One of the things you hope for when a player leaves for a richer league is that they perform well. It reflects on whatever value you will get the next time someone leaves. Joe Ledley has gotten off to a flier with Crystal Palace, although there is still a long way to go there, but our two big summer sales are finding it tough.
Gary Hooper hadn’t scored in his last nine starts for Norwich. His season tally stands at five league goals and two assists, which is still four goals more than Ricky van Wolfswinkel, who cost more than twice Hooper’s price but has scored only once in the league. Norwich other two strikers have yet to get off the blocks.
Bizarrely, Norwich are flooded with expensive strikers but their fans will bemoan the fact that they don’t have a goal-scorer, which Hooper was at Celtic and van Wolfswinkel was at Utrecht, where he scored a hat-trick against Celtic, and at Sporting. There is a good chance they will be relegated as a consequence, which will probably have them back on the hunt for a Leigh Griffiths-type striker.
Gary had his dips in form at Celtic, which included a meagre last four months of his final season, Cup Final apart, but Victor Wanyama is one of the best central midfielders we have seen at Celtic in a considerable time. He was a solid performer for Southampton before injury side-lined him for two months. Now back, he has a seat alongside Jos Hooiveld on the bench, due to the form of Jack Cork, one of Southampton’s many current stars.
Hooper and Wanyama were among the stars of the Celtic team last season but I suspect their new clubs’ fans are wondering what all the fuss is about. Form is fickle. It’s hard to tell when a career is about to turn all Liam Miller on a bright young prospect (and let’s be honest, Miller was every bit as lauded here as Hooper or Wanyama), or what consequences the new club, the move, or other distractions are having on performance.
There are also a couple of ex-Celtic goalkeepers doing a star turn in the FA Premier League, David Marshall at Cardiff and Artur Boruc at Southampon. After dazzling in his early months Marshall sipped well down the pecking order at Celtic, who eventually offloaded him. He was replaced as first choice by Boruc, who could claim to be the top rated keeper in Europe 8 years ago but completely lost ‘it’, before finding it again, recently.
My prediction is that Hooper, Wanyama, Balde, Boerrigter and Pukki will not fulfil their potential at their current clubs, although I considered Wanyama’s place on the list for a while. This does not make them bad players, ‘it’ just doesn’t always happen when it should. By contrast, some players look born to play for Celtic, including Kris Commons, who does not fit the profile of top-flight English clubs but is a rare gem in the Champions League for Celtic.
Really enjoyed reading the questions to and comments about Tommy Gemmell yesterday, as did Tommy, who spent the afternoon reading CQN and was “delighted” at the response. He’s not got a login yet but we’ll get him sorted and do a live event on the blog after we have the book out of the way.
I’m attending a meeting next Wednesday with Supporters’ Liaison Officer, John Paul Taylor. Let me know if there are any questions you’d like raised.
If you would like to read the new CQN Magazine, GO HERE to read properly, and for FREE, the graphic below is just a taster.
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robert88
10:20 on 14 February, 2014
Correct, and so obvious, to some…!!
auldheid
10:22 on 14 February, 2014
VERY unproductive to even try to bring some light into the ‘darkness’ that is Neganon2
This may be a daft question but what age do you qualify for an OAP concession season ticket at Celtic? Is it 60 or 65?
LB
livibhoy – god bless wee oscar
10:27 on 14 February, 2014
This may be a daft question but what age do you qualify for an OAP concession season ticket at Celtic? Is it 60 or 65?
LB
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65, and it all depends what time of the tear your birthday falls on ;)
timaloy29
10:06 on
14 February, 2014
@quonno
My question was did they do the best they could have.
@Auldheid
What do you mean by “make money”? Do you mean that the club expect to break even or do you mean big profits and big bonuses?
I agree with you on the appeasement. There is a time to make a stand but you always have to be wise about it. Let’s not forget Jabba at the record accussed Celtic of trying to kill off Rangers by not giving them an advance on their share of ticket money for an Old Firm. The media, the majority of the public, the majority of other clubs and the governing bodies are all lean in the other direction.
PL is taking us all for mugs. Does he have any idea how much it costs me as a supporter to sit here in my living room every week and watch that watered down dross that passes for football?
Being unbeaten in the league is not good enough Peter. We won’t stand for it and I’ll not waste any more time watching my dodgy stream at the weekends until you go and take your overpaid and bonus laden bored with you.
Where does this big profit, big bonus stuff come from?
Is this news?
@quonno
Well the signings this season have been pretty lacklustre but for the money paid they should be doing more.
I don’t necessarily blame Lawell for it. The scouting on strikers has been pretty poor since Neil took over.
Bangura, Miku, Lassad, Murphy, Brozek and so on. Some were cheap, some were not and yet its a lot wasted.
auldheid,
I usually agree with what you write and have a great deal of respect for your opinions but I have a question following your question to kevjungle about which policies might be advocated. If in any form of business you had 60,000 customers in 2003 and now in 2014 you have 20-25,000, serious questions would be being asked by (1) the shareholders and (2) probably the market. As you and many others are well aware, the shareholders, well at least the small shareholders at Celtic PLC are treated with disrespect. This would be my first area where improvements can be made in respect of getting shareholders (fans) re-engaged with the club. But this would only be a very small step on the road to recovery as far as re-engagement goes.
AR
Twisty @ 07:15
Your spelling and bad grammar apart :-) your post sums up pretty much to a CAPITAL T-EEEEEEEE my feelings of late on our club.
MWD
Best of luck to Jimno67 with his cold turkey from the blog but Haste Ye Back.
Never surprised, unfortunately, to see digs at WGS and Neil on here. Very surprised that the dig at MON, who is treated as more of a scared cow, snuck through so easily.
Just shows how standards can fall.
67 heaven – ok lets here what you actually think?
KevJungle
09:40 on
14 February, 2014
You should hang your head in shame “MON worked his ticket” – shocking, really shocking.
Talking of standards slipping.
Tat message of best wishes was for Jimbo67
Gone but not forgotten (though maybe misspelled) :-)
Auldheid
10:08 on 14 February, 2014
Same company same club ????? Do me a favour
The Honest Mistake loves being first
10:12 on 14 February, 2014
Exactly what you Stockholm suffering Old Firms fans want. When I say you cant contemplate life without them I dont mean it as a personal insult. It is just an observation.
Dont take it to heart.
HH
Keep going with Peter lawell and crowds will drop and drop
Balance sheets bla bla
Reduce the dross. Bring in the youths and pay the money for a few big stars
Fergus left us With a legacy of 50k season ticket holders from a time when 25k was a good crowd
We are losing them because team is boring and no stars
Let’s be serious , was there ever any danger of us losing the league in last few years
It’s not been good enough
Would the PLC current policy of not giving too flying sexual experiences about the fans change if the club did not manage to qualify for the CL for the next 2 season and fail to secure a mega bucks sale of a current pro from the first team. Bet your ass it would!!!
How would them 2 years balance sheets look?! 30,000 fans and dropping, no CL and no mega player sales. No-Bonus’s-R-US!
MWD
@antipodean red
I think this is my main concern regarding Celtic. Attendances.
The board reduced prices by £100 and yet the attendances are abysmal. I come up from Manchester for every league home game and think to myself what the heck has happened.
I think it comes down to different issues. Some belonging to the board, some to the fans.
And this is when the dream team started, mark this time and date, for surely this is history in the making, all hail The King Of Kings, my god! We are not worthy.
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neganon2
23:16 on 13 February, 2014
Canamalar I am happy to help if I can?
Syd Negakev – wow what a clever monikor.
Does your parody or sarcasm have a point? Are you tonydonnelly in disguise?
Tonydonnelly do you work hard at being so daft?
tonydonnelly67
Thanks for that mate.
LB
MWD.
If all the people that felt the same way (and there appears to be a lot) got together and did something positive instead of walking away then they might be able to realign the direction of the club.
SydneyTim
10:39 on
14 February, 2014
“Reduce the dross” – great idea and easily done….just move away from the keyboard and perhaps KevJ can follow your lead.
Antipodean
There are a number of factors that cover crowds falling.
As an aging supporter I do not relish sitting in a cold wet stadium and I cannot be the only aging supporter.
Then there is TV. Because I spend a bit of the winter away I get an Overseas Season Book that lets me watch every game on TV over internet and someone who cannot afford a ticket my seat.
I do get up to 5 matches for my money when at home.
So whilst I pay to support my attendance is not crucial in financial terms.
I quote this as reasons that explain a drop in attendance but not income and in fact was Celtic’s response to an admittedly very small group of supporters.
However as regards your other point about re-engagement there is no argument and the Supporters Forum is an attempt at doing that but in any dance it takes two to tango.
The Honest Mistake loves being first
I don’t think the club needs re aligning its the views of some fans that need re aligning to reality.
Auldheid – yes I do agree there is a quandry at the heart of celtic’s behaviour. Why dont they just tell us what they are trying to do?
Up at the BBC studio just saw the west brit Tom English heading in think he is freelance maybe New presenter?
neganon2
10:40 on 14 February, 2014
Tonydonnelly do you work hard at being so daft?
_________________________________
Only when I reply a post to you, just to make sure you get it.
Aw Naw
The SPFL are not a club so Im not sure what point you are making.
The SPFL is the same company as the SPL,only the name changed.
The Honest Mistake
I believe that is the point of the Open meetings of Celtic Supporters currently being held at this time.
I attended the first but could not attend the second for family reasons but will be in attendance at the next one on the 4th of March.
MWD
Neganon2
I think they do not trust us to handle the truth but they are a bit of a black hole.
Awe naw. No offence taken. It’s difficult to take offence at being labeled as someone who had sympathy for my captors in a hostage situation. It’s news to me as is the old firm lover tag.
The problem appears to be that you have trouble following logic to its conclusion as well as throwing random insults. Celtic fans voting with their feet will realign the club with their dead rivals. But if this happens at least you can blame the board for your own actions.
No offence meant of course.
Hh.
I do think its a bit rich that the board carry all the blame for fans not turning up to support a winning team
Just look at Newcastle United. The fans there feel disenfranchised with the board, the team has nothing to play for really and yet they had 48k for the Spurs game in miserable weather mid-week
Neil Lennon is not the Mesiah he is just a naughty boy. Don’t let the haters win NFL After all you have been thru stay with us. Win another league cup for us. Never give up. Stay true to Celtic and dream on Neil. Yoou are the mhan.
Robert88.
A mixture of both
Timaloy29 10.21.
I think you meant to address that to Neganon. :)