18 months, 19 substitute appearances and 20 starts after leaving Celtic, Jota is back! He first joined Celtic as a 22-year-old in 2021, part of a revolutionary intake that summer, which saw Ange Postecoglou, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Kyogo, who passed Jota in the revolving door yesterday and became an instant success.
A five-and-a-half year contract for a player who turns 26 in March means the player should spend his best years at Celtic.
The €10m fee paid is approximately £17m less than the club received for him when he departed for Al Ittihad in Saudi, although that’s not all profit. Benfica received a significant slice of that fee, and we paid £6m for him initially. So we have paid approx. £14m (£6m and €10m/£8m), received £25m and Benfica earned just north of £6m kickback when he left Glasgow in 2023.
Benfica are £12m up for nurturing Jota, Celtic are up around £5m, despite having to sign him twice. The whole episode is full of lessons.
The first is for wingers. Why did such a talent fail to make the cut in Saudi and France? This goes back to a lesson we first learned with Patrick Roberts, also a prodigious winger. Players like Jota, Patrick and (I suggest) Nicolas Kuhn thrive in dominant teams. They have the craft to open up tight defences. This contrasts with the more athletic type of winger, commonly found in sides who dominate their leagues less than Celtic.
Look at the physicality of the wingers we face on Wednesday, or any winger outside the elite teams in England. They are generally taller and always strong. More like Daizen Maeda and James Forrest than Nicolas or Jota. Daizen would be first name on the team sheet for a side struggling in the French league. They need someone with the engine to get up and down the field all game. By contrast, a winger who can unlock a packed defence is superfluous to requirements.
There are also lessons for our player development strategy. I used to flinch when I read one of our teenage talents heading to Bayern Munich or Liverpool, less so Watford. Players who make it through the youth ranks at Celtic are already elite in some respects. A few are offered contracts for the first team and so many knock it back to try their chances elsewhere.
If it’s Jurgen Klopp or a Bayern Munich coach, can you blame them? Yes, of course, you can, but we need to learn to not worry about it. There is nothing we can do if the likes of Klopp gets in the room with a young Celtic player.
What if they are offered three times what Celtic assess is the going rate for their talents at Watford? We need to learn not to sweat this. The major work in player development is seldom their innate talent, it is more commonly their developmental path.
There is absolutely a lesson for Celtic from watching what Benfica do. A club who can afford to discard a talent like Jota, who was well down the Class of 2018 list, have different options from us.
Finally, we need to examine how we (and specifically who) identified Jota. That process also delivered Nicolas Kuhn and must be nurtured. I have my worries on that front.
Going forward, the job of Celtic centre forward is about to be come the easiest in the game. With defenders doubling up on Kuhn and Jota, there will be so much space through the middle, we might be able to bring back Albian Ajeti and still score goals!
Welcome home, Jota!
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Just struck me that, with Kyogo offski and Maeda suspended, we go to Villa park without 2/3rds of our first choice attack. Jota of course is not eligible.
Villa are by no means untouchable, but we might need to revise expectations downwards a little.
Someone will be a false 9 but we dont have great options due to sales, injury and suspension.
Personally I don’t think Villa are as good as Atalanta and feel we should approach the game with a similar strategy, maybe a tad more attacking in our play.
Fancy a wee victory tomorrow, good record against the might of the English clubs into the bargain
2 0 the good guys
KINGLuBO
Good afternoon Burnley 78,weren’t Red Bull Leipzig 2nd in the Bundesliga when Celtic actually played them ?
We’ll thrash that mob tomorrow. The only good thing to come out of aston was Black Sabbath.
Polis have identified a manky Hun they want to speak to re most recent coin assault at Ibrox.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/14242159/police-image-person-of-interest-assault-ibrox-rangers-celtic/
Ffs he looks like adolfs lovechild.
But the coefficient thing is good but not always the most up to date
Villa Pot 4 and lower than Bratislava That might skew “easiest draw”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
celtic40me on 28th January 2025 2:13 pm
GLASSTWOTHIRDSFULL on 28TH JANUARY 2
OPTAs power ranking had our fixures as being the easiest of all 32 teams when they were drawn this season.
After 7 fixures I dont know how its panned out but a quick look the teams immedaitely above and below us in the coefficient table suggest we did get lucky.
At least I think it’s a he. Hard to tell with the hun.
Delighted to see jota back at the club , but sorry to see our wee star depart. Unsure if we have made a gain here , tomorrow we play a very important game without two of our mainstays a disappointing situation to be in . Will that be us finished till the summer , are we expected to go any farther in the CL I’m not too confident in that to be honest , and the KT talk so far hasn’t materialised nor with the loads of other names mooted . For my tuppence worth we need some quality yet in the team , but unlike many on here I’m prepared to stick with Brendan to fill the gaps in our team .HH
Suspect the ugly mug will be getting an early morning wake up call very soon.
Makes you wonder why the hun know the seat but not the person sitting there ?
HH
CCV Seems he wasn’t training up at Lennoxtown this morning,maybe Celtic need to recruit another centre half or start to introduce Nawrocki to the first team
Big Carpet Slippers a doubt for tomorrow? Apparently didn’t train yesterday.
Ave Ave
Oops TIMBHOY, typing too fast, reading to slow.
Ekbhoy 4.01
Probably a serving member of the constabulary.
The Hand of God
Yes re Leipzig. Fair point.
A combination of easy earlier fixtures and good fortune had them second. Although they did beat Leverkusen.
They travelled back to Leipzig arriving at midnight on the Saturday night after playing at Dortmund on Saturday evening ( Bundesliga has rules re internal flights ) and then came to Glasgow early on the morning day morning for a Tuesday evening kick off. That seems to have been the beginning of the end for them. Dortmund Glasgow and thereafter they have capitulated.
The Hand of God
Leipzig lost every game bar 1 draw in November.
Sometimes Brendan gives players a day off training Scales and Trusty, were a rock against Atalanta.
Great advantage in having a manager that knows Villa Park better than most.
Celtic40me
Unai Emery previous v Celtic.
I seem to recall it was a Neil Lennon managed Celtic which won in Moscow and again at Celtic Park against Spartak.
Chairbhoy
You can be dismissive of Lennon’s tenure at Celtic and sure he is not a ‘top tier’ operator such as Brendan. He did step into a mess when Brendan did a runner after losing at Ibrox for the first time. He steadied things and saw us over the line and then kept it going to secure a second league in a row the following season despite it being curtailed by Covid. Against a big spending rival.
The facts remain we did get to the last 16 from a tough group in 2012/3. A feat our top tier chap has not achieved. We were Pot 3 and not 2 that season and accounts show our spend on players not a fraction of current.
It’s common for CCV not to train the day before games
Let’s get the compliant Lennon back,and Lawwell and Hardy in charge of Recruitment, that will sort it…..
Bournesouprecipe
Personally I will be very happy if he is building playing squad with money he has made from developing players or achieving exceptional success in Europe and not just from Celtic supporters. I won’t hold my breathe on either though.
The challenge with watching the normally excellent Goals Show on TNT is that it is only online on Disney discovery I believe. Worse than that it has McCoist involved this week.
Bada Bing
Not suggesting that re Neil but just providing context for current results to be measured.
Chairbhoy on 28th January 2025 2:25 pm
BURNLEY78 @ 2:14 PM,
Neil Lennon, Club legend that he is, is a very limited football manager.
He took Brendan Rodgers, invincible, treble winning side and left Ange with a basket case of a squad.
Hail Hail
——————–
hhmmm, still the inability to give praise for what NFL actually did do, and all because hig team failed to win the 10 during the lockdown.
he didnt take over the brandan invicibles treble team (6 in a row, 106 goals, 106 points and moussa with 32 goals).
what he did take over was the 7 in a row team, who scored 33 less goals and only got 82 points.
he completed 8 in a row, won the cup to complete the treble treble, and did it all again a season later for 9 in a row, and a quadruple treble eventually with all the restricition of lockdown.
sure 20/21 was a disaster on and off the pitch but it came with circumstances that no other celtic manager has had to contend with.
when he is on the panel with Johan, he is fiercily insightful about football, tactics, performance, game management. he has forgotten more about the game than the vast majority.
read martin o;neill about him.
haters got to hate i suppose.
he took over.
he took over the brendan team that
amazing to jota back – thanks to whoever is responsible for these tings in CP
B78- the easy group you mentioned contains, Atalanta Europa League Winners, Borussia Dortmund, Champions League finalists
Bada
And two other teams were in the semi’s of the Conference League too 🙄
Is it OK to say that Brendan, Neil and Gordon all had some great results and some terrible ones in Europe.
TBB @ 12:06.
Nice touch.
Respect.
R2ngers win appeal against red card – no surprise there
CCV out should be ok for the weekend
New wee lassie in WHITE HOOSE is snorting same stuff huns players are using. She has not stopped to draw breath. ps Is that FRANKIE BOYLE sitting in corner.
BURNLEY78 @ 5:26 PM,
Brendan Rodgers is the best manager Celtic could get.
We are often linked with top quality Managers but always have failed to land them.l, since Martin went, the only exception – Brendan.
Lenny never took over a mess when BR&CO left, he took over a treble winning side.
Lenny didn’t have a different rival, from BR&CO, he had exactly the same rival.
BR&CO had a phenomenal track record against R2ngers, Lenny Mk2 not so much.
Lenny Mk1 struggled against Rangers before they went bust – Walter Smith won three in a row.
After that Lenny didn’t have any Rangers to play against – we still didn’t win any trebles before BR&CO arrived.
You can big up Lenny the manager to your hearts content, you can dismiss Brendan Rodgers the manager to your hearts content.
Yet you won’t change the fact that the better manager, coach and development trainer is Brendan Rodgers.
SAINT STIVS @ 5:38 PM,
Dissing Neil Lennon is not what I’m about, he got some incredible performances and results for us.
We could debate at length his strengths and weaknesses, but that’s not the point.
The point is that Brendan Rodgers was not as good as a footballer as Neil Lennon and Neil Lennon is not as good a manager as Brendan Rodgers.
We should be celebrating anytime if we get out of the UCL group stages and into the knock out phase – because that is where our ceiling lies.
When Rangers died we were in the business of selling our top players and not replacing them, it was next to impossible for Neil to maintain a UCL challenge under those circumstances.
Our aims and objectives at the moment is to get to that level and to do it consistently, your comments in support of the team and club have, as usual, been excellent and that is what we need.
It’s the haters that want and this divisivness not me…
BTW: There is no way I will accept COVID excuses, everyone had to deal with that. We were told for half a dozen years before COVID hit, we were told were the; the best run, most robust and resilient football Club in Britain – we had to put money away to maintain that position and deal with any unforseen crisis, when it hit we became a basket case.
Hail Hail
Burnley78
A reply to my 3.02pm post thanks
HH
Gene on 28th January 2025 5:59 pm
Is it OK to say that Brendan, Neil and Gordon all had some great results and some terrible ones in Europe.
———
No you have to pick one manager as the best and then slag off the board/manager/coach/tea lady and the jannie as being useless…
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2025/0128/1493372-former-celtic-defender-matthews-joins-shamrock-rovers/