If you were lucky enough, like me, to enjoy a long Christmas holiday, I hope you had a good one. I’m sure few of us are delighted to be back at it today but there’s an indisputable mood on the blog for bringing in the New. A fresh start is needed and fortunately we’re at the start of the transfer window.
For Celtic most attention will be directed towards recruiting a striker who is capable of doing the business in the Champions League, not to overlook the important point of doing the business in Champions League qualifiers. 20-year-old Icelandic striker, Holmbert Fridjobsson, finally joins the club this month but although we’ll hopefully see plenty of the player this month he is surely considered ‘one for the future’.
One prolific striker does not solve all of Celtic’s issues, however. The club remains acutely dependent on Kris Commons’ creativity (as well as goal scoring), which will become increasingly less-effective as opponents setup to inhibit him. He needs a foil.
Since the annihilation in Barcelona Celtic have offered greater protection from midfield but with both full backs encouraged to overlap the midfield anchor role, previously occupied by Wanyama, becomes crucially important. It also offers support to the strategy of allowing Commons a free role as an attacking midfielder.
Over the break, Archie MacPherson, Scotland’s greatest ever broadcaster, wrote an article for Celtic Quick News comparing two of Scotland’s greatest ever managers. These debates are, of course, subjective, but the article provides a few objective points for consideration. Archie has a totally unique range to deal with this question and is in no doubt as to who the master was. Look out for the article next week, you’ll enjoy it – no guessing now.
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….n where’s Declan?
Celtic Football Club @celticfc 2m
Neil Lennon speaking to media on Steven Fletcher speculation: “A very expensive player, just speculation.
I read a lot of books, about a lot of things.
The biographies of J.Stein and especially J.Johnstone by A.Mcpherson are first class.
In his own biography he describes how unCeltic minded BBC Scotland was at the time, under ‘Blue Peter’ Thomson. It’s also well documented how Mr Stein dealt with Archie during his BBC days; it’s to Archie’s credit that he didn’t use the biography to settle a few scores.
Back in the day Archie’s hair used to blow like candyfloss in a strong wind.
Archie was definitely a Hun but nowhere near the worst of them.
His hair would be blowin’ like fibreglass the day.
Paul67:
A Happy New Year to you my friend.
You talk of the need for a striker but equally the need for a creative player to help Kris. Spot on, what’s the point of having a striker if they are not going to be given the service. However, we do need a Striker, Kris himself said after one of our Euro defeats that he was always looking for the Striker but there were none. A combination of having the correct personnel and tactics.
We need a Striker, creative player and cover for Izzy, get these and use them effectively by realising their respective skills and we will bring back the thunder, simple as 1,2,3.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
Can someone please post a link to the Airdrie / ballantyne programme notes?
Much obliged.
HH
Just on our way home from Livingston where patbhoy1888 looked after us at one of his four Outlets in the central belt. Two new Tyres fitted and the wheel balance checked. First class job and being a CQNer he looked after us, well worthwhile travelling through from Coatbridge.
If you stay in or near: Livingston, Broxburn, Bathgate or Falkirk get along to one of the Outlets if you need Tyrea, a Service, M.O.T. etc. you will be looked after I guarantee it as does patbhiy1888.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
Whatever happened to the requisitioners?
#solastyear
Yes we need a striker, but what about this lot?
Atajic,
Balde,
Bangura,
Fridjobsson
Pukki,
Samaras
Stokes,
Watt,
..and remember we set up against Partick Thistle at home playing just 1 striker
Whats going on in Scottish football Dunfermline and Airdrie fans singing offensive songs about the Rangers ? Fat Sleekit Ally is not happy about it, could it be that the Rangers struggled to beat another diddy team and Alistair is trying to head off the Rangers supporters from complaining by giving it the nasty songs and chants everone is against us rubbish ? I think if the wee fat sleekit one was not pandering to the lowest common denominator in there support he might listen to the songs and chants of the Rangers support with there sectarian bile in there chants and in there songs and consider they are a disgrace and if the law in Scotland was open fair and honest there would be many arrests and many prosecutions of the died teams support.Of course this is overlooked as the MSM pander to McCoist and his establishment club.H.H.
charles kickham
13:14 on 3 January, 2014
Santa bring you a crystal ball ?
We need a player who will score 20-30 goals a season, he doesn’t have to be ‘a striker’. That player , who will probably be KC, needs some back-up in case he gets injured, or loses form.
If the Board had any ambition they would have swooped for Gareth Bale[ not a striker] with Cristiano Ronaldo as back up [also not a striker]
Hun skelper
no it’s just the way he walls
coat on
Walls = walks
damn keys are too small
Afternoon Timland from a warm and sunny hun free mountain valley.
Shane Long for me.
HH
Happy new year to all on CQN and to all the faithful.
My 2014 resolution is to be more positive towards Neil and the team.
They will continue to do things that annoy me but the enervating environment they are forced to operate in clearly affects our manager and players.
The media undermine our great club at every opportunity.
Hopefully the club are addressing this in the background (more in the foreground please Peter)
Off topic – I note papers released under the 30 year rule confirm that the Tory government were lying through their teeth about the number of pit closures in the 80s.
Every great performer knows timing is key so you’ve got to hand it to Maggie – she left the building at the right time just before this came out.
Hail Hail
Steinreignedsupreme
13:40 on 3 January, 2014
Whatever happened to the requisitioners?
they are having a night out tonight in the auctioneers – just off George square
the moon bhoys
13:40 on 3 January, 2014:
Until we move on one or more of the above we will not bring in another striker in my opinion.
NFL’s record in signing Strikers worthy of the position is abismal to say the least.
An observation/opinion from me is that it says a lot of what NFL thinks of the Strikers who by and large were signed by him. He has told us often enough he has the final say on who we sign although John Park and Co. identify them.
We need to get our Striker Dept. sorted but do not necessarily need to spend £5/6 million in doing so.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
TET
Well considering Shane Long is on Spurs wish list I dont think weve much of a chance there.
The Moon Bhoys
I would play them all in the next game, with Fraser Izzy and Kris…
bamboo
Is he, never knew that.
I can but dream.
HH
hun skelper
13:44 on 3 January, 2014
just history repeating itself
You are a proven goal scorer in a competitive league -are you really going to come to the spfl?
http://s5.photobucket.com/user/andybhoy65/media/ballantyne_zps6f789046.jpg.html
Dearie me, just seen Ballantyne’s pish
A Ceiler Gonof Rust Supporting Justice and Freedom for the Dam 5
12:54 on 3 January, 2014
Good luck to OldTim today. Will the surgeons allow him to have a wee swally on the operating table?
————————————–
He’s surely not going through with the sex change. ?. I warned him it was a bit late in the day.
Hope all goes well Oldtim.. thinking of you.
Genes
Possibly , but only if the wages are much better.
gene’s a bhoy’s name
13:59 on 3 January, 2014
There lies in the biggest problem.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
TET
Thanks , I think , for posting that.
He seems a class act…
Just spoke to oldtim
Minor op and he is at home…
WinningCaptains
Can you send me my bill for CQTEN again please?
Thanks
Lennybhoy / Starry plough – thanks for the replies guys, and a Happy New Year to you both!
Re Archie’s biog of Jock Stein, it’s worth getting a copy of ‘Mr Stein’ by the much-missed Bob Crampsey – out of print but used copies on Amazon for under a tenner. Compare and contrast Bob’s self-effacing style with Archie’s constant need to give us ‘something of himself’. In an autobiography that’s what you want, but not so much in a biography.
That said, Archie’s autobiography is a good read, strong on BBC politics surrounding Lisbon and also on the 1974 World Cup. Wooooooffffttt!
Seen the speculation about Fletcher, and I would be delighted if we could get him.
In the summer NL had a choice of trying to strengthen either four or five areas of the team, or one or two.
Was that the wrong choice, or , was it the correct choice, but badly executed?
We have now had three transfer windows on the trot, where we have invested a lot in players, wages, management time, scouting time etc , and in return we have had two successes Ambrose and VVD, and a plethora of failures / non contributors.
It’s easy to say some that we moved on guys like Lassad and Miku, but bottom line is both took up wages, scouting time , management time etc.
Further, if you sign a project, you need to nurture that project, and to the best of my knowledge we haven’t appointed extra coaches to nurture these guys.
So as we enter January, my request is let’s go for Fletcher, and let’s look properly at the real cost of one player vs the visible and invisible costs of the projects.
Get Fletcher, and our team would have a really strong spine for next year’s CL qualifiers based around FF , VVD, Broony and Fletch.
A Ceiler Gonof Rust Supporting Justice and Freedom for the Dam 5
12:54 on
3 January, 2014
Good luck to OldTim today. Will the surgeons allow him to have a wee swally on the operating table?
glasgowdave
12:54 on 3 January, 2014
Good luck to OldTim today. Will the surgeons allow him to have a wee swally on the operating table?.
Back about an hour ago.I’m okay,but passed a comment to the doctor when he was stitching me up,I could see this blue thread passing before my eyes,I said to him,’Doctor I hope that blue thread won’t show when the jobs done,I’m a Celtic Supporter and my friends will be getting on to me for having a blue nose’.He thought I was funny,little did he know, I was very serious.
Has anyone(like me) foolishly clicked on the latest Rangers Standard article in twitter? It’s by a guy called Alex Mooney, I thought I had read some nonsense from them over the last few years but this one takes the biscuit, apparently we should have shown the hand of friendship and amongst other things played a benefit game for them and gave them a loan (like Bayern Munich did for Boruschia). 20 years of cheating and it’s our fault for not bailing them out !
Also, who likes the look of Thistle left back Sinclair Smith?
I understand we offered money but not enough……….
MadMitch@10:53
“The Joys of Bolding — “Paddy8 / The memories come flooding back”.
Unfortunately you have the style but not the substance.”
We’ll try it with quotation marks this time as I totally mucked up the tags last time and some of my comments were bolded and included in yours. Some readers might have thought you were talking sense, therefore. P&ddy would never have made that mistake, you’re right :-)
“I fear you just don’t get it, the club can never be treated as a cash cow.”
I don’t get that because nobody has ever outlined a convincing case to make that charge stick. As far as I can see Dermot Desmond is involved in multi-million pound deals all over the place and his “controlling” share in Celtic plc is small beer to him. Are you really asserting that he needs the “ready cash” from Celtic fans to finance his deals. The blog will await your outline of that argument, with figures, with breath ever more bated.
“For one PL hasn’t got the skill set and two the support won’t (aren’t) stand for it.”
I don’t understand this follow on. Does PL need a skill set to be a cash cow? To run a cash cow? And if the fans wont stand for it, how did it come to be a problem because PL has been there for over 10 years now? That’s a long time to be standing for it or not standing for it. Whichever we are supposed to be doing or not doing.
“Why the long hard slog if all it does is improve the balance sheet and weakens the squad? You win with the team on the park not money in the bank.”
Agree with the final statement but Hooper, Wilson and Wanyama wanted to leave. The “solution” of paying them better than EPL wages to stay could only end up one way. The £17m spent on Sutton Hartson and Lennon earned us 60% of SPL titles contested and a losing final in the UEFA cup. We earned no money from their re-sale. Is this financial outlay for no return part of the “Growth Agenda” too?
“We sold big and bought badly — PL’s ego tripping failed again.
A hit rate of one in six from a season’s scouting is shameful.”
It was very poor. I have hopes that two of the bad 5 will come good for us (probably Biton and AN Other) but we had a bad signing window for sure. We could have spent big money that guarantees successes like Tore Andre Flo, Rafael Scheidt, Eyal Berkowicx, Kone at Everton, Chadli and Lamela at Spurs, Ba, Van Ginkel and Eto at Chelsea, Zaha at Man U, Kone at Everton
, Marvaux at Newcastle and examples from every club down to Cornelius at Cardiff and Altidore & Mavrias at Sunderland. Projects and failures galore at every club.
Oh, and we could have credited our club with its share of successes in previous windows where we recruited projects, jersey sellers, and duffers such as Ki, Wilson, Wanyama and Hooper who all left for much more than we paid for them.
“The whole episode stank of agent friendly punts for the half finished, the benchwarmers and the outcasts.
Were you happy with that — serious money being wasted on in the main squad players?”
Happy- no. Understand that failures are possible, if not inevitable,- yes.
“Consequently you are left with the strawmen of football profligacy and debt accumulation.
We are better than that and you need to do better than that.”
We are, indeed, better than those clubs that did pursue the spend to accumulate philosophy as we have had no administration or liquidation events befall us. These things happened to other clubs in the real world. Not just Rangers and Hearts, but Livingston, Gretna, Dunfermline, Motherwell, Portsmouth, Leeds, Coventry and, to be fair, Palace and Southhampton too.
“Poor spending = Lower revenue = Poorer cashflows.
Panic buys / Poor Planning / Forced acquisitions = Wasted money and wasted opportunities.”
Every club has its share. We have had a bad window as evaluated 5 months later. This time last year Kelvin Wilson was in that failure bracket too.
“PL is flip flopping and we will pay the price.
He has the mindset of a British Army General — Working this transfer window as if it was the last — always one step behind the requirements of the job in hand.
Consequently he is not up to the job, but surely we all knew that.”
Amazing, with all those faults attributed to him, that he lasted 10 years is it not? You would almost believe he was being rewarded for failure?? Well, you would if you ignored the record of 6 SPL titles, 5 SC , 2 LC and 3 CL last 16 places achieved under his tenure. Oh! and the liquidation of our main rivals (N.B. I am not attributing that last outcome to his credit. He can only be credited with not having achieved the same outcome for Celtic).
Now, you made great play of me not answering your main points but I see no question asked that I have failed to answer. Are you sure that you even answered one of the points I made to you?
A very Happy New Year to Paul67 and all CQN-ers.
I hope you all have a great 2013.
Well, all the Tims anyway…