January window – the fundamental problem with Hooper transfer

2027

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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  1. Awe_Naw_No_Annoni_Oan_Anaw_Noo on

    The fact that the head of the SFA was acutely aware of the EBT mechanism and was a beneficiary of the scheme while a director of the club and the culture that has been allowed to develop within Scottish football is not being investigated. Now that would be “end of” as some of you are failing to interpret I feel. If it does not result in exactly this culture being identified and removed then it is just,another case of more beads to the Indians.

     

     

    HH

  2. O.G. Rafferty.

     

     

    You are a tease.

     

     

    Does the flight of the investor bird have anything to do with the Champagne cork popping news?

  3. you would be forgiven to think that talk sport was no longer as about 2/3 times you put the station on its an advert, it must only have about 20/25 mins of every hour actually talking about sport and the rest, bumping their gums about stuff that people outside London don’t care about, being pompus, weather, news and advertising sky sports live games every 2/3 mins. Total sell out station. so much for the station for the working man who cares about sport when it was launched. Also the EPL EPL EPL is the be all and end all is very tedious.

     

     

    KLV

  4. With over a thousand turning up to watch this boycott match in the Ibrox lounges lets just hope the telly works.

     

    If not god help them if the Chelsea fans have came on a visit, I remember the last time the telly broke before a game.

     

     

    500 fans attending a boycott, surely another world record

  5. O.G. Just logged on and your posts have caught my attention. Is this some rumour that you heard yourself or is there a link somewhere about it.

  6. Big Nan, 14:47

     

    Nothing has been confirmed yet but we will know soon enough if it’s true.

  7. if only 10 turn up it will be the nutters (well some of them) and there will be bother, televised bother, lets see cg positive spin on that. In no way am i condoning it, but its what will happen because of cg,sally and msm stirring it.

     

     

    KLV

  8. BOBBY MURDOCH'S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on

    setting free the bears

     

    14:49 on

     

    1 February, 2013

     

    Did Galileo re-invent himself as The Galileo and start studding stars in less competitive universes?

     

     

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~

     

     

    SFTB

     

     

    I corrected that for you. If any referees are reading this,they will wave play on……..

  9. so is the ungrateful dead going to really die tonight? or is sally going to start the Insanity work out for his body this time as the one for his (pea) brain worked out so well for him?

     

     

    Find out next time on CQN brought to you by O.G. Rafferty the big dirty tease of a Mhan. ; ) Love it mate.

     

     

    KLV

  10. Has anything happened. Has Ibrox collapsed with a huge mushroom or orange cloud of asbestos filled gas hanging over it like a shroud. Or worse still has Sally farted.

  11. johann murdoch on

    Og..Is this rumour the same rumour as before or a new rumour?..just so I can compose myself…into the lotus position.

  12. Sevco sold tickets to a screening of the game tomorrow.

     

     

    If I was Utd I would put a claim for 40%.

  13. johann murdoch on

    Starry.. as Zheng Zhi..says “Man in toilet with razzle educates himself…and improves wrist strength”

  14. Marti Sandino

     

    13:19 on said

     

     

    Cheers for that Marti,

     

     

    Uplifting to see

     

     

    With Valentines Day fast approaching I just thought I would add a bit about Kenya.

     

    Roses are a bigger industry in Kenya than coffee or tourism.

     

    Close to Kibera is Lake Naivasha where the flower plantations are. The farms employ people to work there for 25 dollars a month. The water from the river goes to these flower plantations at the expense of people who have to go without running water in places like the video shows.

     

    Pesticides from the farms run off and pollute what is left. The water going to grow the flowers is taken out faster than the river can replenish itself. Aquatic life has suffered to such an extent that fishing has stopped.

     

     

    But when you buy roses for Valentines day the packaging will say ‘Made in Holland’

     

    It should actually say ‘via Holland for marketing and profit purposes’

     

    Fair trade my arse.

  15. Kibowie Kelt @ 13:39,

     

     

    These events were ALWAYS hatefests irrespective of the result

     

     

    As the Macro Economics impact Celtic Park attendences it occurs to me that losing the old firm hatred might allow a new generation to be initiated into the Celtic fold.

     

     

    I’ve posted a few times concerning the fact my parents weren’t Celtic supporters.

     

     

    Further my Mater did everything she could to turn me into an Airdrionian as a boy.

     

     

    Now there was a few reasons for this but the main one, I learned some years later, was inspired by an Old Firm Derby that she attended with her Mother in the sixties, she was so appalled by the fans hatred and bile not to mention the huge upset to her Mother that she was put right off the whole thing.

     

     

    Wonder how many parents steered their kids away from Parkhead for this reason.

     

     

    Hail! Hail!

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