You and I discussed years ago that if you adopt a strategy, you need to commit fully, otherwise you will under-achieve. Doing this is difficult as it grates with natural instincts, such as selling your best players when they are close to peak value, and not wasting budget on resources with zero development potential.
In that light, everything I hear about what’s going on at Hearts this summer looks super-optimised. Having ‘lost’ Lawrence Shankland (31 in August) and manager Derek McInnes, they have appointed Belgian Wouter Vrancken (47), who has only won one cup since taking up his first managerial role 17 years ago.
The devil is in the detail. Vrancken has “always worked as a head coach in a collaborative recruitment structure”. This is the way forward, football clubs who permit guru-like managers to run recruitment are relics of a past generation.
Vrancken faced Tony Bloom’s Union Saint-Gilloise in his native Belgium and said of Jamestown Analytics methods, “I have a lot of confidence or trust in the way the recruitment works because I was confronted with it in Belgium. And now from the other side, I want to be part of it.” His own recruitment was a data driven decision. He improves clubs relative to resources. In football terms, that is the Golden Goose.
Hearts are still in the early stages of their Jamestown model, there will be significant upheaval in the squad this summer as they fully adopt the company methods. There are no guarantees they will improve (or even maintain) on their second place finish from last season, but they are coming.
Celtic have to learn and learn quickly. The appointment of successive bad managers and permitting one to go so far off plan that he put the club back years cannot be allowed to happen again. We face an opponent with fewer resources but sharper tools.
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BR dig ?
Or two ?
A set piece coach is of limited value absent someone who can use a dead ball.
I think Griff was the last one we had. It’s coming on 10 years since he was doing his thing.
Better still, they don’t have to worry about getting too far in front of Hibs…..
Paul67
Seriously pal ? – let it go
How did Brendan put the club back years? His 3 big signings in 2024 stand to make the club a lot of money, Idah (A loss but not substantial) , Trusty and Engels a£25M outlay.The income from the sale of those 3 would outweigh the outlay.As Meatloaf said 2 outta 3 ain’t bad.😱
The need for ‘sharper tools’ precedes BR the first time never mind the second time.
“ There’s a malaise about the place “ – Paul McStay – ish
One of our problems is that we have absolute tools holding very important positions.
Nothing has been learned.
Chaos will ensue!
It’s been 245 days, man
Let it go
To retain any sort of credibility, let it go
Bournesouprecipe
I agree with you but think maybe Paul does this purely for emphasis and maybe a bit of a ‘wind up’.
We all have our views. Mine certainly won’t change. I hugely valued his first 18 months and less so his final year and a bit. He was the wrong guy post Ange but that is DD and our lack of structure to blame, for giving him the keys, as much as BR.
I think we should all move on from the whole sorry chapter. Hopefully we can use the transition year to develop a strong football structure going forward.
If only Ange had known we would be signing Kwon, maybe he would have stayed on…?
“The appointment of successive bad managers and permitting one to go so far off plan that he put the club back years cannot be allowed to happen again. ”
Absolutely laughable comment. Do you have no self awareness making stupid comments like this?
The board and their lackeys are the ones holding Celtic back. When will they come in for scrutiny?
This blog continues to ignore what is staring every Celtic supporter in the face.
P67
Your Hearts love-in is getting weird- explains why you haven’t updated the league table.
Paul,
Focusing on STRATEGY without articulating GOALS is meaningless. The best you can hope for is staying where you are.
The suits, media, blogs are fixated Strategy. Our Strategy appears to be ‘Buy low, Sell high’.
If we have a GOAL, it appears to be ‘Stand Still’.
Seriously, have we heard a Suit tell us that we should be in the last 16 of the UCL 2 or 3 years out of 5? Nope. To declare a Goal leaves us open to criticism when we don’t reach that goal. As things are today, they are open to criticism in any case. When you get 14 out of 15 League Champions, we clearly have a low bar.
Strategy in its self, takes you nowhere.
Weeron.
If blog strategy is wind-up it would appear today to have been successfully implemented.
Brendan put the club back years by wìning trophys. More of the same for me then please.
Nancy modernised the club and moved it forward and hardly won a game. No more please
New Sharp tools are required in the board room before anywhere else.
Paul’s trolling us now 😄
Give it a bye —- beginning to sound like other one trick ponies on repeat. Clear BR lives rent free in your head and is affecting your content. Mark Lawwell was found out end of story…
DD and his puppets have lost a coach to BR who is on close to £20M per year. His next door neighbour will possibly join him as player coach to ease hiring rules probably one last pay day day on £5M/year — he owes us nothing and can’t carry a team on his back any longer.
Time for a cerveza !
BURNLEY78
There are very, very few Celtic supporters that don’t see past the blame it all on Brendan narrative. This Blog is unique.
MN and BW ( at least publicly ) don’t blame BR and if they did why are we making all the changes promised this summer?
Including recruitment
Player Development
New head of football operations ( sacked 6 months ago )
Data analysis
And best of all ‘Communication’ – hard to believe but gets worse.
BR wasn’t getting funded in the last year of his contract he got over it very quickly, so should every supporter.
We will have some ‘sharper tools’ for sure and a couple of them will be in boardroom hopefully this side of the year.
If it’s really all a just “ wind up “ bring it on and prepare to flounce 👍
Gene on 29th June 2026 12:32 pm
Excellent one liner 👌 😂👏
A Hearts supporter friend of mine says our new “Set piece specialist” was apparently let go by Hearts…as their new coach is bringing all his own backroom team with him.
Dearie Me Paul, you really are obsessed.
BR made serious millions for the club, both in CL revenue and player trading.
As for blaming him for the loss we made on Idah, maybes if the suits had made sure there was a buy option when we first had him on loan he wouldn’t have cost the way overpriced cost for him, but instead they dithered about as per and cost us a fair few mill, but it’s far easier to blame Brendan.
When you, by you I mean the manager is presented with player options, he will try to get the best he can, but when they are not up to standard, he will take what he is given, then proceed not to play them and take the flak for buying them, he sure did that many many times.
It will be interesting to see how you manage to pin the failures of the suits on Brendan this window, cos as sure as eggs are eggs, this window is gonna be a disaster, I will wager anything on that we come out of the window way weaker than we entered it.
As for the set piece coach, a welcome appointment but way too late IMHO, but as ever better late than never.
Hearts are a Honda civic.
Celtic are a Ferrari.
Both Glasgow sides are unlikely to be as poor again in the new season. Hearts are likely to be a distant third.
Hearts Quick News. I’m all for modernisation, if it’s the right thing to do. I don’t quite get the supposed changes to the styles of play and tactics. Get as many good players on the park as you can and that’s a good start. I’ll wager that our teams of the late 60s and early 70s, would compete at a very high level (with whatever formation or tactics that we deployed, at the time).
Our throw-ins have been lamentable, for decades. Hopefully the new coach will help fix that and benefit from Tierney and Johnston’s ability.
Btw, Adam Idah was not a failure. He scored a lot of goals and made a huge contribution to winning trophies. He wasn’t maybe equipped to be our number one striker but he was a great backup.
Don’t want much. Just sign Araujo, Just, Sarachi and Maswanisi, that’ll do for me. Sorry about the spelling
Celtic board beiieve the new set piece coach was the ‘right guy all along’ and he’ll make great sandwiches at Lennoxtown
It’s all a Wind Up CSC
So,after losing 5 weeks of the close season,2 weeks of the transfer window,Penny pinching on contracts for MONS assistants,it’s once again,all down to Brendan’s mismanagement.
This Blog has become even more of a laughing stock throughout the Celtic support than it previously was,and that was a high barrier to brest.
If you maybe focused on things that actually have been hampering this club,despite what manager has been in charge at the given time,like failing to qualify for 5 CLs in a row,you should realise that this systemic failure from an incompetent,out of date Board,led by a brilliant businessman,hopeless football club supremo,who for a number of reasons,cannot separate business from football.
Our dealings in the transfer window,are a laughing stock across Europe,and now it seems,even further afield.
No one,except,your loyal band of Clappers,has any faith in this window being any different.We have started off badly,with the Kelechi ,Sarrachi,farce,and no one expects it to get better.
If it all ends up like previous seasons,who will you all blame then?The vast majority of the support will take very little encouragement to storm the ramparts again,and rightly so,after being conned by promise of a new dawn,lied to about almost everything this Board could lie about.
Brendan ,eh,what a disaster.
As for our new” Set piece” coach.I said last season,many times,why don’t we use KTs huge throw into the box.Ireland used Scales to great effect assisting in 3 goals from this tactic,so not unheard off.Now we witness AJ doing the same from the other side for Canada ???.It’s not rocket science,but it seems our coaching staff were unaware of that tactic being used to great effect by most pro clubs in the world.Huns and Hearts,20 – 24 goals from this and corners.Us,4.
Hopefully this guy will bring us up to speed on this ” New fangled modern tactic”.
Interesting leader
If only we had the resources of Jamestown analytics instead of mark Lawwell Paul tidsdale et al where a multi trophy winning manager had to bake them out with his own signings
In our new set piece coach
This guy is the real deal
It’s not just about first phases of set pieces. It’s about second and third phases too and he is highly respected in the world of coaching.
Hopefully it will also see an end to the ten minute throw in as our thrower looks about for an unmarked jersey
Paul,
Sharper focus.
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” – J.M. Keynes
My views remain unchanged for now, but I’ll be watching the next 2 months very closely.
It will become difficult to apportion blame for last summer’s shit-show on Rodgers if history repeats.
Thus far we’ve started rather slowly.
Tennis ba’s and tangerines @ the ready……..
Is it Paul 67’s fault that dim Tims still fail to see through the Rodgers myth, spreading allof his lies and toxicity?
Nothing gets done whilst Tims are dim.
Much to ponder, Paul.
Much … but (I assume intentionally) not all
If I may … in no particular order
Hearts did 80 points last season. I’m highly confident they won’t match that tally next season.
Depends in part on their progress in European qualifiers.
Resourcing EIGHT Europa League games?
… against routinely high standard opposition
… across c. 18 weeks (late Sep to late Jan)
will drain their squad.
6 Conference matches against lower standard teams (where I think they’ll end up)
… less draining but still a factor.
So Hearts will come at us in future, but not next year.
Sharper tools? Yes.
But ours are bigger.
Short term advantage to us while we take a year to sharpen up further.
“appointment of successive bad managers”
Poor. Some accuracy & proportionality?
Wilfried, the xG killer, was a bad manager for Celtic.
Brendan was not a bad manager. Not by a long shot.
A bad appointment?
Perhaps the view of some including you.
Let’s assume … just for arguments sake … the view has some merit.
Dermott appointed him.
It was our executive leadership who were “permitting (him) to go so far off plan that he put the club back years”
Brendan was a known quantity.
Their problem to own.
Final point …
… again assuming Brendan went “off plan”
What plan?
The argument might carry just a little more weight among the fan base if we knew over a multi year period what the plan was.
Bodenstown Churchyard
Wolfetones
https://youtu.be/w9uS1TIHEms?si=OZyuAKwPLGUuyB_m
Spelling mistakes are free of charge.