Inflation in central defender market

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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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  1. Jungle Jim Hot Smoked on

    There must be one section of our ground which serves as a perfect barometer for crowd estimates. eg if, for example, area 406 has 246 seats taken , then the attendance will be approximately 45,000.

     

    So, BMCUW and anyone else with too much time on their hands ( 0:-) ), your task, should you accept it, is to find this as yet unknown area. It would , of course, be useful information for the purveyors of pies and Bovril.

     

    JJ ( Who cannot even blame the sun for his madness).

  2. Jungle Jim Hot Smoked on

    MiT

     

    You will think me a Philistine but I had to Google Paddy Chayefsky! I noticed, though, that network also featured one of my very few favourites, Pete Postlethwaite. I thought he was brilliant in `Brassed Off`. A cracking film to look forward to if you haven`t yet seen it.

     

     

    JJ

  3. At 10:30 this morning I saw 3 carrierbag players staring into the Window of the Celtic shop in Argyle St. Wish I had my camera with me to capture their wee faces aw lit up like weans on Christmas morning…bless um!

  4. thomthethim for Oscar OK on

    bournesouprecipe

     

    15:26 on

     

    28 July, 2015

     

    thomthethim

     

     

    Celtic TV being coy due to ticket sales?

     

     

    ***

     

    That was my own thought.

     

     

    They may sell perhaps a thousand more tickets if there was no TV footage available at all.

  5. Som mes que un club on

    @celticfc: Ticket office is open until 7pm tonight to meet demand for Qarabag tickets. Avoid the matchday queues. Together we can do it. (NM) #UCL

  6. If by holding back on live coverage of tomorrow’s game to sell more tickets, then good on the club, bit hard on our overseas celts, but ye canny complain if your here and are able to get there.

  7. mike in toronto on

    JJHs … re: Peter P … a really good actor, and when you look at this body of work, he did some great stuff …. and he had one of those faces …. it was so expressive… he could say so much without words, but by expression on his face. think it was his training with the Royal Shakespeare company … another one of my favourite actors … Alan Rickman ….

  8. Currently on a train heading for NYC where I will be for the next four days. I was intending to go to the Jack Dempsey Bar near the Empire State Building tomorrow afternoon (east coast time) to hopefully watch the game. Have tried to email them but got no response. Do any of the locally based bhoys know if the venue is likely to show the game ?

  9. mike in toronto 14:51

     

     

    MiT,

     

    Thanks for that posting,good man.astute observation that all who oppose Isis are on the U.S enemy list,a confusion mired in further chaos with Turkey taking out PKK bases.

     

    I used to subscribe to Z magazine in the early 90’s which had some damning indictments of U.S foreign policy.He is a towering intellect and a bulwark against media bull….

     

    check out these 2 links.

     

     

    https://zcomm.org/zmag/

     

     

    http://www.chomsky.info/

     

     

    hope your well Mike and hope to get a pint in when your over :-)

     

     

    HH

  10. Gourockbhoy

     

    the game will definitely be shown in demseys, providing the club come to an agreement. Lol

  11. BBC- British Broadcasting Corporation shall henceforth be known as

     

     

    Hurting broadcast corporation.

     

     

    HH

  12. Help.

     

     

    Just purchased a fire stick. I’ll download kodi. Whats to do once downloaded?

     

     

    Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? Anyone?

  13. Gourockbhoy,

     

    the owner enda will look after you, and the manager mark, was the manager in the brazen before getting married and immigrating to the states.

  14. Talking about dots….and connecting them

     

     

    The media obsession with the empty seats at the game tomorrow..

     

     

    and

     

     

    The Celtic ticket office/phoneline/online ticket malaise…

     

     

    If all the people who seem to want tickets,

     

    have ordered yet not received tickets,

     

    have ordered but cannot print tickets,

     

    have ordered but ‘are they on my season ticket’,

     

    and those souls who are standing in the rain waiting for tickets..as I write this

     

    then the house will be jumping tomorrow night.

     

     

    COYBIG

     

     

    Another Timmy conspiracy.

  15. 45k will be a tremendous crowd for a close season qualifier albeit the champions league, I would wager no one comes close to that kind of attendance.

  16. leftclicktic on

    Jungle Jim Hot Smoked

     

     

     

    15:04 on 28 July, 2015

     

     

     

    Where does the Liam Henderson loan story come from?

     

    This was posted about 8am

     

     

    SPFL Transfer News ‏@SPFLTransfer · 4h4 hours ago

     

    #DundeeUtd to sign Liam Henderson on loan from

     

    #Celtic

  17. mike in toronto on

    an tearmann … I remember Z well …. for some reason, I haven’t looked at it much for the past while … but you have put that bee in my bonnet! and now that everything is available online, there is no reason for me not to! thanks!

     

     

    I’m looking forward to the visit in September more and more …

     

     

    cheers

  18. BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS

     

    13:51 on

     

    28 July, 2015

     

    an tearmann

     

     

    12:20 on 28 July, 2015

     

    james maclean,the media double standards. from the Celtic network

     

     

    http://thecelticnetwork.com/2015/07/28/double-standards-by-english-national-side-james-mcclean-is-crucified/

     

     

    HH

     

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~++~~~~~~~~~~~

     

     

    I agree wi the gist of the article but it contains some serious inaccuracies.

     

     

     

    yup i agree.a sloppy post on my part

     

     

    you are correct.

     

    corrections

     

     

    1.nowhere was it reported that it was in the referees report.

     

    2 It was fans who reported it after a match on 14th march.

     

    3 He did not turn his back he did not turn towards the fleg in the Us

     

    4.The coincidence of the US incident and the findings of the FA panel are just that.

     

     

    it is interesting tho the media manipulation over Sectarian abuse and the contrasts given by the same news orgas pointed out by Paul67 below

     

     

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/rotherham-defender-kirk-broadfoot-handed-6127136

     

    and

     

    http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/former-rangers-star-kirk-broadfoot-6127195#ICID=sharebar_twitter

     

     

    Hope your well and caught up on the sleep.

     

     

    deffodoonfurrapintonthitenffCSc:-)

  19. mike in toronto on

    An tearmann … met some of my ‘heroes’ growing up … . but the two times when I was starstruck was meeting Gerry Adams for the first time, and meeting Mr. Chomsky when he was at school for a talk ….. I was genuinely in awe …as I recall, when I met NC, I giggled like a school girl, then babbled like a chimp, and then , realizing I was babbling, went red in the face, and speechless! but it was still a privilege to shake his hand.

  20. An Tearmann.Are you going to the game tomorrow,Will be going to the Blane Valley for a wee dram,Could have a dram in Millennium after closing time at the BV.

  21. 31003 ,

     

     

    I was given some notes about this, although I haven’t even started myself. If you get my e-mail from Paul, I’ll send you them.

     

     

    Árd Macha

  22. mike in toronto

     

     

    I met big jock when I was about 9/10,took my dad an hour to get my jaw up off the ground. Talk about awe struck, thing that sticks was the sheer size of the man, although I now realise that was just me in an awe struck coma, I will never forget that day.

  23. The offshore game asks ‘if it is game over for money laundering in Londons propert market in reply to Dave Camerons speech in Singapore

     

     

    http://www.financeuncovered.org/money-laundering/is-it-over-for-money-laundering-in-londons-property-market/

     

     

    as he suggests in his tweets maybe, if we have a public register of land ownership we shall find out who owns the stadium.I wonder if that would apply in Scotland?

     

     

    https://twitter.com/theoffshoregame/status/625970497956782080

     

     

    HH

  24. Eyes Wide Open on

    coolmore mafia

     

    14:42 on

     

    28 July, 2015

     

     

    I remember that well – as a scrawny 14 year old we were one of the first to greet the bus.

     

     

    We were at the top of the gallowgate opposite the Hoops Bar where the public phones used to be, my dad was phoning my mum at home.

     

    Just as we had put the phone down and he had started to deliberate about where we would be able to get in – he spotted the bus which stopped outside Bairds and before Bairds emptied we ran (me and my 16 year old brother) he (would have been 47 at the time) then over took us like a scene reminiscent from Me, Myself and Irene as they chased the train.

     

     

    God bless Tommy Burns.

  25. Big shout out to Cowiebhoy. I posted earlier regarding client codes for Killie away tickets and Cowiebhoy duly obliged. Its times like this that make you feel privileged to be part of the Celtic family. Celtic FC – A Club Like No Other

  26. mike in toronto on

    masty … you are fortunate to have met the Great Man. I never had the good fortune. Most of my mum’s family are St. Mirren fans (real ones, not closet zombies), and my mum was concerned about us going to games at Celtic park, so we only went once to Celtic Park. that I can recall. My uncle Jackie (McGrory) took us to a few Killie games when he was playing for them.

  27. oldtim6716:28 on28 July, 2015

     

     

    An Tearmann.Are you going to the game tomorrow,Will be going to the Blane Valley for a wee dram,Could have a dram in Millennium after closing time at the BV.

     

     

    yup am gaun to give the bhoys a cheer:-)

     

    I am going to be stuck for time before the game so it may be 6ish before i get to the bar,if i dont get there i will be in after.I am in 106 tomorrow,look for the bigchap with the extended centre parting :-)so hopefully will catch you

     

     

    HH

  28. Dontbrattbakkinanger on

    We should hold on to Liam, and send back Nadine

     

     

    DBBIA/CaveatEmptorCSC

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