Teemu Pukki’s permanent move to Brondby for a reported £500k is good business for a player who never came close to commanding a regular starting place at Celtic. While we did well exiting him from Celtic Park but his arrival two years ago is worthy of review.
He came from Schalke as a 23-year-old, having been at Sevilla as a teenager and scoring slightly better than one in two in Finland. Even his Schalke stats were decent, 8 goals in 7 starts and 30 appearances from the bench, which for a sparingly used young player is around the mark expected. On paper, Teemu looked a good fit for us, so do we have anything to learn?
For a start, being able to score goals in the Bundesliga does not guarantee you will be able to translate this into an even better scoring rate in Scotland. We have made similar mistakes when recruiting strikers from Spain in recent seasons. For all our lack of financial clout, delivering in Scotland is not an easy task.
There is a whole world of potential issues around psychology, motivation and appetite, which I regularly hear cited about players from people in the game. For the most part, I reckon these are excuses to bridge the unexplained gap between expectation and outcome. You get the odd indulgent nutcase, but most players have an overwhelming sense of their need to maximise their commercial value by delivering on the park. I suspect Teemu is no different.
Whatever the reason behind him not fitting at Celtic, the exercise cost us not only the £1.5m net loss on transfer fees, and wages paid, but more importantly the failure to kick on from reaching the last 16 of the Champions League in season 2012-13.
There’s a truth in the game which has stood the test of time: only people who watch a player week-in-week-out know his true value. Schalke fans would have told us things about Teemu which we can tell others about John Guidetti. John will pick up a club keen to exploit his untapped potential. A year from now they will be a little wiser.
Our lesson: scouting is the only important part of recruitment, stats, references and YouTube clips don’t count.
Our friends at Magners have offered us two of the new Celtic away jerseys. It’s another fantastic offer from Celtic’s main sponsor, my thanks to them. In order to win, answer the following question:
Which team won this year’s Premiership Play-off final 6-1 on aggregate? Put the answer in the SUBJECT line of your email to celticquicknews@gmail.com
Competition closes at midnight TONIGHT, so get busy, these are two great prizes and there’s less than a 12 hour window to win them.
And………….. while you’re entering, you might want to kick a pound or two towards our Marys’ Meals Malawi school kitchen appeal. Thank you.
And #2, if you enter, check your inbox for a response over the weekend. There’s a home shirt unclaimed from a similar competition last month!
1,527 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- ...
- 40
- »
An Tearmann mhan
12:42 on
Thanks for asking. The legs were a wee bit sore for a couple of days. All fine now though. That’s the 3rd time I’ve been up The Ben and haven’t seen the view from the top yet!
I believe it’s an area you know really well.
HH
leftclicktic
12:41 on 19 June, 2015
Celtic Football Club @celticfc · 29m29 minutes ago
Saturdays are back! Great news for all Celtic fans with 15 out of 16 home Premiership fixtures scheduled for Saturday afternoons (SC)
Once Sky and BT have decided which EPL and championship games will be televised, our kick offs will be moved to suit.
Jim Melrose, Darren Jackson, Chris Killen, Wayne Biggins, Martin Hayes, Tony Cascarino..
Crap strikers hardly a new story:)))
Cana,
Closest I got to Fidel was a factory mural of him in a Russian district where I used to live. Handsome chap in his day.
I agree with Paul.Not every player can score goals for us in the SPL.Which makes it even harder to understand some people on here,who say,Hooper has had his time with us,and they would not want him back.Now,I dont think we will get Hooper back,but I would take him in a heartbeat.Some say he would not fit in with RD style!!!!!!!!!!.Why not,he is sharp,quick,can hold the ball up,and lay off passes.But most important,he puts the ball in the net.Average,30 goals a season for us.
Yes I can see why we would not want him.
Some fans just make me shake my head.
Any Ascot tips today ?
Thanks for all the competition entries, and to everyone who has put some money in the tin for Mary’s Meals, really appreciated. But……
This was supposed to be an easy question. Most people are getting it right but there are three different streams of wrong answers!
canamalar
11:09 on 19 June, 2015
Graffiti…,
Maradona just leapfrogged Messi as best all time football player :)
Awright Canamalar … The thing is ,wee Messi would concur with the written facts ….HH
Graffiti..,
When he holds up that sign he can go back to the top :)
We will put the Pukki thing behind us – so too with Derk,Amido…etc.
There are clubs with a thousand times more than us to spend who make many wrong moves in the transfer market.
We will make mistakes in future I have no doubt, however the Transfer balance sheet is an outstanding success.
We are a selling club – but so are 98% of all European clubs.
Ki, Hooper,Wanyama, Forster, Wilson, have generated well over £30 million and, importantly, have been replace with the likes of, Biton,Johansen,Gordon, VVD and Griffiths, and a fraction.
CARRY ON REGARDLESS !!!!!!!
Canamalar/Captain B
Ispent some time last year in Havana … really, really interesting place …. people have very little (compared to what we are used to), and everyone seems to be in on the game in some fashion, but I saw much less begging/homelessness than in most NA cities, and on general, I would have said they were healthier than most north americans (a rather scathing indictment about the NA lifestyle)….
I suspect that the Havana I saw will no longer exist within a few years. In some respects, it needs a change, but it will lose a certain charm that makes it so unique and special.
Wonder if it will be Sky tor BT for the big championship derby – Morton v St Mirren.
NegAnon2
12:54 on
19 June, 2015
To be fair normally we ditch these players for free or have to pay them off. So in that context the money should be paid straight into PLs bonus pot.
starry plough
Did you rate Tommy Johnstone?
turkeybhoy
12:58 on 19 June, 2015
I agree regarding Hooper. Apparently he’s very friendly with Kris Commons show would have an idea of the work rate expected of him. Wether he would come back or not is another matter. The only problem would be his ability to play as a lone striker. He didn’t really flourish in that particular role before, however with a different coaching method who knows. I would rather have Hooper back than McGeady, as some here would like to see.
Captain Beefheart
12:57 on
19 June, 2015
Recent disclosures about his missive to Kruschev during the missile crisis made the Soviets realise that they were dealing with a nutter.
May have in part explained their back off.
seen on twitter for the clever clogs :))))))
There’s a link on @celticfc to update your phone calendar with the fixtures. Half way down the page. http://www.celticfc.net/fixtures
Macjay..,
Source ?
ThompsonTwin
13:02
Great point, well made.
Better get back to work or I will be getting a free transfer.
HH
Robert88
The red headed Bhoy, I remember him scoring a few but I don’t remember that he ever nailed down a regular place under different managers.
The point being being Pukki joins a list of up front flops at Paradise and I’m sure he won’t be the last.
Oh how I would love us to sign another striker who does what it says on the tin, pit the baw in the netty:))
Cana
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/jfk-attack/
?
If the second variant takes place and the imperialists invade Cuba with the aim of occupying it, the dangers of their aggressive policy are so great that after such an invasion the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it.
I’m surprised at Celtic tweeting about Saturday games.
We are contracted to have 4 home games live on Tv. This puts a spanner in the works right away.
Tv and the SPFL will give us 6 weeks notice of changes for Tv at the start of the season but this changes after Xmas due to cup games, euro games etc and the companies don’t have that 6 week notice period window.
starry plough
Good striker IMO surrounded by even better ones, tough time to get in the team.
yes would be good, I want scepovic to get a run, and kick on and buck that trend, griffiths will carry on to score regardless, Europe will be the test for both of them.
Someone said here regards to Amido Balde he is simply out of his depth and it wasn’t his fault, of course he would jump at the chance to sign, but simply nowhere near the standard required. same for Holmbert IMO.
Richie.
My phone isn’t working at the moment sorry if anyone has called me. BBQs still on for tomorrow Erected a marquee and it’s still standing, music in the tent, so everything is swinging, anyone that’s going it’s still on, if anyone wants to come you have an invite, the forecast is rain until 8.00am then dry, hopefully they will get it righton the day.
Marquee?
Marquee?!
Gazebos verboten in Grangemouth?
Robert88
Let’s see if Ronny rates Scepovic enough after the summer pre season to give him a run in the team, he looks an intelligent player, makes good runs, we need someone to see those runs quicker though, I always thought Hooper suffered from not being picked out when he made his moves.
Got to admit to see what Ronny and the Bhoys come up with this season..
Bring on the Den Bosch!
HARRYBOE
Third time up Ben Nevis?
Well done,mate. Truly a club open to all…
canamalar
13:02 on 19 June, 2015
Graffiti..,
When he holds up that sign he can go back to the top :)
Ill see what I can do ……… ; )
SON OF GABRIEL
I expect you’ve met most of the Ayrshire Tims
They’ll gladly allow you a podium-as many as you like-at the bar.
(Sorry,lads. Nipped out to the bookies…)
If I remember right, Neil Lennon was quoted as saying that Pukki was one we liked when we were first linked with him. He went on to say that we think he can be converted to a replacement for Hooper. Neil admitted his goals to games ratio was not indicative of a goalscorer.
That transfer window was a failure of astronomical proportions. We appear to have had another Martin Hayes moment with Balde and Boeerigter went against any sense anyone had before re injury prone players.
Boerrigter was meant to replace Sammy as we thought Sammys apparent one trick pony days had been spotted by our European opponents.
Actually Sammy was played out of position by Neil in the European games the season before he was sold and Neil compromised what Sammy had to offer by playing the whole team further up the park. I still don’t know if the performances against Barca and Ajax that year were meant to highlight deficiencies as an attacking force. Did the board ask Neil to attack a bit more in Europe or did Neil do that by himself?
Anyway, recruiting a striker shouldn’t be hard. The path to becoming a great striker usually starts with someone from a small team scoring a lot of goals then getting transfered to a bigger team.
For what it’s worth, I think big Virgil would do a better job than any striker currently playing for us or perhaps linked with us.
Leigh Griffiths scores goals but he won’t score as many as a big athletic striker with a bit of pace. The formation we need to play doesn’t suit Leigh.
Macjay,
Looks fair enough to me. Similar to Churchill’s call to nuke Russia after WWII
Cana
Sad.
Macjay,
Yes very sad, the threat of invasion will drive people to extremes
leftclicktic
13:05
Thanks for that. A couple of clicks and my pc calendar not only has all the fixtures but will alter them to accommodate the inevitable changes. Very impressed !
JJ
Post seems to have disappeared or not posted. No sweary words so don’t know what’s going on.
Definitely need a striker to play with Griff. Stokes only ever played well in the weeks running up to contract renewal and the others are busted flushes. New blood , no looking back , sorry hoops. No pint in looking in the epl wages too high so I expect a couple of unknown to arrive, be derided by the rags tops as unknowns , like Lubo and henrik, and we will see what Ronny is made of in the super hero goal scoring legend department. We got a lot of goals outside of cf last season and that will still be part of the game plan. It will be an interesting close season. We are a successful football club with money. We are a direct gate to European football and transfers to big paying epl dross. Watch this space. Good to be a Tim. Meanwhile down in 1£ broke.