I’ve been looking for signs for an inflationary bounce in English football. The next Premier League TV deal is still 12 months away but at this stage before previous TV deals kicked in, clubs started spending ahead of themselves as they looked to secure a piece of the lucrative new deal. In particular, I’m keen to see how central defenders are valued.
Today news broke that West Brom agreed a deal with newly-relegated Hull City to sign central defender, James Chester (26) for £8m. Chester has 11 months left on his contract at Hull. Three years in the English Championship and 45 Premier League games over two seasons was enough evidence to induce modest West Brom to pay the asking price.
It would have helped that three other Premier League clubs, Southampton, Aston Villa and Newcastle, were also reportedly interested, but no one is making false claims for a lad who has not troubled the scouts of England’s top clubs. He’s a modest player who is able to sign a pre-contract in January. This is a spectacular fee, passing between two modest clubs, for a central defender.
Consequences for us? We’ll see.
I’m doing a State of the Club article for Friday, as we do the day before the league campaign starts. So far there’s a flow to the words. A solid result on Wednesday will reaffirm that, whereas a reversal would, frankly, deem a satisfactory assessment inappropriate.
So much turns on these next few games, Champions League qualification, squillions of pounds, and sure, the State of the Club. We’ve come through a few iterations of acceptable levels of performance over the last 20 years, since winning our first trophy in six years. Younger readers will never appreciate how precious a 1-0 Scottish Cup win over Airdrie could be.
These days it’s all about the treble and Champions League group stage qualification. The loss of a cup would be an annoyance, but Celtic need to be part of the Champions League.
Our friends at Magners have offered a pair of Premium seat tickets for the Jock Stein Stand at the opening league game of the season on Saturday. To enter, all you need to do is email me with the name [IN THE SUBJECT LINE] of who we play that day, celticquicknews@gmail.com
If you’d like to donate £1 to the CQN Mary’s Meals school kitchen appeal, help towards what would be our fifth kitchen in Malawi, you can do so here:
Entries close at 6pm this evening, so not much time.
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starry plough
12:18 on
29 July, 2015
Probably because the club feel that the atmosphere in the ground out weighs any additional money they might get from tv vs ticket sales.
Have a great day bhoys away visiting before the match.
HH
Sounds about right Bhoys, I thought maybe it was some UEFA scam:))
Sali Sepp:))
May be of interest to the Dublin bound ‘hootenanny team’…………….TBM
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/No-British-Royals-invited-to-1916-commemorations.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=The%20Best%20of%20IrishCentral&utm_campaign=Best%20of%20IC%20July%2028
Got my ticket last night from the web print option. Dead easy. You get an email with odd ticket. Print and away you go.
celtic should be tweeting and social media ing this option. I’m expecting 45k plus for this which isa good crowd considering the name and no away support.
with the game not on the telly, even more people are likely to be tuning into CQN for quality updates tonight
so, i have a plan to rationalise (what?) the number of superfluous posts that usually happen on such occassions whereby 15 people post that we have just got a throw in and so it clutters up the blog and makes other comments and opinions harder to find and read
why dont 10 people for example volunteer to be official CQN scribes for the game, they take a 10 minute period each (surely 9 – Ed) and only they commentate on what is happening in the game in that period, and the rest of us can just post our comments, opinions, joys and sadness at the events
i cant volunteer cos im a rooster and as such cant speak or write in english, but i know some CQNers are actually human and could fulfill this task nae bother
The Battered Bunnet
10:00 on 29 July, 2015
As used by Cliftonville just scan your phone at turnstile
How the hell am I gonna watch tonight in Salou ???? Any recommendations ?
BSR
You might be jealous of my new tattoo. :-)
https://u7.photofunia.com/1/results/E/_/E_uJVkbB2U5JOGbfYN75jw_r.jpg
foghorn leghorn
Far, far too sensible.
It’ll never catch on.
HH
Foghorn
Most who post during the game are watching
When at the match you have no time to post, so don’t think many will be posting as no one has a link
See instead of bitching like a bunch of school girls about all your Celtic complaints. Why not send a email to John Paul Taylor highlighting them he’s there to help.Would imagine Celtic want to solve these problems aswell.
THEBARCAMOLE
Not really. They don’t carry money so nae use on a hootenanny.
new article posted.
LP
What’s his email address ?
8))
Only kidding I already have it
SYDNEGAKEV
I remember a certain salmon tattoo.
Canny post it here though.
Just back in from going around Strathclyde park, met full team out to stretch their legs,
Wished the bhoys all the best as they passed,stopped big Virgil and showed him a photo of him and my wee bhoy on the bench before stajrnan game,asked him if he remembered it,
He said OF COURSE. Legend…..picked up the pace when john c approached,think I might make the bench!
I’d say 40 grand + tonight, which is good, lots of people still on there hols. So not a bad crowd.
Platini standing for FIFA presidency
Not long now to the journey to Paradise….HH
Monaghan.
EDIT
” Anywhere in the world you go, any football fan you speak to, they’ll all have heard about us”
——
How very true, but then again, everybody anywhere in the world have all heard about IS.