Have a fun time,bud.
And don’t worry,there is no truth in the rumour that The Brazen is gonna change the locks while yer away.
Not yet,at least…..
tonydonnelly67
A generation ago you’d only have been able to annoy people within earshot.
Now, thanks to the benefits of modern technology, you can do it from the other side of the planet.
I blame the teachers.
How was the flight? Did the huns behave themselves?
Meanwhile on FF…
The whole thing is becoming a pathetic farce.
The parasites are still in power bleeding the club dry, Wallace is still drawing an obscene salary
The fans are in the dark not knowing what to do, DK has gone quiet,
Rangers men that we have always trusted such as Walter Smith, John Greig etc seem to be sitting on the fence,
Ally comes out with a vague statement that is like trying to decipher the de vinci code
My 3 renewals are sitting unopened on the mantelpiece whilst others are hot footing it to the ticket office.
Its chaotic, we need clarity, leadership and information. The new season is approaching, the last thing we need is this current state of affairs.
I am still refusing to renew but I know of others who are wavering.
Tony D , I have only been to Canada once but I’m jealous in a nice way. One of best places I have been to.
Did those on your flight going to the wake for the deid club in Brampton behave themselves?
Have a great time and, if its still available, enjoy the The Upper Canada Brewing company swallay.
Enjoy your time with your family TD , most important thing in the World. Have a great one mate. HH
We do not get good value for wages. Most people would be happy if we were able to achieve what the likes of Benfica and Porto manage. This shouldn’t be out of reach (barring the more difficult work permit rules in the UK).
The main difference is – we pay more than they do in wages, but spend (and receive) less on transfers. Some of that might be to do with them being able to sell players at £20m+ whereas there’s a glass ceiling in Scotland – but if we can one day break through that then why not. They spend £5m on a promising young player – he gets paid maybe £5-10k a week rather than £10-20k – turns in to a world class player and is sold on for £20-30m.
Guys
Any chance we could stop using the name ” Retard in
The ” Daily Retard ” its a personal thing maybe i”m a wee bit sensitive , but surely there can be another word used in its place
:))
TBB
Or reduce ticket prices.
If there was a direct relationship in Scotland between the wage bill and guaranteed CL group participation and we reach that point, would an extra spend on players make much of a difference to CL progression to make the extra income gained worth spending on players?
If we have CL money for the next 5 years and why not, imagine how it could be spent to improve the other services the support could enjoy.
( I’m not thinking Celtic Theme Park exactly but certainly a must see tourist destination)
Can anyone advise how to pronounce our new manager’s surname properly please? DIE-la, DAY-la, DEE-la already been said on TV/radio…
It’s only common courtesy we say it correct. Ask Jorge Cadete, or Horhay Cadetay as Chick Dung used to say…
Taurangabhoy
Enjoy the opening of the commonwealth games at Celtic Park on July 23
Malone Bhoy good post re the young Norwegian boy,he’s one our new manager will know all about andwearing 67 well it’s a sign I tell ya!! If he does turn up at Celtic Park well spotted Sir. Chapeau will be doffed. Hail Hail Hebcelt
… We buy a player at £2-3m and if we’re in luck he turns into a real good player and we sell him from £5-12m.
Di-la
corkcelt –
Thank you. Yes, chores done and a golf tee time booked for 1.18. Usual gig at 6.00 Vigil Mass so hope the wummin in front of us aren’t too slow today. 4 weeks to Aberdour so time I started breaking 100 ;-)
bollocks Mickybhoy ok so likely to be a first leg at home or does that mean if its a second leg home game it will be at an alternative ?
Stairheedrammy
I expect you can credit both Owen’s posh voice and his lackings as a footballer to that.
Actually surprisingly the Huns did behave, bit it was a lonnnggggg day.
But alls well that ends well, I didn’t get to see my two grandsons, as I got in at 2:00 am I hear the patter of tiny feet above me in my bedroom, but I don’t want to get up and scare them as I haven’t met them yet, oooops hear my daughter up now too, .
I better head up stairs, hope I don’t burst out crying and scare them, ah well, hear goes, HH.
marspapa
12:38 on
7 June, 2014
Guys
Any chance we could stop using the name ” Retard in
The ” Daily Retard ” its a personal thing maybe i”m a wee bit sensitive , but surely there can be another word used in its place
:))
+ 1
Leftclicktic:
Don’t forger to remind your mum… BGT
Don’t forger to remind your mum… BGT
Don’t forger to remind your mum… BGT
Don’t forger to remind your mum… BGT
I was there a few years back. Squeezes your heart.
Marspapa
I’d echo that also.
marspapa
12:38 on
7 June, 2014
Guys
Any chance we could stop using the name ” Retard in
The ” Daily Retard ” its a personal thing maybe i”m a wee bit sensitive , but surely there can be another word used in its place
:))
————–
Well said sick of it too
marspapa
12:38 on
7 June, 2014
Guys
Any chance we could stop using the name ” Retard in
The ” Daily Retard ” its a personal thing maybe i”m a wee bit sensitive , but surely there can be another word used in its place
:))
Yep me too!