The first thing that strikes you when you read the list of Celtic transfers in the January window, is that it comes close to being financially neutral. In came Alistair Johnston (24) – £3.5m, Hyeon-gyu Oh (21) – £2.5m, Yuki Kobayashi (22) – £1.5m and Tomoki Iwata (25) – £1m. Those are round numbers in GBP when the actual figures are likely to be round numbers in Canadian (or US) dollars, yen and won, but the total outlay will nudge north of £8m.
The vast bulk of that was recouped by the initial fee earned from selling Josip Juranovic (27) for a reported £7.5m to Union Berlin. Legia will see a piece of this action and it is unlikely we will receive much, if any, compensation for the registrations of loanees Moritz Jenz (23) and Oliver Abildgaard (26).
Giorgos Giakoumakis (28) will almost certainly leave before the windows close in North America and Japan. That could happen in days, or, like Patryk Klimala, who left for New York in April two years ago, Giorgos could remain at the club for the weeks ahead.
If Giorgos goes, we have traded at a profit. Good, though that would be, the objective of a transfer window is to ‘come out of it stronger than we went into it’. On this test, I’m sensing a lot of positivity. Juranovic was the only first choice player to leave and the early signs from Johnston indicate we have replaced like-for-like, only younger and possibly better.
The youngest recruit, Hyeon-gyu Oh, will carry a heavy burden: replace a popular striker in Giakoumakis and succeed against Premiership and Champions League defences. A few minutes at Tannadice is insufficient for even a cursory assessment.
Oh has played 26 minutes football since October and was still a month away from his expected return to action before arriving in Glasgow. It would not be the worst thing if Giorgos stayed until March to allow Oh time to get match fit. I know we shouldn’t, but Hampden is already on my mind.
Tonight we face the self-styled points-per-pound world champions. Livingston have lost only once in the seven games played since our win there in December (they folded at Hibs on Christmas Eve). Since then, they have outperformed the other two sides from the Lothians, whom they separate in the table. Clubs seem to go on a good run of form, then face Celtic and the bogey goes off the rails for a while. You should be confident tonight.
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JOE
Craig Beattie, Paul Dalglish, David Fernández………….
Indeed
Celtic
Aipple where are you?
Your podium needs ya.
Are we stronger after this window – overall I’d say we are.
Big Wavy…“Mooy is great when we play the diddy teams but a liability against the huns…..(too slow).”
I have to disagree. There is no one in the hun team has his composure nor ability to take the ball under pressure. And they don’t have a lot of pace in their midfield. He would always be in my team.
However, I respect your opinion.
Kyogo, Oh, Maeda and Abada are all forward or options.
GG is gone. Let it go.
We play 1 striker at a time.
Chill csc
HH
England are 39 for 3 after 14 overs in the odi against South Africa. Currently 30 Deg there 🥵
Cricket quick news
Clark’s red card recind is a massive open goal. Come on Celtic, what are we going to do about it?
What is the point in VAR if it doesn’t know the rules? How much are we paying for this? Are the SFA fit to run it?
Major issues, massive questions.
WBC,
Having the recovery pace when we lose possession is not in Mooy’s gift. Hatate, Iwata and Callum are the 3 in there for that game.
Better teams need us also to move the ball quicker to create chances. Also not always what Mooy does.
Great squad member, terrific form but has a ceiling.
HH
HH
Notice of Claim | Nicky Clark, player, St Johnstone FC
Tuesday 31 January 2023
Player: Nicky Clark
Match :Them’s v St Johnstone on Saturday 28th January 2023
Competition: Scottish Premiership
Offence: A1 – Serious Foul Play
Claim: Wrongful Dismissal
Fast Track Tribunal Hearing: Wednesday 1st February 2023
Outcome: Claim Partially Upheld. Red card for A1 – Serious Foul Play rescinded and replaced with cautionable offence B1c – Recklessly tackles or challenges an opponent.
Pleased with four signings and confident that Ange’s judgement to let contracted players move on, is a better strategy than holding them down when they clearly don’t want to be here. The big two Juranovic and Giakoumakis were both deep in second season syndrome and didn’t perform or even try at the levels of their first, neither really justified more game time than they got.
Juranovic cost £2.5M, and has been replaced like for like, maybe it was his price tag that sways judgement between him and Anthony Ralston. To achieve £7.5M rising to £10M was a remarkable bit of business,in the end , with no big English monopoly money to be seen. For Giorgios to end up in the USA, he’s probably got his cash but was very nearly led astray by his agent, when again there were no Europeans suitors. We must ask ourselves why of both players.
Moritz Jenz started very well but was quickly replaced by Carl Starfelt who’d recovered from injury, and the loan player had no chance of a permanent move from the moment we signed Kobayashi, I don’t recall any Celtic squad having bought four multi million plus Centre backs, ever.
Tomi Iwata J-League player of the year in the squad and fit within a week won’t have to be that good to improve on Abildgaard who took the first half of the season to go away in January still looking rusty. If you take the two players out that don’t want to stay, and replace them with four that do, you’ve a case for being stronger, already.
There is not a comparable league in Europe with the revenue and obstacles of Scotland, where a club turns over the amount of transfer money Celtic do. An embarrassment of riches in a poor man’s obstacled league, the Celtic squad after four windows has been completely reformed.
Can’t see the progress? Albion Ajeti and Vasselis Barkas cost £9M
GENE
Haha , the director must be a Vale fan too because they never mentioned that other team , lol.
The young couple bought an old property and transformed it into an Oatcake business (and other sandwiches).
You may well pass it as its near the ground……not sure if its called Bakers Dozen .
Anyhow best of luck for the season for both your teams 👍
CANAMALAR IT LOOKS LIKE OCD OBSESSION on 1ST FEBRUARY 2023 10:34 AM
jackiemac,
Oh and they should call out the false narrative that wages cause inflation, its became obvious to anyone who understands monetry systems, devaluing currency through quantitative easing is by far the greatest contributer to inflation. The contribution of wages is neglegable by comparison.
#####
You might find this of interest.
‘Bad economics at the BBC enabled Tory austerity and its aftermath – and it knows as much
James Meadway’
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/31/bad-economics-bbc-tory-austerity-uk-politics
BIG WAVY
Where do you get off referring to a Celtic player as “hanging around like a bad smell”?
James McCarthy accepted the chance to sign for Celtic. He wasn’t in the papers every day angling for a move to his boyhood team.
He may not be in Ange’s plans for a first team place but he is under contract and trains every day with the rest of the squad.
It is not McCarthy’s fault that he is still on the payroll and he certainly has done nothing to warrant such verbal abuse from a Celtic supporter.
Firefighters
University Workers
Communication Workers
Key Workers
Teachers
Hospital Staff
Events Workers
Transport Staff
Office Workers
Rail Workers
I.t workers
Emergency Workers
Street Cleaners.
Smash this gang.no alignment to the scum
HH
Catch yerself on Tom, ffs.
POR CIERTO on 1ST FEBRUARY 2023 11:46 AM
CANAMALAR IT LOOKS LIKE OCD OBSESSION on 1ST FEBRUARY 2023 10:34 AM
jackiemac,
“Oh and they should call out the false narrative that wages cause inflation, its became obvious to anyone who understands monetry systems, devaluing currency through quantitative easing is by far the greatest contributer to inflation. The contribution of wages is neglegable by comparison.”
CANAMALAR:
One thing that I would like to know, does shareholders’ dividends cause inflation? I recently read about a guy, who owns an organic fruit & Veg delivery service, doubling his dividend this year from +£4000,000 to +£800.000, and it got me thinking about inflation, por cierto
POR CIERTO
Share dividends are taxed at 20%, whether the dividends are £1 or £1,000,000.00, Tony Blair or Gordon Brown changed tax laws on this.
The organic fruit and veg delivery guy has legally avoided a lot of tax by doubling his dividends from shares in his company rather than taking the money in another way
So Nicky Clark gets sent off during the Hun game and allows the Sevco to play against 10 men.
Surprise, surprise, the card is rescinded and can now be available to play against Celtic.
Who said VAR isn’t working?
It’s working perfectly well for what it was intended to do; help the Huns win games.
We are consistently told by the sevco media that refereeing decisions even themselves out over the course of a season . There will be some things evened out at tynecastle tonight. Hearts got two penalties and we were denied a stonewall penalty the last time we visited. We can expect sevco to get the decisions tonight and there will be few complaints from the hearts manager. He knows the score in Scottish football.
What happened to the Morelos money?
thanks EL.
POR CIERTO
The organic fruit and veg delivery guy has legally avoided a lot of tax by doubling his dividends from shares in his company rather than taking the money in another way
Share dividends are taxed at 20%, whether the dividends are £1 or £1,000,000.00, Tony Blair or Gordon Brown changed tax laws on this.
The above increased tax take in the UK.
It was one of the arguments that the Tories and Red Tories used to use justifying
Cutting taxes for the wealthy
MARKIEBHOY on 1ST FEBRUARY 2023 12:12 PM
“Clark’s red card rescind is a massive open goal. Come on Celtic, what are we going to do about it?
What is the point in VAR if it doesn’t know the rules? How much are we paying for this? Are the SFA fit to run it?
Major issues, massive questions.”
The problem is, to paraphrase Fat Sally, “who are these people” – the ones overturned it?
If they know the rules better than the refs we have a problem; if they implement the rules regardless of teams involved more consistently than the refs we have a much larger problem BUT many (including refs I know) deem some of these 3 men committees as invalid as they are “not football people, and not ‘trained refs'”). In Scotland this may actually be a benefit imo but…
Some of the appeals (and retrospective compliance officer referrals for “missed incidents”) have produced just as many inconsistent results as our refs, likely due to the variety of people involved in the decision each time.
Short of having a consistent 3 man panel / sole point of truth we will always get inconsistency when some rules are so open to interpretation.
QB
IMO referees should be invited to the monitor for ALL penalty and sending off incidents. These decisions materially affect the outcome of games and every chance should be taken to review and confirm. Go to the monitor immediately in conf with VAR.
EL,
I read that report
so WC , var and var ref get it wrong ,and say we are paranoid.
Embdae seen Crawford Allan?
AT,
They were all celebrated as frontline workers during the plandemic but now they are holding the country to ransome, where do they get off thinking they deserve index related wages ffs eh
Maybe someone in the MSM should be asking Mr Martindale where all the Livi money has went to ?
stebhoy on 1st February 2023 12:42 pm,
Agree, it would save time but I also think they should explain their decisions like the rugby refs, it would make no difference to time taken to reach their decision and people would know how they justify their decisions.
PHILCOOL on 1ST FEBRUARY 2023 12:07 PM
Aipple where are you?
————————
My Loovul lover sent me out to get coffee. “Wit aboot my match day podium?” I asked. Still waiting for a reply.
HH!
Garngad to Croy on 1st February 2023 12:50 pm
Maybe someone in the MSM should be asking Mr Martindale where all the Livi money has went to ?
Maybe should be asking, where all the Livi money comes from?
AN TEARMANN
Steady now, down with that sort of thing.
You forgot the RMT
My eldest thinks this guy is direct to the point and is kept of TV because of how well communicate ‘s
https://twitter.com/eiecampaign/status/1619273903502950401?t=_5Q2lrhpHEM8DtexFCTu-A&s=19
Typical woman Aipple!
You’ll learn in time,lol.
Talking of Livingston, just got a parking fine from there via Group Nexus ,seen debates on here over the years,is this enforcable?
Currently watching another incompetent Tory minister getting absolutely rinsed on Hillsborough, knows absolutely nothing…..