Managers often have the task of focussing players’ attention on the next game, instead of an important subsequent game a few days later, but Brendan Rodgers has an additional task in this respect right now.
You only need to speak to a fellow Celtic fan this week to understand what’s on all of our minds. Two games over the next four days will make a significant impression on the season, but there is no certainty what the squad will look like when the second match takes place. The closure of the transfer window in a little over 48 hours will loom just as large as Sunday’s league encounter with Newco.
This is where the manager earns his wages. While tomorrow’s game against Suduva should present a straightforward challenge, you and I remember another Scottish team, no longer with us, going out of Europe to Lithuanian opposition just months after competing in the Uefa Cup Final.
Get them ready to run through walls for you, Brendan.
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Don’t expect any signings
This is always the case
Sevco are stronger now
Sad
Those who run Celtic are disgusting in their greed and contempt for the support.
All this guff about needing to sell because of CL exit. We have around £50m or more in the bank. We kept being told we had planned to survive a CL exit. Now the usual suspects ignore all that in a bizarre attempt to justify the unjustifiable.
I wonder if the board and paul67 have a big get on the Huns to win the league. Can’t think of any other reason why they so.desperatemy want to damage Celtic.
So the old “the board are conspiring to let Rangers win the league ” league nonsense surfaces again.
I honestly worry about the mental health of some who post on here.
Its football lads. Its not real life. Why fret about circumstances that are beyond your control
Is Glib and Shameless Lawwell. forcing Brendan to resign ?
His actions ( not words as he has been invisible lately) point directly to this outcome.
https://mobile.twitter.com/CelticGossip/status/1035063720832118786
CQN just reflects how real life is. Lots of opinions about anything and everything with little of it formed on the back of indisputautable facts.
We all see and hear things and interpret them differently. Unless we can get someone to plant a bug in the boardroom and tap PL and BR’s phones it is all just hearsay.
I am off in search of fresh air, my wife keeps telling me It’s only a game of football.
Neganon2
Can’t understand why you’re still on here…you vilify the host and have called CQN a farce.
Many posters are rightly fuming about this shambles of a transfer window but the difference with you and many others is your lack of balance.
You cannot enjoy good times like double trebles, CL qualification and hun skelpings and never issue a celebratory post.
So your vitriol in turbulent times like right now has to be seen in that context.
Glasgow to Lyon Conference Call, Wednesday 16 August
Peter Lawwell – bonjour jean michel. It’s your ami Peter Lawwell from the best run club in the world, Glasgow Celtic.
Jean Michel Aulas (Lyon president) – ah Pierre! Commiserations on last nights result in Athens. I must pass on regards from my friend jacques who maintains the lighting on the Eiffel Tower at night, he says the new Celtic park lights are excellent.
Lawwell – merci, jean michel. It’s very difficult against these teams from money rich leagues like Greece. But our lights are the best in the world! Anyhow, down to business. I’ve just had a call from Marseille asking about moussa Dembele. Of course we don’t need to sell, being the best run club in the world and that, and world class in everything that we do….but I’m sure you wouldn’t want Dembele to go to Marseille wouldn’t you? So a cheeky wee bid wouldn’t be amiss.
Aulas- are you sure you’re not using us a stalking horse to squeeze more money out of Southampton?
Lawwell – alas he has refused to go there. Scuppered my plan to take Shane long on loan in part exchange!
Aulas- who is Shane long? I thought you guys tried to exit every transfer window stronger than when you went into it?
Lawwell – Well it’s a nice sound bite in may, sells the season tickets.
Aulas- we do the deal now then?
Lawwell – don’t be crazy! There’s two weeks of this window yet to go. If I sell moussa now the ingrate manager and fans will demand that we reinvest some of the money in a replacement. It would sicken my black heart to see all that lovely money come in only to go back out again.
Aulas – so we keep it hush hush for now and do the deal on 30th August?
Lawwell – yes. I can instruct my truth channels to peddle stories of the player being unsettled, too late in the window to get a replacement, we tried, January is the big window, jam tomorrow etc
Aulas- you have all the bases covered Pierre!
Lawwell – well I am the best CEO ever. A couple of last favours jean michel…can you tell the press I’ve been a tough barsteward in negotiations and squeezed you for every last penny. That’ll help the balance sheet csc and the Lawwell loyal trumpet this deal as a triumph.
Aulas – my ego wouldn’t normally permit this but seeing as it’s you, ok, I tell l’equipe that.
Lawwell – and you wouldn’t have any wee 19 year old winger projects I could possibly loan for the year?
Aulas – why not try your son at Man City?
Lawwell – even he isn’t returning my calls now!
Aulas – ah Pierre you are terrible! We do the deal on the 30th and I see you at the next European Club Association meeting. Au revoir!
I agree BR will leave after game on Sunday. Unless reality dawns on PL today. We have no decent CHs no RB that is fir (ML legs have gone) and BR doesn’t trust Gamboa or Ralston. Izzy brought back Not a BR signing. SB being less influential. ON looking to get out before Saturday. Kouassi? who knows what that’s about. SS given up. Which leaves an injury prone LG JF Rogic and McGregor. With one shining light OE up front.. That is our squad
Hmmm! I wonder how CQN would look if we still had the old-style buy a player at any time scenario in place? No transfer window, just bid for a player at any time through the season. Meltdown every day of the year wold be possible!
This time yesterday I reckoned Moussa would stay but it looks like he is most likely leaving; am I disappointed? Of course I am; also slightly surprised too as I thought he’d stay till the end of the season. However, It was always on the cards. Do I think it would have made a difference if we had reached the CL? No, I don’t; I think it would be the same scenario if the Lyon bid came in.
We need to accept that French Eddie and Olivier Ntcham will probably follow Moussa out the door within a season or two. It’s the nature of football just now. We are a big name (historically) in world football and have a massive international fanbase. Unfortunately we are paupers at the door in a financial sense. The structure of TV deals and UEFA competitions perpetuates that, not Peter Lawwell or Dermott Desmond.
We can ascribe some blame to both of them for not strengthening; Brendan Rodgers is also culpable as he should have been succession planning as well as bringing in defensive cover over the last couple of transfer windows. But the reality is we should apportion most of the blame to Sky TV and UEFA who have built the model we now have as a “lower league” country.
Should we throw our toys out of the pram and boycott the games? Absolutely not. If we are true fans, we support the Club through thick and thin; and believe it or not, this isn’t a thin moment. We still have the best squad in the country by a significant margin and are stronger all over the park in comparison with our domestic rivals. We will qualify for the Europa League this evening (our true level if we are honest with ourselves) and have a reasonable chance of getting to the knock-out stages, maybe even the last 8 if the draws are kind to us.
We will beat the new huns on Sunday and will win the SPFL and at least one other domestic trophy. Not a bad prospect for “a club in crisis”. If we had sold Moussa in July, signed McGinn, bought a new RB and CH and then didn’t qualify for the CL we would be in another flavour of meltdown on here.
Let’s be realistic, it’s hard to attract quality players to the SPFL; we have been very fortunate (some may say spoiled) at the quality we currently have and have had over the past few seasons BUT is must be acknowledged that this is because we are a very well-run club and had the financial clout to buy and pay for them. The well-run club that sells its best players – two cheeks of the same arse whether we like it or not. We are where we are (good and bad) because of the way we are run by the board. The other model was followed by Rangers* and look what happened to them.
Suck it up bhoys and ghilrs – we will try and use our financial clout to do what has just been done to us – go to other clubs and by some of their better players with a few days to go in the transfer window without consideration on how it will affect their fans.
Get yourself to Celtic Park tonight and on Sunday and get right behind the bhoys on the park. That’s who we should be supporting; don’t be a token Tim, be a true supporter!
KTF
IF we get through tonight then we may get a loan from MC.
RT @CelticF1rst The way things are going I wouldn’t be surprised if we accepted a bid for our new lights before 5pm on Friday.
not my work.
GARY67 on 30TH AUGUST 2018 8:33 AM
https://mobile.twitter.com/CelticGossip/status/
———-
If that’s true, two loans and penny pinching for a guy from Stoke. Anyone who thinks Brendan won’t walk is kidding themselves, as others have suggested, it wouldn’t surprise me if that is what Lawwell is engineering.
FFS – yesterday we had the MSM squirrel, that ‘Pistol Pete’ would chase Lyon away and then we were told that some Celtic supporters were revelling in the shambles that has been this transfer window has been!
Today, we are told that ‘the professionals’ will sort it out.
Phew thats alright then. Hopefully we’ll beat AEK and go on to qualify for the Champions League last night.
HH
So if we had tried to stgrengthen and lost CL game it would be worse? What crap. Difficult to get players to come to Scotland? Hard to get deals through? No time? A load of crap
Noticed two new CQN articles this morning, apparently confirming that MD is away.
Very disappointed by the PLC’s handling of the Celtic football business recently.
Time to get away from this keyboard for a few hours, to re-stock the fridge ahead of tonight’s nail-biter.
HH
Tully,
As ever the last thought process kicks on. Of course I have been on when we win but it just doesn’t fit with your agenda. Perhaps the treble parties I held at my house were a dream.
CQN isn’t a farce. It’s tagline is beyond farce given it’s propaganda. And in any case CQN won’t last too much longer.
Wits ah
Wits ah the classic “don’t take it too seriously” line.
When it gets tough just console yourself with forgetting about it.
From STV
Rodgers is said to want to add a right-back, centre-half and midfielder to his squad. Stoke City’s Austrian full back Mauritz Bauer, Leicester stopper Filip Benkovic and Man City playmaker Douglas Luiz are touted as the top targets in each position.
LARSSONSE7EN – 10:57 PM
Excellent post :o)
” We need the support behind us and try to get into what is a very good European competition.”
Brendan Rodgers
The whole situation is very well summed up on Celts Are Her: https://celtsarehere.com/dembele-latest-fact-from-fiction/
KTF
JJ
We’re not City types but we can see that the crash of a decade ago was as inevitable as 1929.
We’re not military strategists but the folly of Gallipoli is all too evident.
We’re fitba fans. And even to those like you and I with no inside knowledge, the folly of selling your best talent without recruiting their replacements is equally self evident?
The more so when it’s allowed to happen during what our host so frequently tells us is, the most significant finencusl period of our season.
Galling to me that maximising income can tally with strengthening the squad and maximising its performance.
HH jg
MARADOMINIC on 30TH AUGUST 2018 8:45 AM
So if we had tried to stgrengthen and lost CL game it would be worse? What crap. Difficult to get players to come to Scotland? Hard to get deals through? No time? A load of crap
__________________________________________
Very eloquently argued …… ????????
KTF
“We keep saying it but we want to come out every transfer window stronger than we’ve gone in.“
Going to be some 40 hours!!!
Considering the source( The DR), this is a reasonable article:
Brendan Rodgers on the Celtic reality ‘it’s very difficult to build something here’
The manager admits the ending of the player cycle has come at an ‘unfortunate’ time.
But in the club’s position within the harsh world of football’s pecking order, he now accepts it may well need torn down and restructured virtually every two years.
With the prospect of Moussa Dembele’s time at Parkhead ending before the weekend, reality has again bitten in Glasgow’s East End.
Attracting potentially top-class young foreign stars isn’t so much a problem for Celtic.
It’s sticking to the model and moving them on when they progress along the path and closer to their peak which hurts. Handsome financial recompense or not.
It happened long before Rodgers. Neil Lennon had to watch as Ki-Sung Yueng developed and left after three years.
With money elsewhere going up and options getting more attractive, three soon became two as Victor Wanyama enjoyed his exposure and built his reputation before he felt it time to go.
Lennon had to watch van Dijk leave
Ronny Deila was in the same boat when Virgil van Dijk served his two-year Parkhead apprenticeship and went.
Now it’s Dembele turn to see opportunities elsewhere after doing his two-year stint and Rodgers is acutely aware of how it works.
In essence, Celtic know they can only get these boys in the first place if they don’t stop them going later.
It doesn’t make it any easier for the supporters to handle. And it doesn’t make it any easier for those managers to cope with.
But it’s real life as Rodgers confessed: “I think it’s understanding where Celtic is at. There’s no secret.
“It’s very difficult to build something here because every two years there is going to be recycle. That’s the way it is.
“Of course, you’d love to be able to say we want to keep some of these players for five, six, seven years but it’s not the reality, especially now when players can get offered three or four times the money they are on here.
“It’s a really short career. I think it’s difficult for players. There comes a certain time.
“With Virgil, there was a possibility the summer before for him to go. He played on for a year and then got his move a year after.
“It’s worth mentioning that Moussa has been brilliant in my time here. It has been perfect.
“When I met with him a few years ago, I explained how it could go in terms of him improving and becoming a winner and showing that he can play at the highest level.
“All these steps have been taken. It’s something you have to deal with.
“It’s great that you have players with lots of value that can move on, but I think that Celtic is a club with cycles and this is the first of them in my time.
Brendan Rodgers reveals Moussa Dembele missed Celtic training due to crunch talks with club
“It’s just timing. It’s unfortunate that it’s come at this time.”
Of course, there was always going to come a time. It’s always been a when and not if situation when it came to Dembele.
But, as Rodgers suggested, this timing is the polar opposite from ideal.
For a start, there’s just two days of a transfer window left to get a replacement. Then there’s a European tie in which Dembele is unlikely to feature against Suduva on Thursday night and a crucial game against Rangers on Sunday when the Frenchman may have already gone.
Chuck in the fact Rodgers has been unable to secure some specific targets during the window and faces having his squad weakened again and it’s coming across as the most-problematic period the boss has faced since moving Glasgow.
But he said: “It’s football. It happens. You just have to deal with it best you can whether Moussa stays or goes.
“It’s not all going to be plain sailing and smooth. It’s just different things to deal with. There’s always something.
Rodgers insists Dembele has been great in the two years they have spent together
“They say about football management that you’re always in it, it depends how deep.
“Ankle deep, knee deep or neck deep? You’ve just got to keep it as low as you can.”
With that in mind, the football offers Rodgers key release from the off-field circus.
Wins over Suduva and Rangers will help ease some of the concerns around the support and, given the nature of this summer, it’s about as long-term as their manager can dare look.
Leigh Griffiths is set to start against Lithuanians as Celtic look to build on their 1-1 away draw and Odsonne Edouard could also feature on his return from injury as he builds towards the Rangers showdown.
‘Peter Lawwell’s a bulldog’ How Celtic chief is described by Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas
Rodgers knows results always bring some level of stability to any club and said: “That’s my focus, preparing the team, to get a result and have European football through until Christmas and prepare for the Rangers game.
“You have to do both. My focus has been on that [training pitch] and people behind the scenes are working on the other side.
“What I have to ensure is that when the player pulls on the shirt there’s a total commitment to performing.
“If there’s not, then it’s understandable, especially if there’s speculation around it, but we can’t afford to not have that.
“It’s pretty straightforward. Last week after the (Suduva) game, although I wasn’t overly pleased with the performance you’ll have gathered, we came together as a squad and spoke about our reaction going forward and what is important.
“It’s a time that can be very unstable for players and it’s my job to stabilise the emotions of the team and ensure we’re focused on the football.
“There are young players with talents who show that every time we play, so we’ve dealt with other issues.
“This adds a little bit more because it’s that time of year but you learn to deal with it.”
Cheerio for mow,
JJ
Neganon
And why would you do anything else
Its football…a pastime, a leisure activity, something to be ENJOYED in our spare time away from our daily chores.
Any one who takes it so seriously that it upsets them has a problem
From ETims.
Now done. Not for those of a nervous disposition or Peter Lawwell and his poodles ? https://twitter.com/etimsnet/status/1034809114969485312
VFR
Informed realism. Except that it would have made a difference to the Lyon bid if we had made the CL.
Not only would the player be less easily enticed away when playing CL fitba, but the Frenchies would be bidding for a CL-group team striker (we were told 30mill last year); different from picking up a distressed sale from a club with a marked contingency and continuity free recruitment policy.
Agree tho, KTF.
Jamesgang
” the folly of selling your best talent without recruiting their replacements is equally self evident?”
So why do competent professionals follow such a path?
I really must go now.
Cheerio,
JJ
KTF 8.40am
Great post. Summarises perfectly where we are as a club and the financial environment we have to operate in. We can only speculate what is going on in the background.
I find that I can peruse a CQN page in record time when there is bad news about Celtic as there are so many monikers that I know will be totally negative with opinion put forward as fact. I now usually just scroll by which is a pity as there will probably be odd gem in there somewhere.
? on 30TH AUGUST 2018 8:40 AM
I think most fair minded people would agree with your post and the sentiment within but what sticks in my craw and most others is the lack of planning around this business model especially this season when we should be building on recent unprecedented success. It has been an absolute clusterf@*k of a transfer window. This can be laid mainly at the ‘silent man’s’ door but Brendan must take some share of the blame.
I fully understand the need at times to cash-in in your assets, we are presently selling a property in Germany to release cash to fund other things. We’d both like to keep the property but we know this has to be done to make improvements elsewhere but we are doing it within a plan and not to have cash sitting in the bank.
I will be there tonight cheering on the Bhoys and on Sunday too but this year I invested more money in Celtic than my wife would be happy with as well as valuable time ( more valuable at my present time in life) travelling up and down from Forres, a round trip of about 400 miles, for games.
I know who the mug is in this and it’s not PL or the Celtic PLC so I believe that I may be entitled to vent my spleen now and again when I feel that we as a support are being taking for a ride – again!
Hopefully see you soon and don’t stop talking sense.
Hail! Hail! PMTYH
QUADROPHENIAN on 30TH AUGUST 2018 8:59 AM
I still think Moussa would have gone back to France even if we had qualified for the CL; the fee may very well have been higher but, IMHO, the outcome would have been the same.
Of course all these opinions are predicated on Moussa actually leaving. it’s not over until it’s over!
KTF
Ach well at least with awe this talk about Moussa going/ not going, the media morons have forgot about punting KT for a while.
H.H
POGMATHONYAHUN AKA LAIRD OF THE SMILES the transfer window has been far from ideal (at this point in time) but there are many reasons for this, and a lot of them we will never really know about! Hopefully the next few days will see some semblance of order restored and a few brought in. I will also be interested to see if Rodgers assertion that we WILL NOT release Moussa unless we get a replacement. Has he been given that assurance and will Moussa be “in Boyata mode” if that actually happens?
KTF
Anybody know of a vendor in the London area that sells pitchforks and torches ?
Planning to go shopping after reading my “Make myself incredibly and irrationally angry for dummies” book.
MARADOMIC.I like thousands of Celtic Supporters,I will be at Celtic Park this evening,I’m sad at the minute how our club is handling things,ie Players leaving,no sign of new ones coming,the blogs are full of Rumours,as for Brendan Rodgers leaving I too said that a few weeks ago,but I think the invisible man Dermot Desmond,and he is big problem ,never at the Club,we need men or women,to take over his position of running the club,
My blog name is Dbhoy and I have a problem. I was that upset about the UCF result in Seville I cried at FT. Actually my bro shed a tear aswell.
How many to make a clique?
HH