When we drew Maribor I wrote about their performance in last season’s Europa League, when they were eliminated by eventual winners, Sevilla. Our man, Blaz, in Slovenia, also warned me that this was a settled team who had improved since ending Rangers’ interest in European football three years ago.
I watched Red Bull Salzburg destroy Ajax in Amsterdam last season with some sublime football, and my pal in Austria tells me not to put too much store in their 3-0 humbling by Malmo, who, apparently, rode their luck to an incredible degree. Having said that, on the balance of probabilities, they are by far the top seed we would have chosen.
As Croatia Zagreb, Dinamo Zagreb bossed Celtic out of the Champions League play-off round in 1998, our first attempt at the tournament. Zagreb’s stock has fallen since, so while you could make a good case to suggest we are far from ready to tackle any European team right now, this is a good draw. They are also not Legia Warsaw, which would have been an unwelcome confrontation at this time.
So far, so good. Then we draw a complete unknown from pot 4, who happened to eliminate Lyon in the last round.
Between now and the middle of next month Celtic have to be ready for these challenges. We have an opportunity to progress in the Europa League, earn some badly needed coefficient points, and revenue in the second half of the season.
Bring it on.
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Ruggyman………..Agreed the Italians breed great defenders and if Van Dijk is throwing a sulk and cannot see that he has six games in Europe to enhance his reputation then go for the Italian market where there must be a plethora of good central defenders experienced and not projects.
oh,we are saying just give me some tips!!!!
scractchinmaerchie.csc.
I’m pretty sure Ambrose and Izzy recently signed new contracts (Am I right?). Their stock is not at its highest so I don’t think either will be away soon. I’ve come round to thinking that we can wait for Izzy to regain form but Ambrose seems to be fatally flawed with a Euro auto-destruct. I really liked Ambrose when he arrived – but you can only take so much. We can continue to use both in the SPL but should work to recoup our cash on Ambrose at some point, and hope Izzy comes back.
I can see VVD leaving now or January. Sadly. Denayer may take his place and will probably develop into a decent player but then leave us next summer with a hole in that position… We may need to pull a rabbit out of a hat in January. I’m not that happy with either Lustig, Mulgrew or Ambrose partnering Denayer. Choose your poison.
On Matthews, he maybe needs to play more – at least if Lustig goes CB he can go RB and prove himself there. Mulgrew will remain an OK stand in – I just wish he would rediscover his dead ball mojo.
In midfield I reckon Brown will be rusty when he comes back – so we shouldn’t get on his back for a few weeks. Kayal had a one game renaissance and everyone got carried away – I’ve no idea how he will do now. Johansson is a decent midfielder but is inconsistent – so I hope that improves as we settle into a game-plan. Wakaso I think will become a regular as even going by Youtube he has the qualities we need.
Bergets? … no idea … Forrest? … sigh, shrug! Biton? Too languorous, not for me.. but I dunno. Tonev.. nobody really knows, but if he is a success I will be astounded of forehead. Right now he looks like a Boerrigter who shoots over the bar.
Callum McGregor is a positive.
With the arrival of Scepovic, Commons is not going to be a striker. So he either plays in the hole behind or he is away. I’m not happy that we throw all creativity onto wingers and just have runners and tacklers in midfield – too one dimensional, we can be nullified. I hope he stays, we don’t need pace in every position, fat arse to shield the ball, a touch and two yard sprint is sufficient right there, but not for 30K a week.
Stokes I guess is a partner or stand in for Scepovic. Stokes failings in Europe are clear but really he should never have been set up to fail as a lone striker. Will probably do OK in the SPL as a pair. Long term…hmmm…
Henderson should be introduced this season. A few games here and there throughout the season. We have let talent moulder in the reserves whilst other teams players have developed. We should find out if he is going to make it and not have another young player sit on the bench for 4 years then fade into a never-was-been.
Other players we have and can’t get rid are probably Boerrigter, Griffifths, Balde, Pukki, and McGeouch. Suck it up.
Tactically we should experiment now. The derided 3-5-2 might make the most of our defensive frailties and many wingers. Whatever chosen, this is a time to find a way to maximise our assets.. such as they are.
Rangers fans yesterday were once again concerned to read a statement through the London Stock Exchange, this time confirming the latest bid by the Ibrox custodians to drum up fresh funds via a new share-offer aiming to raise around £4m – but a net to the club of £3.6m.
The Rangers statement, setting out the terms for nearly 20 million new ordinary shares to be issued at 20p each, sounded as wary as it did optimistic. It read to me like the current Ibrox board have real anxieties about their ability to finance the club in the short term.
The club openly admits it needs this fresh windfall, in part just to pay off £1.5m in loans which are due for paying back within days. But, more than this, Rangers admit that a further tranche of new funds will be required, either by the spring of next year, or possibly even before 2014 is out.
The club also confirmed that if the new offer does not reach a 75% take-up then the process will be scrapped. In this scenario, Rangers say that creditors’ bills might not get paid and “the directors would immediately have to seek emergency financing which may or may not be available.”
This is an extremely stony road Rangers are treading. The club needs to raise up to £30m over the next three years in new investment – but just getting over this first hurdle involving £4m is a major task.
Rangers stated yesterday: “There can be no certainty as to the aggregate level of subscription for the new shares.” And should the offer not work? “The company will be unable to pay off its creditors …and the future of the company will be uncertain.” And even if the minimum level of subscription – around £3m – is taken up? “At the minimum level of subscription, then additional working capital will be required towards the end of the current calendar year.”
All told, this is pretty bleak. For good measure Rangers added the customary rider: “There can be no certainty that such funding will be available, and failure to secure such funding would be damaging to the business.”
Given the current disdain of many Rangers supporters towards the current regime – both at boardroom and institutional level – this latest scheme might well flop. In which case, to put it in layman’s terms, the Ibrox gas meter will start to run out within weeks, let alone months.
Many a finance analyst is watching this Rangers sequence of lurches from one minor crisis to the next and wondering where it will all end.
“Their [Rangers] recent effort to raise up to £10m from institutional shareholders was unsuccessful – so this is Plan B,” said Neil Patey, the football industry adviser at Ernst & Young. “Given the fairly urgent need for cash at Rangers, this share offer is the quickest and cheapest method. It is just an interim measure, as the board has indicated that the share proceeds will only fund cash requirements for between four to eight months.”
It strikes many as just a plain fact that the current Rangers board, for a variety of reasons, simply cannot raise funds in such a way as to restore Rangers and allow the club to thrive over the next few years.
“Based on the current sporting and financial position, the board has been unable to raise the level of funds that would provide financial stability over the minimum period that a company would typically look to – maybe two to three years,” Patey added. “It has recently had to resort to ’emergency’ loans from shareholders [worth £1.5m] to fund short-term working capital, and this current Rangers share issue is another short-term measure.
“The board has said it wishes to raise £20m to £30m in the next stage of the club’s development to re-establish itself at the top of Scottish football – but it is unlikely to be able to do this until it is back in the Premiership. Even then, it remains to be seen if this level of investment will be available from pure financial investors. More likely, Rangers will have to rely at least in part on ’emotional investment’ from wealthy fans.
“The question is whether this level of investment will be available with the current shareholder base in place, or whether it will require ‘regime change’ to convince new investors to invest.”
Right now, why would anyone invest in Rangers? Groups such as Rangers First, the fans’ organisation, will certainly seek to take up new shares, but that is purely an emotional investment.
The group wants as much fan-ownership as possible at Ibrox, arguing that it is the best means of safe-guarding Rangers’ future.
But why would others – institutions or small investors – want to plough more money into a club that is once again ailing?
“To protect an existing investment,” says Patey. “If the club goes into administration, then existing shareholders will lose significant value. By investing further funds, not only could you stop the club going in to administration, but in the medium term the value of your investment has the prospect to grow, if and when Rangers get back into European competition. Just compare the current market capitalisation of Celtic at £69m to that of Rangers at £17m.”
Yesterday, one former Rangers director and current shareholder, Ian Hart, expressed his sorrow at the way the club self-evidently is starved of funds. “Investment is probably pretty tough in the current environment for Rangers,” said Hart. “There is little stability around the club and a section of the support is not happy with things. I think when you have that instability it probably puts some people off wanting to put money into the club.
“I’m a shareholder – whether I put more money in remains to be seen. Like a lot of people, I’m not in it for a return. I just love the club and I want Rangers to be stable again.”
Meanwhile, somewhere in South Africa, Dave King lurks. No-one knows if he has a next move, and if he has, whether it can be successful. But the clock is ticking once again on Rangers
bawsman
above was for you –
Auldheid.
It wasn’t me that made Ronny the rod on loans. He said basically he didn’t like loans. And lo and behold we are stuffed to the gunnels with loans.
But as you will have read there is more than one subject that appears to be widely in contradiction at CP.
Remember the phrase if it walks like a sulk and quacks like a duck……
Trying to dress things up really doesn’t work when things are so bad. It all becomes easily transparent.
I don’t have a problem with the strategy. We can’t afford £6m players. Any player worth that kind of money is going to be looking for something like £40,000 per week. Over a four year contract that’s an outlay of well over £14m for the transfer fee and wages on a single player. If he turns out to be no world beater or too injury prone, we’re stuck with him. We can’t take risks like that.
Having said that, we do need to be doing a lot, lot better with what we do have to spend. If you look at a full list of players signed in the last five years, it makes for grim reading overall. With a very few notable exceptions, our much lauded scouting system has failed. That is what we as a club really need to be looking at.
goldstar 10
if we all want more quality and less quantity, why do we sign so many players every years who are unproven.
This year aagain we have signed a numbers of players (albeit on loan) for me instead of signing 8 prospects at 8,000 quid a week i would sign two first teamers at 30k a week instead. and continue to do that until the first team is strengthened.
incidentally signing first team players doesnt mean we couldnt sell them on for a profit at a later date.
Thereby having more cash for more first team signings
Question: if you bought a celtic jersey today for your young bhoy, whose name would you get printed on the back? (probably your own?)
Just found 20p in a pair of trousers.
Should I buy a Fudge or a Sevco share??
neganon2
11:19 on 30 August, 2014
Burnley78. Let me draw you a simple analogy.
A football club with little or no discernible competition domestically, being fawned over becomes complacent and makes grave errors leading to their decline and demise.
Which football club am I talking about?
========
There is a decline but as long as the books balance there will not be a demise. That is why the focus is on continually balancing the books.
I’d be amazed if being fawned over as you see it has any more affect on the thinking of those in charge than the criticism that sometimes enters abusive territory.
However you do pick on the key factor and that is lack of domestic competition.
It is Scottish football’s greatest problem at the present moment. If dropping a point means damaging title hopes beyond recovery then crowds turn up. Same if it means staying up or going down or winning or losing a cup for other clubs.
There are a number of reasons for crowds falling and it would help rational debate if those can be divided into those Celtic can do something about and what they cannot.
There are matters to be addressed that might even be if some of the strident tones and personalisation in which they are presented were muted somewhat, which can be done without a loss of fervour or energy.
But of all the challenges Celtic face in terms of crowd size, lack of domestic competition is the greatest.
How do Celtic make the domestic game more competitive? Frying pan and fire decision.
Drop the quality of the squad so that games are more unpredictable? Just as likely to drive the support away and leave us out of Europe and other clubs will still take points off each other.
Keep the quality of the squad high enough to be in Europe but kill domestic competition? That seems to be were we are.
The dilemma is not helped because the experience of supporters in past 25 years is that competition is synonymous with Rangers and given we now know they were quite prepared to lie and cheat to beat us with help of SFA placements, quite apart from their odious traditions, Celtic get criticised for wanting the very thing that will restore crowds which is competition because that is seen as meaning Rangers.
However they will never reach their level of 2011 again and I cannot see Scottish football domestically being competitive for 5 to ten years although our departure would at a stroke address that and is our main hope to stem decline.
So is there an alternative but to manage that decline caused by lack of competition by matching wages to income ?
I hope so because the days of on the edge of your seat competition are gone unless Celtic move to operate on a similar wage budget as other clubs which will do the job whilst balancing the books but diminish us.
The alternative I would welcome is addressing those other issues that would make visiting CP an entertaining pleasure for the family.
A bit like my visit to Hampden for the Commonwealth Games with my sister and niece.
Of course to create such a friendly environment we have to be friendly with each other and it seems to be we only are when we are winning.
latchford
Some of that was laughable, “inferior players” from Charlie, indeedy.
Of course some will be unhappy. They are being asked to change their working practices. In some cases move: lock, stock and barrel.
Deila’s reforms need time to bed in. I don’t know if the support will give him the time, nor do I know if he has the ability.
Think I remember reading that his tenure at Stromsgodset was greeted with dissent too. Wonder if that was why youngsters were played ? Maybe they were pitched in rather than by design ?
Either way it’s a massive gamble. I think the club did the right thing in going for change.
We can expect a huge fire in Mordor anytime – their last resort at ‘fundraising’.
tamrabam
‘loanee’ would cover a few players
incidentally having a different opinion from Big Pedro doesnt make you a hun or a lesser Celtic fhan.
It just means you think its time to try something differently. Nothing wrong with that
TBB
Ha ha you have no idea how close you are to being accurate :-)
Hope you’re well.
bournesouprecipe @12 23.
” We have no players of La Liga or Serie A class ” .
Mmm .
Recommend the watching of Athletico Bilbao 3 —Napoli 1 where a team of Serie A class players combined to give Bilbao a Cl place on a plate .
New signing -Koulibaly – a defender who cost 7 million euros ——— looked like someone worth 7 euros at most.
Bournsouprecipe………..there are three players of the year you mention in that group of players and I’m with all the way there.
Tamrabam
I would happily get my own name printed as it is the same as a popular young Celtic midfielder.
Neganon
He said he did not like loans that then left.
If they are then kept because they have proved valuable then that is a different matter.
Try before you buy seems eminently sensible if possible and that is not what RD was objecting to so no inconsistency there.
If Sevco get liquidated & there’s another phoenix club arising from the ashes
will they keep Sevco’s titles & trophies & history which Charlie bought from RIL ?
In fact if Sevco sell it now it might save them from said liquidation.
Just a thought.( Thumbs up)
Ipaddy
We can’t attract £6m players wanting £40-50k pw
We have a collection of £1m-£2m duds draining the club of what must be near a total £100k p/w.
Latchford – as I said the other night. What was the response from C Mulgrew’s teammates regarding the impact of HIS performances on THEIR lost bonuses?!!
He should maybe get a big red tattoo on his neck because if those reported comments are accurate you sure couldn’t give him a red neck with a blowtorch.
And by the way, for one of the supposedly senior pros at the club, those reported comments are a facking disgrace.
Just an opinion but personally I think Ambrose’s pace continually got VVD et al off the hook a number of times last season.
Bournesouprecipe 10.11
:-) True.i recall him as one of best players in ma school which fed into Bellarmine or as it would be now termed Silverburn academy :-)
HH
third time lucky….guys where can i find todays horse tips….p.s. im a tim!!!!
Gene
nice one!
there seems to be a fear of signing a first team player in case he gets injured or doesnt play well, and the strategy is therefore not to sign one one, just in case.
Gene’s a Bhoy’s name
12:32 on
30 August, 2014
bawsman
above was for you
===========================
Many thanks mate, appreciated.
Latchford
My Kirkintilloch sources tell me
1. Mulgrew disappointed to lose out on £100k bonus for CL qualification due to being surrounded by inferior players.
2. Mulgrew wants away as he is not happy with Ronnys methods despite being made captain.
All the players are not 100% behind the latest Project ….Ronny Delia-
——
If the above is true, I would respectfully comment as follows;
1. Pot. Kettle. Black.
2. Good. Jog on. Muppet.
Pukki, Balde, Derk – best part of £10 million in transfer fees and wages.
No return.
No wonder it’s loans this year.
If we splash 3-4 million on Scepovic that’s a gamble. If he fails to produce we won’t see another signing over a mill for a couple of seasons.
VVD – if he wants to spit the dummy because a team HE played in couldn’t beat Maribor (who will get gubbe dgood and proper in the CL) them bes tof luck and take the dosh.
He needs to understan that at Celtic he still gets European football – currently h would not get a place in any English side good enough for Europe. Southampton his level, and if he goes there then we’re well rid as it proves he was ultimately only in it for the money like Hooper and Wanyama.
PL’s mistakes – Letting a true Tim with top-class, big-match ability like Sammi leave. And sucking in the SMSM’s persecution of the GB. Two crucial calls that have worke dagainst us when it counted – no atmosphere of intimidation or inspiration on Tuesday and no out-ball to Samaras that would have had the opposition cautious and more defensive to allow us midfield dominance.
http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/?p=15977&cpage=36#comment-2289527
tamtim read back on this thread.
Auldheid I think your tone of disrespect for your fellow supporters isn’t helpful.
Celtic fans are accepting of defeat when merited. But we should not be getting cuffed by legia nor best by Maribor.
Those defeats are massively detrimental to our income and therefore our unwillingness to invest enough in the team to compete for a place in the CL group stages appears to suggest that the boards strategy is to downsize to the level of SPFL teams to encourage competition.
Wow what a strategy.
The parallels between celtic and the dead ones is pretty remarkable is it not? The reasons for our decline and demise are very different though. The Huns did it from hubris. We are doing it deliberately to encourage competition.
And one word on demise. Celtics path could very well lead to our demise. The alienation of supporters continues unabated either via on field activities or off field antics.
The welcoming if the Hun and the death of res 12 will signal that, in reality, the scottish game is completely rigged and that celtic are a willing players in that rigged game.
That may very well sound the death knell for celtic. Who wants to support a club which willingly lays the victim in a corrupt league?
Will be off to see port vale v chesterfield
no 60,000 crowd ( 6k at best)
no green brigade
but i will be happy to watch the match and hope for an exiting game and a win – it is what’s on the park that matters.
IMO the majority of fans going to watch all levels of football this weekend will have the same expectations.
upthevaleCSC
Latchford
My Kirkintilloch sources tell me
1. Mulgrew disappointed to lose out on £100k bonus for CL qualification due to being surrounded by inferior players.
2. Mulgrew wants away as he is not happy with Ronnys methods despite being made captain.
All the players are not 100% behind the latest Project ….Ronny Delia-
——
Wow. You’re through the looking glass there, Charlie. Quit the acid.
Auldheid. I personally think that some loans make sense but regardless of how you spin it he said he preferred not to have loans.
What about the other signs of contradiction at CP?
If VVD wants to leave then he puts in a transfer request and forfeits his payment. At this time RD needs VVD and should stay until Jan at least. I suspect RD is now wanting to keep Commons for domestic success, to buy him time, the only problem with that is he has already pissed him off and i don’t see him getting the best out of him now so should sell.
The early mistakes RD has made with players moral will cost him as the season progresses and would be better bringing in his own players, although time is now his biggest enemy.
There surely can’t be any posters on here who doesn’t think RD’s start has been a total disaster. Can he recover? I think not.
squire says
we cant afford 6 million quid signings and 40k a week wages
Squire
do you think we could afford one if we had 60,000 season ticket holders?
do you think we can get 60,000 season ticket holders without signing any big names?
whether we like it or not, the downsizing spiral is now completely out of our hands
we have downsized too far. Stopping the spiral will need some creative thinking
tamrabam- I’m not disagreeing with you here, but getting 2x 30kpw top quality players in today’s inflated market is not going to 1. be easy 2. guarantee us CL or any other success, particularly if they want to bail out to the EPL after 1 season.
Player name- Brown.
VVD will be here till at least Christmas transfer window – FACT
22 min 11 secs