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.
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Cowiebhoy. Must have been the same scout who wrote extensive notes on Pukki
We had zero goalscoring strikers and we signed those two Who on earth makes these decisions. We are told we have no cash and throw them away on foreign striker projects
Balde. We signed a good un called Balde in the past? That’s about as far as I get…..
Maybe msybe we should employ some ex strikers as scouts
barrach obampot
10:43 on 21 June, 2015
hamiltontim@hotmail.co.uk
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
Cowiebhoy
Balde….no footballing ability whatsoever …great attitude …a real try hard …wanted him to succeed ….not going to happen
ACGR nothing definite on the signingf front yet but expect two or three very soon, could be from left field. How is the scoff out there? Hail Hail Hebcelt
Pukki, lacked in confidence … He was used sparingly at Shalke, and in games of no importance. In any other industry questions would have been asked about his pedigree !
The scouting system has failed in this particular acquisition ……
Mick 1888
10.52.
Another one was Martin Hayes who we allegedly paid 650,000 for, a massive fee at the time.
The story goes that Big Billy had asked Charlie Nick about him and he was positive about him. When Billy had realised he was relatively speaking a dud he confronted Charlie about it, Charlie said he didn’t know we were going to pay that amount for him and that Arsenal were going to sell him to another English club, before we came in, for only 65,000. A tenth of the fee. Incredible.
Happy Fathers day. Some grumpy buggers on this morn. Chill guys.
Mate sent me a clip from the Sunday Mail……
..”Now Warburton is determined to make Sevco the envy of top clubs, forcing budding European coaches to visit Murray Park and learn the Light Blues way.”
That piece from Anthony Haggerty by the way, and this nugget…
….”If you are a taxi driver and you have a better car to drive around in then you will be happy.”
We have a lot to fear from this Warby guy…hahahaha! Keep feeding the gullibles the spin SMSM, thry deserve it!
ST where do you obtain your info re: how much our signings cost? H H Hebcelt
Cowiebhoy
It was a punt, pretty modest outlay on a kid with a huge physique and some goals in the Portuguese top league.
Lenny thought he could develop him. He couldn’t.
I was a little embarrassed whenever I saw him going through the half time routine with Danny McGrain. They were continually working on twitch and touch, a shortcoming that should have been immediately obvious to anyone ‘scouting’ him. You can train skills. You can coach game awareness. But twitch is genetic and you can’t change genes.
Try as they did, Amido’s reflexes never got any faster.
But, as I say, it was a punt. We will continue to take them. One trusts though that a lesson has been learned from this one.
Re amido balde, pukki, Wayne biggins etc. Why has nobody blamed Ronny. Surely it’s obvious these were all his signings and he must now do the decent thing. …..
Sydney Tim
It’s not all PL’s fault….he is trying to run a business in a dramatically changing landscape and doing a very good job
No tv money = shopping in the bargain basement = 1 in every 4 are good players
It’s easy to point out the bad ones but there have been a few good uns; emilio, Gordon, foster, Virgil, denayer, lustig, the Israeli midfield maestro,
Strikers have the hardest job so it’s difficult shopping in our range for these players
What is the stars.
Good morning.
Ronny saved everyone seeing your skin.
How did you end up at Ascot. I made a small profit over 5 days, but ended up frustrated. My 3 biggest bets of the week all were second. Limato, Found and Ballydoyle. I will now start saving for Cheltenham. Hail Hail.
Shug Keevins…..
“I don’t know what I find more laughable; the fact that Celtic cannot find £500,000 from their biscuit tin to sign a proven talent like John Spencer, or the fact that they then spent £300,000 on one of Dr Jo’s old pals, the unknown Lubomir Moravcik!”
Find it funny that some are highlighting all the failed transfers.
How about some balance ?
How many in the Celtic team are successful signings * ?
–
–
–
–
–
No doubt someone will moan we should be promoting from the youths.
*includes punts, frees etc
Summer Solstice – way down south.
30 degrees at 12 noon.Cloudy and horribly humid . Rain is not forecast.Insect heaven..
Off to Ikea – boring, but needs must.
Buona Domenica tutti!
PF, cheers bud.
Jimmynotpaul
Ascot started great for me .first 2 days great but hootenanny was a big bet for me that flopped.
Not to worry
Onwards and upwards
Cowiebhoy
Reckon the unearthing of Balde was to leave us with our very own Balotelli when he was polished up.
Unfortunately he wasn’t a diamond..
Sydneytim honestly don’t see much good advice in the daily rangers from Sutton or even BBJ. Think Henrick recommended Bangura but could be wrong. I think they got it right with Gruff but we need a talisman striker. Hope Ronny and his team can find one.
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious – Henrik Larsson wasn’t even signed as a striker.
Closest similarity was watching Kris Commons scoring bucketloads two seasons back – both of them had composure in front of goal and disn’t always do the obvious.
The thing that Larsson, Sutton, Hartson – and Commons – all share is a winning attitude. They are mentally tough guys. Celtic is no place for the unconfident – and I reckon that both Pukki and Balde fell into that category.
I’d like us to get a proven goalscorer into the side for The Champions League tilt this year…
Can anyone tell me the formula we’ll use to get our Bhoy, given the following –
– the expectation
-the requirement in real terms
– the “lure” of the SPL
– the competition in terms of European Leagues and bigger budgets.
Cheers!
HH.
Seriously jaundiced stuff from the usual moaners this morning.
You cannot differentiate between Pukki, Larsson, Balde, Sutton they all arrived as transfers. All carry risk.
Pukki was a coward eh ? He must’ve been fast and more skilful than Messi to play as a professional in the Bundesliga.
Total, jaundiced guff.
Question to open a bit of debate:-) Who are the best 5 prospects in the academy?
1. Liam Henderson
2. Aidan Nesbitt
3. Joe Thompson
4. Calvin Miller
5. Kieran Tierney
I didn’t pick Eoghan O’ Connell who won academy player of the year or Darnell Fisher.
Lennybhoy
thank you kind sir!
btw I’m looking for a copy of the Evening Times “140 years of Rangers liquidated after just 8 minutes of meeting” headline from 14 June 2012 (I think)
does anyone have a copy saved for posterity that I could get a photocopy of?
HH
The Millennium Stadium will hold the CL final 2017,the
50 anniversary of our greatest triumph,hope we get a
striker in so we can give it a right go.
dreamthedreamCSC.
Here’s a wee thought, likely not worth the penny mind…
We (EKFC) take in a considerable number of boys aged 17-18 who have been released from senior clubs. Now, there is always a reason why a given boy hasn’t cut the mustard at the club who’ve spent 8 years coaching and training him.
For some it’s mentality, for others speed, some find their success as a kid was predicated on physique which, when the other kids caught up along the growth curve, they found their advantage was nullified, and their ability to compete reduced. Others are highly skilful but never managed to ‘understand’ the shape of the game.
If they were the finished article after all, they wouldn’t be rolling up to K Park to play their football. We recognise that, and try to work on the weaknesses as much as the strengths.
One thing they all have is personal discipline, having been essentially full time footballers for a number of years, as opposed to the ‘recreational’ experience of the kids who come through our pathway. In training the ex pro-youth boys bring an intensity and pace that our boys lack. They walk onto the pitch ready to perform. They are imbued with the professional standard.
We’re talking about Amido Balde, and it caused me to check out how Tony Watt was getting on. Tony was (and remains) a very talented footballer, and many of us were excited by the prospect of him developing at Celtic. As with Balde, we took a punt on him. He had just two season as a professional, at Airdrie, one at U17,and the second in the 1st team squad, prior to which he was a recreational player.
It didn’t work out.
He went to Belgium. It didn’t work out.
The recurring issue with Tony it seems is a lacking in respect for the professional standard.
That’s not to disrespect Tony Watt. It’s simply an observation that, despite talent, the physique, the game awareness, the pace, the absence of conditioning to the standard as a kid seems to have compromised his ability to make the grade as an adult.
Tony was a lesser punt than Amido in terms of initial outlay, but he was a punt nevertheless, a punt that exposure to Celtic’s professional standard would help him develop.
It didn’t.
Lot’s of reasons players of promise don’t make the grade. Celtic is in the market for players of promise. We simply cannot afford the finished article.
Having read that, if you want a refund on your penny, dial 0870 60540 and we’ll sort you right out.*
*Cost of calls may vary from according to which operator provides your landline and calls from mobiles may cost considerably more.
niallo83
Difficult mate.
Liam is the only one I’ve seen to any extent. He has the advantage of being big (relatively) physically.
The (lack of ) physical play in the Academy set-up is something that I think is something of a double edged sword.
big-cup-winners Just listening to a guy who saw Shalke home and away
He told me that it was his and his german mates view on pukki
But our scout obviously saw something different to people who saw him week in week out. Slow and useless He was of course a shalke 350k pound project. He failed
Morning All
A very happy Father’s Day to you all.
Double celebrations in our house today my Mum and Dad celebrate 50years of marriage!
All this talk of dud signings remember the Celtic View ran an article on how good Stuart Slater was how many assists he had and how he was worth every penny!
Scouting is a skill like any other in the football business. Celtic use a few freelancers and professionals to hunt down bargains. Problem is, we haven’t cracked the market we are looking at. The £2m to £3m bracket.
Either we have to be better at it or think differently. Up and coming loans maybe? Better due diligence? Different scouts? Whatever it is, we can’t go on wasting £2.3m a season plus wages on complete non scoring strikers.
It was different back in the day when we knew everything about potential signings, but we scout worldwide now. More risky unless we know more about targets.
Too many expensive lessons so far.
Martin Hayes. Oh yes…. I remember was on his way to Huddersfield before we stepped in and whisked him North! A good example of poor due diligence and non systematic approach?
Good post on Phil’s blog ……… Just going to read back now, but my initial thoughts are…
A) Someone from Michael’s side updated Phil on this….
B) This could turn out to be the end game….
C) where the feck are my sedatives, and Jelly & Ice Cream…… Tick Tock, AGAIN …??
“A blind man could see that the way forward for RFC was funds from a few Ann Budge types (eg the 3 bears) backed up by the fans season ticket money and some equity investment from same fans ..then live well within your means and slowly but surely get back into the mix at the top
With the added bonus ball of a Mike Ashley acting as a periodical overdraft facility to ensure you never went bust that would be a Pretty good set up .
They ought to be by now in much much better and stronger shape than Hearts are at present
but NO! Driven by the lunatic MSM ,their own extreme elements and enabled by the clowns at the SFA they are back in the doo doo yet again following yet another charlatan without a pot to p@@s in ..and 10000% reliant on MA not flushing them down the toilet .
The influx of RFC fans coming on here is testament to the fact that this is where they have been coming for ages for the truth about what is going on with their so called leaders . That they are commenting on here now rather than quietly absorbing it tells you the myth Is finally being cast aside and they are in lashing out mode and are understandably just trying to shoot the messenger
It’s taken 4 or 5 years but I think it is finally sinking in now re where they really are .
When the Eustace fellow is probably the summer marquee signing ..I think we all know where this is going to end up .
Reply ↓
What about Hooper on loan ?
Old Tim et al how did the BBQ go? Hail Hail Hebcelt
Niallo
I also like the look of Paul McMullan, Mark Hill and the bhoy Donnelly whose first name escapes me.
HH!!
Happy Fathers Day – to one and all
My son decides I need new trainers for Father Day
They are great a thoughtful idea and much appreciated
BUT
What brand are they ??
For the first time in this 58 year olds life I now have a pair of “New Balance” trainers
Ah the power of marketing
Hail Hail
67ECW
Watched some old games on you tube recently. What a striker George Mccluskey was. Did he get any caps ?