If Peter Lawwell left the building last year, the final chapter would have been about nine-in-a-row and four consecutive trebles. His legacy (which we will cover at the end of the season) would have been a more straightforward matter to document. Instead, he gets to own a bad season, a cautionary tale to incoming chief executive, Dominic McKay. This job never goes to plan.
He arrived at the club in late 2003 at a time when the lemmings of Scottish football were heading for the cliffs. Celtic had just posted a £11.6m loss despite reaching the Uefa Cup Final, a sum that was dwarfed by Rangers’ £29.6m loss. We lost money every season since Fergus McCann left four years earlier. His first challenge was straightforward, remain competitive and don’t follow Rangers over the edge.
Martin O’Neill was replaced by Gordon Strachan who in his first season had to work with a reduced budget. Revenues grew as the club’s commercial operation matured, so Gordon’s budget soon passed that of Martin’s. Celtic enjoyed a period of financial stability, domestic success and for the first time reached the knock out stages of the Champions League, until then, a fabled nirvana.
If you think this season is the darkest period of Peter’s tenure you have forgotten about 2011. Gordon lost the league for the first time in 2009, Tony Mowbray lost his only title in 2010 and Neil Lennon lost at the first time of asking in 2011. In the autumn of 2011, we dropped 10 points behind Rangers, who were on track for four-in-a-row.
For me, who started writing a blog about the need for financial stability, those years were a real challenge. We were paying our bills but there is no obligation on football fans to take an interest in the club’s accounts, all most want to see is a winning team, and Rangers were winning what mattered. This debate played out for years on CQN. Some of us knew Rangers were going to crash and burn, although it was not until 2011 that I realised how spectacularly that was going to happen. Others on here talked of “Jam tomorrow”.
It was likely but never inevitable that Rangers would become insolvent. Peter chose a path that guaranteed our survival over matching Rangers’ losses. It made him unpopular, but he felt it was the right path to follow. I agreed.
The world changed in season 2011-12. David Murray sold Rangers to Craig Whyte, an experienced insolvency expert. Craig had a plan to liquidate Rangers, phoenix with a Newco and become incarnate as the body and soul of Oldco.
CQN was always active on Rangers finances, they were as pertinent to the success of Celtic as our own, but I went out on a limb in October that year, with what was a prescient blog, The prepack route for Rangers Newco FC. I predicted Rangers liquidation, the consequential space in the SPL, the consequences for the TV deal, sponsorship deals and for other clubs. I explained how Newco would try to join the top flight and finished with a call to arms to stop it, all months before any of it happened.
Celtic said very little during this period but the role Peter Lawwell played in stopping Newco Rangers slipping straight into the top flight was absolute. The prescience and call to arms in that blog and the many that followed in the months to come, were well informed.
The rise of Neil Lennon as manager culminated in that night against Barcelona in November 2012 but the sands were already shifting below our feet. Barcelona was a peak, not a new plateau. Ronny Deila was manager before he was ready. He won leagues but fatefully blew Champions League qualification.
The appointment of Brendan Rodgers was nothing to do with Dermot Desmond watching Newco directors celebrate a semi-final win at Hampden, Dermot was on an aeroplane by then, it was more about chance. Brendan was out of work, a Celtic fan and in need of a place to restore his managerial reputation. Despite the titles, Celtic were flagging. He filled the stands, boosted every revenue stream and won five trophies, before leaving us at the altar of back-to-back trebles.
Few of us were inspired when Neil Lennon was appointed permanent manager after securing that second treble against Hearts. Brendan was sacked by Liverpool, Neil ‘mutual-ed’ by Hibs, by any measure, a downgrade. That night in Rome 14 months ago, when Celtic recorded their first win on Italian soil, the decision look inspired, but not for the first time, the sands were already shifting below our feet.
The collapse this season had been nothing to do with fans not being at games, players isolating or any other nefarious reason. We got our football operations wrong, it is as simple as that. You and I will regret this for a long time, as will Peter Lawwell.
We will lose the league to a Newco Rangers who (pre-crisis) have annual losses approaching Oldco’s when Peter took over. Losing the league hurts, but financial fundamentals ultimately determine the future. This lesson from the Peter Lawwell era will endure. Good luck to Dominic McKay, he has a big sharp suit to fill.
483 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- »
Lucky Cody, I’d trust Desmond’s judgement ahead of your contacts.
Desmond didn’t become a Billionaire by chance,
To quote Henry Ford when some guy started to give him advice, If you’re so clever, how come you ain’t rich.
Our gallant allies in Europe saw sense..
CORKCELT on 29TH JANUARY 2021 10:40 PM
Well by that ‘logic’ it’s a bit of a puzzle why, what with The Great Desmondo being so rich and clever and everything, why the football club he owns is trailing in the wake of a bunch of impoverished bums.
If Dermot was already on an aeroplane by the time Newco directors were celebrating then how much of the game did he actually stay to watch at Hampden? Was his aeroplane in the car park?
Chiming with some others…
Peter’s main skills were in competently managing the profit centre of a business and his club ambassadorship.
Over a 17-yr tenure, it seems those parts would get a tick despite the speculative frittering on project players.
But other key areas of CEO responsibility – strategy, people development, culture, reputation and issues management – were not especially well attended to. Neither was his aloof stakeholder engagement style.
Interesting that NL said he only learned of PL retirement that morning, while Broony said he’s know of it for a while: Schisms in the message management or porkie pie department, yet again.
That the new guy ‘gets PR’ might see improvements in that area, but only if DD’s leash is long enough.
Bye Peter; “There is one more thing…it’s been emotional.”
MARADOMINIC on 29TH JANUARY 2021 10:24 PM
Not a mention of fans in all the gushing statements
Yes
Completely forgotten about
The appointment of a CEO, shouldn’t be analysed in the manner of the signing of a centre forward.
I am encouraged on a number of fronts.
This appointment has obviously been in process for at least 6 months, an illustration that at least in this area, we are capable of having a professional & proactive succession plan in play.
Dominic McKay has a relevant & succesful CV, he will have had alternative options and will have carried out due diligence before accepting the offer.
The fact he is an existing Celtic Season ticket holder is irrelevant in the long term but may assist in PR short term
If we apply the same level of professionalism in the selection of our new Director of Football and 1st team Coach, it will be a step in the right direction.
I don’t know if it has been mentioned but “The Three Kings” is now free to view on Amazon, a cracking documentary about Stein, Busby and Shankly, 90 minutes very well spent
For what it is worth….
I think Peter Lawell’s legacy over time, will be be viewed in a largely positive light but I agree with the sentiments of The Celtic Trust and others, who believe it is unhealthy for any CEO to have a lifespan anywhere close to 17 years.
SLOLEYBHOY on 29TH JANUARY 2021 11:13 PM
‘Dominic McKay has a relevant & succesful CV’
###
From what I’ve read he’s never been a CEO, so while he’ll have some relevant skills and experience, he’ll be on a steep learning curve and his appointment involves a bit of a leap of faith. Time will tell.
Ernie, Sport is Sport, Desmond is not the type to throw money at the Club/
He has an Investment in Celtic and in general terms Celtic have been successful.
However if every rich man could simply buy results then Sport would cease to be Sport.
Desmond will have done his research and the new Appointment will have been months in the oven before todays announcement.
I don’t contend that Desmond is infallible, I’m just saying I’d trust his Judgement in selecting a suitable candidate rather than Lucky Cody’s contacts.
ERNIE LYNCH on 29TH JANUARY 2021 11:21 PM
From what I’ve read he’s never been a CEO, so while he’ll have some relevant skills and experience, he’ll be on a steep learning curve and his appointment involves a bit of a leap of faith. Time will tell.
———————————————————————–
You are 100% correct, he has never held a CEO position however appointing a COO to a CEO position is a relatively well trodden path. Not without risks but not i would suggest a leap of faith.
As you say time will tell….
Looking back on big peters time at Celtic # the Glory years, from 2003 to 2011 how many titles did Celtic win, compared to our rivals, This is his golden period, after that just like smith there was no competition, please don’t go down the cheating route. Our club thought it was fine
Blog awash with hunterlopers kiddin on they’re no delighted that big Peter is gone.
Two omissions by me.
PL delivered well on ground and training building infrastructure (incl disco lights)
For all that was done well, I forgot to say thanks Peter.
Well that’s it……..New ceo here for a year then out unless we win the league.
Some on here should pick CEO /Manager/Dof then all would be fine in Paradise.
blog awash with supporters
TIMHORTON on 29TH JANUARY 2021 11:58 PM
Well that’s it……..New ceo here for a year then out unless we win the league.
Some on here should pick CEO /Manager/Dof then all would be fine in Paradise.
You’re probably more right than you think
Gene
Good news 👍
HH
CORKCELT on 29TH JANUARY 2021 10:31 PM
It is good big mhan, that was a hare brained action, I never before saw every Political Party in the 32 Counties agree on an issue,
That is good to see there is a united concensus of opinion Corky i was listenin to beeb radio pushing pro brexit fable that this shows how Brexit was right along along,focus on eu invoking a16 without national gov consent./uk can act quicker ….and then there is Arlene!
brexidiot bassas will do anything for there Brit Nationalism.they idiots lookin for any excuse to play orange card.enjoyin the unity debate.
.
HH
==============================
kip now cqn
Ta for bein here Celts.
HH
game tomorrow
.
TERRYMAC @ 6:36 PM
Lol
RORY SMITH ON SOCCER New York Times Jan. 29, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/sports/soccer/old-rivals-new-ideas-and-why-some-clubs-are-reluctant-to-try.html
Old Rivals, New Ideas and Why Some Clubs Are Reluctant to Try
Is it possible Rangers and Celtic are too tangled up in their rivalry for their own good?
Nobody wants to say it is over. Steven Gerrard, the Rangers manager, will not tempt fate. He will only believe the title is won, he has said, when the math says so. Neil Lennon, his counterpart at Celtic, similarly cannot concede defeat. His team, he has said, will keep going, keep fighting, while there is still some small glimmer of hope.
But both must surely know that it is over, and has been for some time. It was over long before this last, toxic month, when Celtic staged a winter training break in Dubai in the middle of a pandemic and flew back into a coronavirus-infected storm.
It was over before two Celtic players duly tested positive, before pretty much the whole first-team squad had to go into isolation, before criticism rained down on the club from the Scottish government and even its own fans. It was over before Lennon gave a startlingly bellicose news conference defending the trip only a few days after Celtic’s hierarchy had admitted it had been a mistake.
All of that has served to foster a sense of crisis around Celtic, created an impression that the club was falling into disarray as its dream of a 10th straight league title disappeared, but the narrative does not quite match up to reality.
Rangers has been clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership for some time, stretching further and further ahead of its great rival, the gap spooling and yawning until it became a chasm. Its lead currently stands at 23 points. Rangers needs to win only eight more games to be crowned Scottish champion again. Or, to put it another way: Rangers needs to win eight more games so that Celtic cannot be crowned Scottish champion again.
It is hard to pinpoint, precisely, when the idea of Celtic’s winning 10 titles in a row was first touted as an ambition, or floated as a possibility. A mixture of instinct and memory suggests it was after the club had won three or four straight, in the early years of the last decade.
It is easy, though, to see why it appealed. The power tussle between Rangers and Celtic — the twin, repelling poles of Scottish soccer — has long provided the driving animus in that country’s sporting conversation. With only occasional exceptions — particularly in the 1980s, when Hearts, Dundee United and Aberdeen all had their moment in the sun — the story of the former has felt like the story of the latter. Seasons turned on their head-to-head meetings. Trophies were a zero-sum game: the more won by one, the fewer by the other.
Celtic has led Scotland in trophies, and confetti, for a decade.Credit…Russell Cheyne/Reuters
In 2012, though, the rivalry disappeared — if not as a sentiment, then certainly as an event. Rangers, after years of mismanagement, went into liquidation and was forced to start life again in Scotland’s semi-professional fourth tier. Unmoored from its counterweight, Celtic effectively found itself in a league of its own, its financial firepower vastly superior to any of its putative rivals’, any challenge to its hegemony entirely theoretical.
In lieu of an opponent, it set out to play against history. Celtic’s great team of the 1960s and 1970s had won nine league titles in a row. So, too, had the Rangers teams of the late 1980s and the 1990s. But nobody had ever made it to double figures. Celtic was in need of a target, and Scottish soccer in need of a plotline.
And so, for the better part of the last decade, the quest for 10 in a row has consumed both sides of the Old Firm: for Celtic, the chance to outstrip its rival once and for all; for Rangers, an almost existential urgency to prevent it from happening.
For several years, though, the achievement seemed inevitable. Even after it was restored to the top flight in 2015, Rangers was operating at such a vast financial disadvantage that the prospect of overhauling Celtic seemed fanciful. Under Brendan Rodgers and his successor, Lennon, Celtic completed the quadruple treble: winning all three of Scotland’s senior domestic competitions, four years in a row.
And then, this season, it happened. Under Gerrard, now in his third season in his first managing job, Rangers has an air of invincibility. It has only conceded seven goals. At the same time, Celtic has all but collapsed. Though Lennon has pointed to the fact that his team has only lost twice in the league, he also has confessed that he does not know where his all-conquering players of the last few years “have gone.”
Celtic has dreamed of 10 titles in a row for almost nine years. All of that work, all of that hope, has evaporated over the course of a few months. The race is over. The story is, too. And while one side of Glasgow will greet that with delight and the other with despair — happiness in soccer is a zero-sum game, too — that may be a good thing, for both teams.
Scotland occupies a strange, outsize place in soccer’s landscape. By most measures, it is a small country: five and a half million people or so, roughly the same size as Slovakia, a little smaller than Bulgaria, half the size of Portugal.
But partly because of its historical significance to the sport — it is the place that invented passing, inspired professionalism, produced some of the game’s most celebrated players, and for a considerable period of time quite likely possessed the best or second-best national team in the world — it does not judge itself like a small country.
The fact, for example, that until it qualified for this summer’s postponed European Championship, Scotland had not been to a major tournament since 1998 was a source of the sort of embarrassment and disquiet that, in all likelihood, would not really happen in Slovakia (though, in fairness, Slovakia has been to major tournaments much more recently).
The nature of the Old Firm, too — both the size and scope of its clubs, with their vast stadiums, global fan bases, rich histories and unyielding enmity — distorts the reality of Scottish soccer.
What matters to Celtic and Rangers, at all times, is winning — to garland their own reputation and to dent that of their rival. It leads to a form of thinking in which tomorrow must necessarily be sacrificed for today, because losing today is unfathomable.
That logic has been on full display as the thought of 10 in a row consumed both clubs. Celtic has failed to refresh its squad, fearful of the consequences of getting it wrong. Rangers has had to invest heavily, often in players in their peak years, in order to catch up as quickly as possible.
But that approach is out of step with the most forward-thinking clubs in leagues of comparative size: places like Belgium, Denmark, Austria and, to an extent, even Portugal.
There, even the most dominant clubs have accepted that they are no longer a destination, but a way-point on a journey. Teams like Club Bruges, Genk and Red Bull Salzburg may not have the history of the Glasgow clubs, but they are not without pride. Still, though, they have embraced the idea of being steppingstones and have made it work for them.
They have worked to scour specific markets for players, offering them the chance to hone their craft in a Western European league before making the jump to one of the big five. They have focused almost exclusively on either recruiting or developing young players. In doing so, they have found not only domestic success but often European relevance, too.
Thanks to the geographical and stylistic proximity of the Premier League — as well as their almost guaranteed places in European competition — Celtic and Rangers should be well-placed to do the same. Celtic, indeed, was the first point of arrival in Britain for the likes of Virgil van Dijk and Victor Wanyama.But the obsession with today, with outdoing each other, mitigates against it. Celtic has lost two of the stars of its academy to Bayern Munich in recent years; both should have been able to see a more viable pathway to first-team soccer in their homeland than at one of Europe’s superclubs.
Though Celtic sold defender Jeremie Frimpong to Bayer Leverkusen this week, only three more of Lennon’s regulars are 23 or under. Only one, the French striker Odsonne Edouard, is likely to catch the eye of the Premier League. The Rangers squad is older still: Gerrard has fielded only one under-23 player, Ianis Hagi, regularly. His most salable asset is the controversial Colombian forward Alfredo Morelos.
Rangers, of course, needs only to point at the league table to justify its approach, just as Celtic has done for the last nine years. But now it is over. There will be no 10 in a row. And as both teams ask themselves what comes next, they must determine whether it is enough to have eyes only for each other, or whether, perhaps, it is time to shift their horizons.
Read This Before You Send That Angry Note
Two more Rangers-Celtic points before we move on:
A NOTE ON NAMES Some Celtic fans, perhaps even a majority, reject the use of the term Old Firm. That was a rivalry, they say, between Celtic and Rangers, and it ended in 2012. The team that replaced Rangers, in their mind, is not that Rangers. It is just another team that plays in blue, in Glasgow, at Ibrox, called Rangers.
ON THAT OTHER WORD From experience, the exact meaning and nature of the term liquidation, at least as it applies to the demise and revival of Rangers, is contested by Rangers fans. It is effectively impossible to write about this subject without transgressing some minor, semantic point of difference. When you don’t have a horse in the race, it is almost too much trouble to bother with.
Now, onward.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/sports/soccer/old-rivals-new-ideas-and-why-some-clubs-are-reluctant-to-try.html
Unless Celtic take seriously what bringing in players to sell really means I don’t think much will change. Even if rangers collapse again I think most of us would still be disatisfied with being top dog in the SPFL and dogsbodies in Europe. I think we all accept we are at a great disadvantage in financially doped modern football but we don’t need to be irrelevant as we are now. Most leagues are similar to SPFL in that one or two top teams regualrly win the league. But other clubs in small countries are doing much better than we are and we’ve been put out early in Europe by clubs without the finances of Celtic.
To bring in with a view to selling means:
1. You’ve got something to offer young prospects, namely good facilities, good coaches, a fair chance of getting into the first team and European football – looking a this list it’s no wonder Frimpong left and only Eddie will go for a big profit.
2. We have good facilities but we don’t have good coaches – I don’t believe NL was/is able to offer that. He appears not to be forward thinking. Very few young prospects have had a change and if so only fleetingly. NL is old school – individual brilliance and experience will save the day! Obviously this hasn’t worked. We need coaches that can really develop young players but also coaches that have achieved a lot themselves. If you are trying to attract young players by saying we are a step towards the EPL it surely helps if coaches have been successful there or in Europe. Look at our coaches: JK, GS, DOD, and SMM – says it all.
3. We need a manager who can organise a team/teams so that it’s easier for players to interchange: if young players get a chance they know where they fit in and the overall team performance doesn’t deteriorate. We should surely be able to give young players a chance in many games in Scotland without being beaten by the other teams in our league/cupcompetitions. They’ll develop quicker with experience and will be more able to offer a challenge to established players and keep them on their toes.
4. We need a Director of Football who can integrate and coordinate all of these things I have mentioned above.
All of these thing don’t necessarily require a huge financial outlay – look at the money we’ve wasted on abject failures and non-performing players.It culdhave been spent on better coaches for example.
#2 “had a change” = “had a chance”
Talking Celtic : In general I don’t believe in bans. I believe they are counter productive and deprive fans choice. Fans should be credited with the ability to make up their own minds.
So I am totally against Celtic denying press conference access to fans website ” The Cynic”
I had never heard of the Cynic beforehand, but now I will be following this independent podcast with interest.
HH.
Rather than dwell on the past, I prefer to look to the future. Now that PL has resigned, Celtic’s first priority should be to recruit a DOF. Get it advertised, review the applications, conduct interviews and select the best candidate. Whoever that may be, give him a clear mandate to source and recruit a new manager & coaching staff. Do not wait until June as that will likely be too late for next season. The rebuild must start NOW. With the departure of PL, that is one major obstacle removed in recruiting a suitable DOF and new manager.
All just my opinion!
Hail, hail
remember bloody sunday
https://twitter.com/IrishUnity/status/1355373889606594560?s=19
HH
I watched Reading v Bournemouth game and was most impressed with Ovie Ejaria, very talented, great control and always looked for his colleagues to pas to. He’s an attacking midfielder, mostly left sided but can play central too. He would be a great signing. Only 2 drawbacks, he recently signed a 4~year deal and with Reading pushing hard for promotion, would likely want to play in EPL again (was at Liverpool 2014~2016).
I’m sure Nisbett at Hibs would be a good signing in this transfer window,Porteus get him to,or in the summer,and Neil Lennon should take responsibility for this season’s shambles,he has to go,
If you’re interested in seeing how far Celtic are behind progressive clubs in terms of recruitment, training and development have a listen to Training Ground Guru, episode 23 on Spotify. They chat with Marijn Beuker, Sport Development Director at AZ Alkmaar. They use neuroscience as well as data science and are even collaborating with Billy Beane, the Moneyball guy. Our whole setup is weak, not just the current manager.
Here’s an article from Sky about AZ, from last April.
AZ Alkmaar’s title chase is over but is this Europe’s best academy?
AZ Alkmaar were chasing the Eredivisie title with a group who had been at the club since the age of 12. Adam Bate caught up with academy director Paul Brandenburg to find out how they did it…
By Adam Bate, Comment and Analysis @ghostgoal
9:26, UK, Tuesday 28 April 2020
AZ have been champions of Holland only twice but there was belief in Alkmaar that triumph number three was imminent. Instead, the decision of the KNVB, the country’s football association, to abandon the season and leave the title vacant means that this is not to be.
Ajax will take top spot for purposes of UEFA qualification because they led the Eredivisie table on goal difference with nine games remaining. The club’s chief executive Edwin van der Sar makes the point that Ajax led “all year round”, but the momentum was with AZ.
They had made up a six-point deficit in just three games, even beating Ajax in Amsterdam last month. No wonder AZ general director Robert Eenhoorn “does not agree” with the call.
Part of the frustration stems from the knowledge that AZ cannot hope to build a dynasty. This was a moment in time. Fans fear that the club’s resources make it inevitable that this team will be broken up sooner rather than later. And what a team it is that they have built.
AZ are captained by 22-year-old Teun Koopmeiners. Their top scorer is 19-year-old Myron Boadu. The man with the most assists is 21-year-old Calvin Stengs. Include young left-back Owen Wijndal and that is four academy graduates who have been integral to AZ’s success.
But these are more than academy graduates, these are players who have truly come through the academy. The quartet have each been with the club since the age of 12.
Add in bit-part players such as Thomas Ouwejan, Kenzo Goudmijn, Joris Kramer and Ferdy Druiijf and it is easy to see why AZ can lay claim to being Europe’s best academy.
Paul Brandenburg has worked in the club’s youth department for more than a decade and been the academy director since 2015. He was well aware that an outstanding generation was emerging but that part he cannot control. His job is about maximising potential.
“Each generation is different, it is all about the talent and the individual,” Brandenburg tells Sky Sports. “But with our vision on learning and by being generous with our time when we see talent, we are convinced that our programme will make sure that the talents will arise.”
AZ does more than pay lip service to player development. Their stated aim is for 50 per cent of the first-team squad to be academy players. It is a target the club is currently exceeding.
“Our first team consists of 67 per cent academy players, of which six or seven are regular starters,” explains Brandenburg. “That is a good thing. It is part of our vision that the biggest talents will get to play. They get their chance as soon as they have earned it.
“There is a pathway for all AZ youth players and they can see our track record over the years. They want to succeed and are literally around other success stories at our training facility so this make it tangible for them. It definitely helps us with recruiting players.”
Opportunity is part of the reason for AZ’s success but innovative thinking has been just as important. The club was an early adopter of analytics and has applied that to the youth teams with regular testing to ensure that they are across the biological age as well as the actual age of their youngsters – vital for tracking where they are in their development.
As well as being at the forefront of the science, AZ is a club thinking outside of the box in building a ‘performance playground’ in order to evoke the spirit of street football. Young players’ skills are tested on grass but also concrete and even sand. Beach football is being used as a learning tool as Brandenburg and his colleagues seek new ways to stimulate.
“Every training session should be surprising so we try to change the circumstances to challenge our players,” he explains. “Changing up the surface is one way of doing that because every surface requires a different technique. We also like to change the size of the ball sometimes because different sizes of balls require a different technique each time.
“Another example is to change up the formations. We try to challenge our players to think about the game, the concept of the game and create understanding and thus make them come up with their own solutions. Look at the best. Do they only know one trick or are they players who understand the game as a whole and are always trying to create space?
“We have to educate players who will be able to do it all in the future and not just teach them one tactic. We believe that this way of thinking can yield creative personalities.”
For Brandenburg, taking an innovative approach is the only way that AZ can compete.
“We cannot lean back and watch, we have to stay innovative otherwise the bigger clubs with the bigger resources will gobble us up,” he adds. “We cannot win based on our resources because we do not have the same resources as some of the bigger clubs, so that makes thinking differently something that is of big importance to us.
“We are continually trying to broaden our horizons. We like to think big. We have designed our academy that way. We are always looking for aspects to add to our programme, provided that it fits our vision. We not only tend to learn from other sports, but also from successful companies. What is their strategy? How do they recruit and scout talent?”
This season could have been a culmination of all that hard work and planning. It could have brought a first Eredivisie title in more than a decade, achieved with a generational group of young talents who had been moulded from a young age within the club’s academy.
That is not to be. Not yet. But AZ are determined that this is not the end of the journey.
“It is really exciting to see how much we can achieve with players of our own academy,” says Brandenburg. “The players that our academy delivers need to be better every time. We have to make sure that our next generation of talents live up to the current one.”
Up early this morning and watched the Three Kings on Amazon. Great watch, great footage and remarkable social commentary. Very humbling stuff too from three giants of the game with very similar philosophies in terms of development of players and most importantly the character and honesty of players.
There is no doubt in my mind that sourcing and development of players either locally or internationally must play a huge part in our review. Knowing the club, the support and feeling part of something is massive and whilst some may go as evidenced recently there is more to be gained than lost and supports undoubtedly identify with bringing through our own – to me there is no downside.
Good morning for a sleet filled North Staffs – I see the EU saw the error of it’s ways regarding installing a border in Ireland – it just shows you how all governments react when their under pressure. As I said last night “international treaties my ass”.
How many gross strategic errors do you have to make as CEO of Celtic to go from ‘huns liquidated, unopposed league titles and access to Champions League for a decade’ to ‘oops, 23 points behind the new huns in January of the 10 in a row season’?
I mean, failure on that level takes some doing. It’s almost wilful.
I’m not saying Lawwell willed the huns to win the league, but throughout his tenure he’s done everything within his power to protect a competitive’Old Firm’ brand. He was willing to level us down to make that so this season.
Also, placing his personal loyalty to Lennon above the interests of the club this season won’t be forgotten either.
Good riddance.
A spokesman for the Crown Office said it would not comment on the detail of the civil claims at this time as “these actions, and related actions, are not fully resolved”.
He added: “The lord advocate intends to make a statement to the Scottish Parliament when the actions raised by Mr Clark and Mr Whitehouse are concluded.
“A number of ongoing related court actions will restrict the scope of this statement.
“However, the lord advocate is committed to supporting public understanding of these cases and will provide as much information as he properly can.”
In other words, we’ll cover up as much as possible.
Good morning all from a light snow covered Garngad
Moisey17 – Great film of the 3 kings.
But did anyone see that Bill Shankly gave a “wee tablet” to his players to take before going on the park.
Irrespective of that it is a brilliant watch.
D :)
Three Kings is superb.
My favourite line is Shankly’s on getting into the Preston team as a young player.
“I said to the bloke [i usurped], that’s you finished. You won’t be getting any more games”.
Summed the great man’s competitive spirit up. Kill or be killed. (Lawwell never had that when it came to the huns. All about the bottom line for him).
All 3 were great men. Makes you proud to be from here.
Right let’s focus today 3 points and a good performance please.
I believe we have good players all they need is coached properly, this season Neil and his coaching staff have let us down.
But let’s focus on the job in hand today.
COYBIG
D :)