Steven Fletcher has his own place in Celtic folklore. We bid for him in January 2009, the player made a public plea to Hibs to allow the deal to happen, but Rod Petrie rejected the approach. Fletcher would go to Burnley at the end of that season for a deal worth around £4m, which seemed eye-watering at the time for a striker who scored 11 goals the previous 12 months.
As Celtic ran out of steam in the spring of 2009 attention turned to what might have been had Fletcher signed. He was the one that got away. The whats, whys and maybes of that time are irrelevant now, but in short, Celtic didn’t value Fletcher at £4m and Petrie reckoned he could get that kind of money in England if he waited.
Before selling to Burnley he didn’t even put the customary call out to Celtic to entice a higher bid. Petrie wanted Hibs to be known as a team who could produce players for the English Premier League – a Hamilton Accies-Lite, if you like. It’s a legitimate strategy.
The player is 28-years-old and now free of the ankle injury which plagued him for over a year. He’s on an astronomical basic wage at Sunderland, who paid north of £10m for his services. Few Scottish footballers will have higher career earnings than him, but that contract ends in June. This season has brought 4 goals from 11 starts for a Sunderland team who sit in a relegation position.
The injury profile makes him a possibility for Celtic. Without it, as a free agent, he would remain in the English Premier League next season (whether Sunderland do or not). His agent will no doubt be shopping him around right now, as will Sunderland, who at the moment will be asking for a consideration to be paid to release him this month.
We must have signed 20 strikers since January 2009, very few as good as Steven Fletcher. I’d take him in a heartbeat.
I’m pleased Anthony Stokes (16 months younger than Fletcher) has a choice of clubs wanting to loan him this month. All three: Dundee United, Inverness and Hibs, would be good places for him. United are a better team than their abysmal points tally indicates, but they are desperately short of strikers. Stokes could transform them. Hibs and Inverness are both clubs looking purposefully towards the second half of the season.
Charity Q&A Night, Carfin
I’m on the (otherwise excellent) Q&A panel at the Xavier Centre, Carfin, on Saturday 30 January alongside two Libson Lions – John Clark and Bertie Auld, Celtic author and sports academic – Dr Joe Bradley, and Fifa referee – Willie Collum.
The purpose of the night is to raise funds for Lanarkshire Cancer Care Trust and the Young Adult Ministry. Tickets will be scarce, so if you’d like to attend, call Mick on 07827 975271 soon.
You know when you look at a line-up and just know it’s going to be a great night…..
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BT…
Gallus bassa with those footballs and shamrocks :)
DD
nobody appeared in court charged with pyro offences
Lennons Passion
As usual I got up for school, went for the rolls and Daily Record for my dad. Saw the news that King Kenny had signed for Liverpool. Gret all the way home and faked sickness, went back to bed, distraught.
Sftb
Not a chance :-))
Sips
Only ones I can get working ☘☘
PFAyr
Thanks. Probably general disorder. One had a go with the arresting officers.
TET
Shhhh. Don’t warn them. :))
Did you see the Danny McGrain feature on CQN today which was written by Paul Dykes?
It’s well worth a read:
http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/?p=21140
On the way back from the CQN Fives this evening, I heard Frank McAvennie and Joe Miller on Shortbread. Very enjoyable.
Macca was explaining how the old board turned him over by going back on their promise to pay the tax on his signing on fee and he reckoned that they done him out of around £90k.
This morning I was speaking to Willie Wallace and coincidentally he was talking about how the old board shafted the Lions after the World Club Championship matches. When the team got back to Scotland they were all hit with a huge fine which covered all the players earnings for the three matches against Racing Club and also included the players’ bonuses for winning the League Cup!
Willie was saying it left one of the players in short term financial bother and said that such was the disbelief among the group that Sean Fallon was reduced to tears down at Seamill as he realised how the players were being shafted by the old board.
Macca on the radio tonight was saying how Big Billy had fought his corner but was in the end powerless as the old board were prepared to lose their top striker rather than pay the money that was agreed. We went on to win the cup with Joe Miller scoring but after that, it was murder for years.
For anyone slagging the way the club goes about its business these days, maybe these points are worth noting.
Willie asked me to pass on his best regards to BRTH, Paul and all the contributors on CQN.
WC
Excellent article on my favourite ever Celtic player.
Daniel Fergus McGrain. Celtic Legend. Drumchapel’s finest son!
BT…
I could only get the ⚽️⚽️⚽️’ before it was blocked :(
sipsini
“Although I agree with you on flashing the cash…it cost us dear in Seville, it most likely cost us a trophy by not pushing the boat out and signing Broto…”
Don’t believe that Broto would have been that expensive but I also think his prowess has been over-exaggerated and he is another who has become a better player the less we see of him. He did nothing after leaving Celtic. We had got rid of a multi capped keeper the previous year in Kharine and we still had the multi-capped Hedman on our books.
“Our saving a penny to make a pound strategy is pissing supporters off.”
I think the supporters are pissed off by the quality of the players we have brought in, regardless of what their fee was. There have been expensive failures and cheap successes and vice versa. We miss the days of £6m signings and we want to get back there- that’s understandable. But a Sutton or Lennon today costs 3 times what they did then. £6m today gets you Brett Assombalonga. Splashing cash you don’t have is just pretending to be rich, not actually being rich- the credit card bills still have to be paid.
“We are strangled with some of the dross that has been brought in due to this wage wise.”
Too true- loanees or signing debates again. I wish we could source scouts who only made good buys, but I fear such guys are unicorns.
“Mediocrity is breeding contempt within the support…I do realise we are not in the market to over budget… But I’d rather one proven player than a few benchwarmers any day.”
The contempt towards the team and the manager has been there since MON left. Even when we were being successful (3 last 16 CL places) they were being decried as useless, no plan B, turgid, picks his favourites etc; etc; There is no new criticism under the sun. We always hate the current guys and the guys we slaughtered just a few years back are now critiqued and revised to be better than we rated them at the time. Caldwell and McManus were the seive. Nakamura was an empty jersey. McGeady was a one trick pony. All widely held views on here.
The “one proven player” vs “3 average” or “5 mediocre ones” suffers from a couple of flaws. What happens if the proven player gets injured? When you have invested in 3 average, you get a choice of playing 2nd choice Mr. Average in place of the injured one. If you only have one proven player for every slot, then you are falling back to a much lesser quality for your back up. Squad formation needs a balance of signings to account for injuries.
The second problem is that a “proven” player in one setting does not always prove it up here. Darryl Murphy and Tony Cascarino were proven goalscorers, but not with us. Lljunberg was a proven talent and did nothing. Roy Keane was a shadow of himself when he played here. Rafael Scheidt was capped by Brazil and cost a fair bit. Martin Hayes and Stuart Slater, Hedman and Kharine, the list is endless and no signing is failure free.
WC
the feature on Danny was an excellent read
Never understood why we let Sheridan go out on loan in the Fletcher window. Not our greatest ever player, but scored a few for Well and all we needed was a couple of goals.
Winning Captains…
I’ve heard how the lions and others well maltreated by the board of the time…shocking stuff.
It still doesn’t make ok it with the malaise in which the present board are treating the support.
I was speaking to a mate in work today, telling me how the police treated their bus on the way to Stranraer, a bigger Tim you could not meet but feels along with most on the bus let down by the silence from Celtic park/parkheid (see what I done there) it’s time they backed our support moe vocally. HH
DD
They are that feckin stupid the truth is staring them in the face and they can’t see it.
Feck them, I hope they burn in hell.
HH
Evening all.HH
Moe=more… No beer was on the bus…
No Simpson pun intended..:)
Pfayr/DD
A Celtic supporter was lifted at 6am this morning for something sung on Sunday. Don’t know which song yet.
HT
Coldplay
SOAL
You’ve got a combine harvester! :-)
………now that would be criminal!
HT
An’ I’ll give you the key
Evening Celts
Steven Fletcher will be booting his Lambo down the M1 as we speak.
PL will be chasing him in a Milk Float.
Might not get the deal done in time.
HH
HT
Hope it wisnae Minx or Dena? ;))))
Test
HT
Might have been Rod Stewart:)
HH
DD
Minx and Dena threw their designer Lidl bags away at the game
Lol
TGM
Greenpinata was questioning how you call yourself The Green Man earlier.
He was barking up the wrong tree. ;)
HT…
Has there been any lifted since the huns/hibs game?
DD
Yeah….its to do with the mythical Green Man of Legend:)
But then,…you knew that:)
HH
mmm….no Dave TV pop-up u can’t get rid of is a start….more than 4 letters a min without freeze is better….not counting my chickens © Weefra….;-))
H.H.
TSOAL
Nae ladies lavvys in Stair Park that I noticed. :)
DD
Cumbernauld has the same problems
xx
Is the Green Man not a part of the legend of Rosslyn ;-))
H.H.
So there are those that would rather have someone signed from a mid ranking SPFL club than someone who plays regular football in a team that currently plays in the EPL.
Now if St J were playing in England the chances are they wouldn’t even be playing in the top 3 leagues. Imagine the posts on CQN if we were seriously thinking of doing that.
Some posters are saying we’re downsizing yet advocate us doing it, strange world we live in.
BTW I don’t want us to sign Fletcher for a variety of reasons.
THELURKINTIM@9.40
:-)))). HH
A Hoopy Happy New Year to all Tims everywhere, everywhen ;-))
Everything seems to b back to normal ;-))
H.H.
WC-Current Board still penny pinching for a half decent striker,meet the new boss,same as the old boss…..HH
TheLurkinTim
Shhhhh.
Templars, Priory of Sion.
Heart of Midlothian…Edinburgh University…Lord Jeffries.
Shhhhh.
HH