Two players arrived during this transfer window: Rami Gershon and Tom Rogic, with no first team players leaving the club. I don’t know what Neil has planned for Rami but his loan deal and stats at Standard Liege suggests he is here as cover. I expect to see as much of him as we saw of Pawel Brozek last season.
20-year-old Tom Rogic is different. He joins the club on the same runway as Victor Wanyama, Beram Kayal, Adam Matthews, Mikael Lustig and Emilio Izaguirre. I’ve refused to watch his YouTube clips but there is every reason to hope he will be as successful a recruit as our other recent acquisitions of a similar profile.
I’ve been banging on about Asset Management for years. The mantra being – they all have their price and if any club fails to grasp this reality they will underachieve. Against this backdrop, Gary Hooper will either sign a new contract in the coming weeks or there is a good chance he will leave for nothing when his contract expires in June 2014.
A fundamental problem prevented a deal being done for Gary last month. His value to Celtic, not necessarily in this season’s Champions League, but in the same tournament’s qualifiers in July and August, is far greater than his value to any suitor. In other words, his value as an asset is not measured by transfer fee alone. This squad should have enough to reach the Champions League group stages next season, worth the best part of £20m to Celtic. Any deals have to be measured against this target.
The kind of transfer decision Celtic made yesterday, a profitable club holding onto a player and at the risk of losing him leaving for free, is so much healthier than the scenario we previously faced, in an arms race with a rival who was prepared to spend money they could not afford in order to beat us. What a mistake that whole ‘Old Firm’ thing was. Glad to see the back of it.
The ‘big clubs’ in England didn’t come looking for Gary. Instead, a well-run club made several attempts to acquire a good player on a price appropriate for their income. No harm in that, you have to give Norwich the respect any yokel deserves trying to hook up with a beauty queen (nothing implied about people from Norwich, or Gary as a queen!).
There is no guarantee the same club will be playing top-flight football when he becomes available, or that a club with a greater income, or with a more flamboyant approach to spending, will move for him, so there is every chance that Gary and his new agent will figure out that an extra year on his Celtic contract for a hefty wage rise is a decent option.
There is an interesting side plot to the Hooper non-transfer. Victor Wanyama is sitting on an offer of a substantial wage increase to extend his contract from 2015 to 2016. Unless someone comes in with an offer greater than his value to Celtic in Champions League campaigns he’ll be here until 2015.
Chances of both players signing new contracts in the coming months has to be a wee bit higher today. All those meaningless scripts about Celtic being a selling club floating around various places will have to be shelved for another time. We are a selling club, but only at the right price and the right time, just as it should be.
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Early post today P67! I agree with your post, Hooper & Wanyama signing new contracts would benefit the player & club.
I’m delighted we still have hooper but I wonder how much game time Watt & Miku are going to see. Worried about Watt being given the chance to develop. Hooper, Samaras, Lassad seem to be lennon’s first picks at the moment and who knows how Stokes will be used if he scores when given a chance.
Also I imagine the half price season tickets will be a bargain this time round to try and shift more tickets. but lets see, Its a balancing act, and we are doing fine, but as kev J says and some other guys the dropping attendance must be a worry.
KLV
TinyTim
09:50 on 1 February, 2013
____________________________________
Yeah, he’s doing a great job.
But not on me.
Maybe he’ll put up his hands and admit that
he couldny let Hooper go as – we’ve only got
1 striker – Stokes.
Surely a savvy business man like PL would
feel somewhat – guilty about blowing £5mill
of fans money on the likes of – Bangura/Lassad/Mieku ?
He does sign the cheques afterall.
Anyway…all this reallity-check stuff is making my head
sore.
So, off oot.
Just playing devils advocate here but all kev jungle is saying his opinion it maybe deeply negative but the bats are out already. Forums are about opinions dudes. As a side note i also think QPR will go down, it happens season in season out, spend spend spend and still go down, still 48m parachute for 4 yrs aint bad. ; (
KLV
I would have liked to see Slane, McGeouch and McCourt loaned out (or sold) if they are not going to play.
Yes …sold. I love watching Paddy McCourt. If he can’t get a game at Celtic I’d love to watch him somewhere else.
KevJungle
If I was your brother I would take your SB off you as well.
I meant half season tickets, not half price tickets. Oops.
KLV
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon
10:01 on 1 February, 2013
___________________________________
Would they have beat Barca if – Barca hadn’t
already qualified ?
Oh, and btw…for what it’s worth….
…I’d rather cuff Sevco 7-0 in a Cup Final
than beat Barca. Only saying.
HH
Off oot this time.
googybhoy ♥ Celtic
10:06 on 1 February, 2013
KevJungle
If I was your brother I would take your SB off you as well.
_______________________________________________
:o))) xxxxx
Kev Jungle
CQN’s answer to a question nobody asked.
So second half of the season being the business end, Do you think we will see more or less of Watt or Mcgeogh? Also J Russell is a Hoop, my Cousin played 5s with him.
KLV
voguepunter
09:59 on 1 February, 2013
________________________________
:o))))) xxxxxx
The discussion over QPR finances is interesting. The 100k/yr deal for Samba is supposedly not dependent on EPL football. So most people are pointing to this spending as folly.
Yet they will get 2 years of £16m then 2 years of £8m parachute payments. Last season 3 of the 4 play-off places were filled by parachute clubs who outspent the rest of the league.
Most teams that drop out of the EPL now bounce back in a year or two. So their strategy is very risky but its not totally stupid.
Of course I’d love to see them fail.
Paul67
CL qualification brings circa £15 million pounds.
Selling a player does not guarantee failure ,nor buying one guarantee success.
Trading more than one player increases the complexity of increasing your chances or decreasing your chances of qualification.
I believe it is the quality of the replacement that matters,not the bling value,or actual cost of the diamond.
As with all clubs we have a mixed success with our signing policy.
Hooper/Bangura,Forster/Rasmussen/Mulgrew/Hooiveld, etc,etc,
Celtic should have several options to replace Hooper.
If we sell him in the summer and do not replace him with a player of a similar or lesser quality,then we reduce our chances of CL qualification.
Johann Murdoch yesterday ,sited the disaster that the preparation for our Utrecht qualifier was.
Success on the park brings success on the income column.
Scouting is key to our chances of success.
An improvement on the ratio of successful signings ,is where we can make a marked leap in improving our chances of success.
Investment in our scouting network is an area ,I would like to see focused upon.
TT
TT
@ OfficialNeil
Good to see familiar faces here this morning
Paul 67.
Really enjoyed reading your article.
You covered all that we as a club need to do to be successful and grow.
As you highlighted the hun monkey is of our back and Europe is our goal.hh
I see the Record quoted on the last thread in relation to the Nimmo-Smith enquiry:
“We also understand that Biggart Baillie, the lawyers representing Rangers oldco, are quietly
confident of securing a positive outcome.
They believe the findings of the first-tier tax tribunal – which cleared Rangers of cooking the books – has significantly weakened the case against the club.”
Indeed, the FTTT findings ought to bring great comfort, especially these findings-in-fact made by the majority:
“Rule 4.5 of the SFA’s Registration Procedure Rules provides inter alia:-
All payments to be made to a player relating to his playing activities must be clearly
recorded upon the relevant contract and/or agreement. No payments for his playing
activities may be made to a player via a third party”.
“(xii) In the case of certain footballers the terms of engagement were
commonly recorded in two documents, one being a contract of
employment, the other being described as a side-letter. The latter
would provide ordinarily for the constitution of a sub-trust in name of
the footballer. While the SFA required players’ contracts to be
registered with it, Rangers did not consider it appropriate to have side-
letters registered. “
kevinlasvegas
10:11 on
1 February, 2013
So second half of the season being the business end, Do you think we will see more or less of Watt or Mcgeogh? Also J Russell is a Hoop, my Cousin played 5s with him.
……..
So is his agent. I spent many an hour with him at Celtic matches.
Good buzz about the training ground this morning i would think ASonOfDan. :)
KLV
Good transfer window for me. Squad not weakened and a promising playmaker signed. Now – is today the day we hear about title stripping ?
lol. googybhoy, that is close, hope he’s there to watch his client next season. ; )
KLV
It takes a really strange kind of Celtic supporter to look at a glorious result like beating Barcelona and say that it wasn’t really that much of an achievement.
I remain very sceptical about the chances of them being stripped of titles.
My view is that it won’t happen,but if it does ,I will be amongst the most happiest events in my life if we are then awarded what is rightly ours,and justice is done.
TT
kevinlasvegas
10:31 on
1 February, 2013
lol. googybhoy, that is close, hope he’s there to watch his client next season. ; )
KLV
He hopes so too. He already sees one of his Bhoys playing James Forest.
Hi – Is the match on TV Sunday?
Looking forward to seeing Lassad play in sammys place, He looks similar to Sammy, he also likes the flanks and to run onto the ball., rather than sit in the box like Hooper/Stokes.Rogic looks ace as well. Hopeing for good things from the aussie.
KLV
KevJungle
First day in a while you haven’t been on the scroll past list.
To steal a quote from Kelly’s Heroes “Your killing me with these negative waves”
What possessed me to read your comments today I will never know. Pessimism spreads like a virus.
” We are a selling club, but only at the right price and the right time, just as it should be.”
Just as it is with most Clubs in world football. por cierto
googybhoy, been a wasted season for james so far, been very unlucky with injuries.Hope it does affect his confidence too much when he gets back into the team. I think JR will replace Hooper if he leaves in the summer, with gary at the club dont know if JR would be guaranteed a game week in week out.
KLV
Did anyone see the epl get into a frenzy to reconstruct when Leeds went down the drain? A footballing ‘institution’ falling low being the catalyst for much wailing and wringing of hands?
No.
Did the Leeds fans issue dire warnings and retributional threats?
No.
The game went on.
The whole stramash in Scotland has made a complete joke out of the situation, and the sfa a laughing stock throughout Europe, considering the entrenchment of some of the corrupt conspirators still running the game, Ogilvie being the principal miscreant.
As for t’rankers?
A rank rotten gang of bigots using football to further their aims got caught cheating and lying and thieving for years. And?
Instead of being expelled in perpetuity they were graciously allowed to start again.
And yesterday, their lard addict erstwhile ‘manager’ turned up to give his pompous pale pronouncement like a latter day Grima Wormtongue, then depart to report back to his lord and master with the stench of duplicitous arrogance trailing behind him slug-like.
And these cretins are given credence? Airtime? Proclaimed as “the biggest club in Scotland?”
Gie me a break. They’re extracting the micturation.
They should’ve been run outta town on a rail a long time ago.
>>>>>>
Now to actually read P67’s blog!
My bad.
; > )
BBC on Sunday.
KevJungle , I know i’m prpobably gonna regret this , but Barca hadn’t already qualified , either for last 16 or EL at the time they came to Celtic Park.
Points were 9,4,3,1 and after the game (matchday 4) they were 9,7,4,3
Barca wanted to rest players for the last couple of games – they wanted qualification sorted as early as possible.
We put a spanner in their works.
HH
kevinlasvegas
Ideally we could have JF firing in the crosses for JR to score.
Football is a business as we all know and our club have replaced thems income with europe money (this season) but the other clubs have not been as lucky. It may effect a vote over doing the right thing. I reiterate what i said earlier, if sevco arnt in spl next season they are really done. no pre pack selling of assets this time. I think it will come down to an invite or requirement needed to get into the top league just to suit them and the crooked nation. Hope I’m wrong, but money talks and Bull**it doesn’t do waddling away.
KLV
Just to be absolutely clear for those who missed it – had Barcelona won at Celtic park then they would have qualified.
When they lost they still had to qualify with two games left to play.
Any suggestion that they had the group sown up when they played us in Glasgow is bogus.
Those Celtic ‘fans’ who phone into SSB and write to the DR to say they miss the huns….it seems they really do exist after all.
What a strange world!
Paul, does the fact that you have posted early
today suggest that you will be posting something
tastier later in the day, hmmm
HH
miki67
10:38 on
1 February, 2013
An epic post.