I should have written about Lukasz Zaluska who left Celtic during the week. You need a good understudy keeper in order to keep your no. 1 on the top of his game. Lukasz was never more than a pretender to the throne but he had the confidence of Gordon Strachan, Neil Lennon and latterly, Ronny Deila.
He’s a year older than Craig Gordon, but the bare fact that he made only 17 appearances in the last five seasons reduced his effectiveness. How regularly do you need to play games before your manager will trust you to step out in a big, must-win, game? Probably more than slightly more than three a year over five years.
There’s often a great unwritten story when it comes to Celtic players and Lukasz’s is a lengthy tale of sorting out Celtic fans, or the Scots-Polish community, with this or that. He made the extra effort on many occasions. There would have been a day I’d have said this effort was rare, but the truth is it’s a lot more common than it was a decade or so back.
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Servo is bust
That was close!
Happy Father’s Day to Tims everywhere
3rd…no bad
Hail Hail
Lilys
Social = local….. Slip,of the old pen…hahahaha
” Meant to add ……. Phil is certainly not ‘LOCAL’ media ….!!!!!!!!!!!!
why would gsl offer his shares to MA when MA has already been fined by the SFA(I know) for having an influence in 2 clubs,which is against their regulations,why would he want to up his shares,just wondering like
3rd = 4th …..bummer…!’!!
Am I missing something here,why would gsl offer his shares to MA when MA has already been fined by the SFA(I know) for having an influence in 2 clubs,which is against their regulations,why would he want to up his shares,just wondering like
Just in
Top 10
been 20 years since I have been in the top 100, never mind the top 1o
Martin42
Oops sorry double post:/
Happy Fathers day to all of us Dads and a happy day to all other CQN’rs.
I hope Phils latest is accurate.
HH
Interesting translated article on the Video Celts site. I think too much was read into Ronny’s diet revolution last year as I think it is a fairly common sense move that many previous managers have tried to emphasise too. However this article suggests the results have been more impressive than I would have expected. I remain sceptical about the amounts claimed but in favour of the approach:-
“Secrets of the Celtic ‘diet’
Date: 20th June 2015 at 1:44 pm
Written by: Joe McHugh
Kenn Hallstensen has given a detailed account of how Ronny Deila has re-shaped the Celtic squad.
At various stages over last season details would emerge of how players habits and training was being altered. Headline involving chips, ketchup and fizzy drinks emerged from time to time although they were somewhat undermined when Leigh Griffiths was filmed munching a tea-cake while sitting on the substitute bench at St Mirren.
Sports science and nutrition are key parts of every modern club with Hallstensen explaining how the body fat of the Celtic players has been reduced to ensure that the players are capable of going pelt for 90 minutes.
Comparing Stromsgodset with Celtic on his blog Hallstensen said: “Celtic Football Club turned out to be even bigger and more professional than I had thought, but at the same time I was surprised body composition to the players.Most bar on unnecessary body weight, while some also could benefit from a little more muscle mass.
“This was an important reason for the almost unreal results we’ve experienced with body composition of the players in Celtic. In total, the favorable change been more than 50 kg – in just seven months. With regard to that I started working with Celtic for some time after series startup, nothing of this change explained by ‘relaxation in football holiday’
“The history of the individual players is even more incredible. There are players, including several internationals, which has reduced the fat percentage by 3-4 percent without lose weight. This means they have built muscle mass, while fat and excess water has disappeared.
“There are players who basically can be said to have been in past it acceptable, but as with new diet has decreased 4.3 kg in body weight without losing muscle mass. This shows just how important it is to individualization also when it comes to advice about body composition. What’s good for one is not necessarily good enough for another.
“Ronny delicious game-play requires a lot of running and aggressively pressure over the pitch. Overweight players can not do this, and therefore was Ronny slightly distressed at the start of the season. Now he makes a big difference. 2.3 kg extra body weight may not hear so much, but when you try to put on a weight vest of 2-3 kilograms.
“This would naturally been a negative running straight ahead, but even worse for a footballer to be asked, stop, turn around and jump all the time. Fat and excess water is the same as a weight vest – unnecessary deadweight.”
Summing things up Hallstensen concluded: Exercise is gram, while diet is kilograms”
All the very best, Zaluska
Servo =sevco Had just logged in!
Think I,’ll try the lottery this week.
Aye
Very best of Luck to Lukasz, in the future
Hail Hail
buick makane
he would just buy them through a proxy third party – don’t think that buying out GSL would be much of a problem if Ashley was minded to do so.
I suspect that Ashley is enjoying watching GSL digging a hole for himself.
Hugh McIlvanney Conversations Part One
Good luck in your next venture Lukasz Zaluska,always at the Young Hoops’ get togethers and took time outfor photies with the kids with a smile always on your face,thanks for that.
Dobre szczęście & Hail Hail!
wrt the GASL,it’s been taken for granted by the Seconians that he has the dough, I for one have never believed that,this is a fairy story that won’t end well for the deady bears or goldenlocks.
Going back to my post on the previous blog, Barca kits will probably always outsell Celtic kits in Glasgow Sports shops as most Celtic fans buy their kits directly from Celtic. My point was that the article is skewed as it probably did not take into account the kits bought directly from Celtic FC.
Holy goalie No2, always liked him hopefully he gets sorted will another club HH
With goalkeepers of the quality of Boruc, Forster and Gordon, I can never get too agitated about the quality of the back up keeper who gets only a few opportunities to shine when your first choice is a high quality option.
However, I think Lukasz, an experienced and competent keeper, was a necessity when we had someone with the recent injury history of Craig Gordon as our no. 1. I would neither overstate Lukasz’s ability nor decry him as useless but I’d say he was good enough to be our number 2.
It leaves us with an interesting dilemma. Leo Fasan seems promising but he is totally untested at any serious level. I expect we will see a lot of him in the pre-season friendlies and will make a judgement then as to whether he is ready for the number 2 role. If not, we will need to sign another journeyman experienced pro to replace Lukasz. If he is, he will still need game time and experience, in order to have him continue his professional development and remain trusted to step in, especially in the nightmare scenario whereby Craig was injured with a CL match due.
It will be difficult to give a developing keeper game time in the early part of the season when we are trying to get off to a safe start in the league. Though we finished 17 points clear of Aberdeen in the end (despite some panic merchants’ projections back in October) we should expect an even tighter race with Aberdeen as McInnes has recruited talent and competition. So we need a settled team for establishing ourselves in early league games and we need our number one for the tough CL qualifying campaign. Therefore, I think we have to use the LC campaign to blood the number 2, even at the risk of losing the treble.
Building the team and the squad for the big ones (Scottish League and Europe) is more important than the rare prestige of the Treble.
Good luck to Lukasz in the next phase of his career. I hope he gets a chance to be number 1 somewhere.
it’s not easy attracting a decent back up keeper when you have an established number one. The club needs someone ready to step in but the player wants regular football
What’s this st Pauli defender like ?
They have hardly been doing very well recently .
Hope the vossen rumour is true..sounds like good player.
Then hooper on loan be nice.
I don’t think the departure of Lukascz Zaluska was unexpected but leaves us in the position of pitching Leo Fasan into Euro action should Craig Gordon pick up an injury. Maybe a risk we are going to take, without the expense of signing another experienced pro as good as Lukascz.
Ok , I put up question on Amido Balde in previous blog
Now just my views, and from following Celtic for over 40 years,
If any professional footballer, had looked or watched him prior to a signing, they would never had recommended to sign ?
TBB, if he cost us the reported £800k fee, plus salary over a 3 year deal, that is not an in-expensive punt – you very clearly pointed out what we seen from day 1, and at 21 when he signed, was too late to try and rectify
Only saying what I heard, NFL had agreed a deal with Russell, and was given Balde instead ?
Without focussing on negatives, some concerns on the next 2 alleged targets
Seen in links from some posts
Vossen, did not play a full 90 mins of a game, in the full season with middlesborough ?
The full back from St Pauli, played 2 games since 2014 ?
Not saying they would not work out :-))
Ok back to positives for the world famous Glasgow Celtic from now :-))
Hail Hail
Minx
Huge congrats to you Dad ( well it is Fathers Day) and of course you Mum :-))
Kings meeting ill have been a case of buy us out at a value King thinks Sevco is worth or renegotiate the retail contracts to a less favourable position if you dont want boycotted. Intimidation. Hopefully
HH
Regards the GSL, I think he thought this was an easy opportunity to get his “investment” back from the money he put into Moribund FC but things have not panned out the way he was expecting. He might have had the financial know-how to rip off the SA tax man and he may or may not be a bit of a shark but he is now swimming with a Great White and I think we all know how that will end, we’ll probably need a bigger gloat.
Good luck to Lukasz and all the best for the future.
While Mr King claimed that there was no limit to the manager’s war-chest his boardroom colleague Murray admitted that there will be little money available to compete with Hibs, St Mirren and Alloa for a place in the top flight.
“People are looking to make up headlines saying we will spend x number of millions but it is not really what we want to do,” the borders based blazer chaser admitted. “We want to spend money wisely and probably a bit differently from the past – we will try to get value.
“Our ambitions are to get the club back to the very top of Scottish football as quickly as possible. But we don’t want to do that by taking unsustainable risk. I don’t think just making a marquee signing for the sake of it is always a good idea but if a player becomes available that Mark thinks can add some value to the club then we will obviously look at that.
“We are not going to sign Ronaldo or Messi anytime soon but there are obviously a good number of players being offered that we are having initial discussions with.”
Ha ha ha!!!
Cowiebhoy
“If any professional footballer, had looked or watched him prior to a signing, they would never had recommended to sign ?”
Not sure that such a statement bears much scrutiny. AMido has been signed or taken on loan by managers and coaches at 8 clubs now, including big clubs like Celtic, Sporting, Cercle Bruge and Hapoel. He has also been selected at tu-19 and U-20 level by Portugal, a demanding set up. All of these 10 selections will have been taken by a manager and coach with a background in football. They all saw a raw talent in Amido but, in the end, they were all proved wrong in that it was never good enough for that level.
But there is no reason to make Amido out to be an unconscionable blunder. He just failed to make the grade, like many before and like many yet to come.
Neil Lennon tried for several big target men to replicate the Sutton/Hartson experience. He tried Daryl Murphy, who contrary to the revisionist view that he never got a chance here, was given circa 20 games, the same as Amido, to try to impress here. Both failed to make it with Celts and there is no reason to believe that another 5 or 10 games, for either one, would have turned their fortunes around
awe_naw, how’s the weather in Frankfurt? It’s feckin freezing here. El Niño my arse.
Very valid point SFTB :-)
Incidentally I made a mistake, he was 22 when we signed him, not a project in my opinion at that age
Hail Hail and C’mon Big Ruby
COWIEBHOY …..wee donation organised via PMS Supporters Club…
SFTB
I always enjoy your posts and you posit good points in support of the case that many saw something in Amido. I have to say, though, that from the first moment I saw him at Celtic I was convinced he was not good enough. Anyway, off to watch Murray.
Cheerio for now.
JJ
No need to believe if the latest Phil story is true or not, for me it looks short on detail and long on hope. Doesn’t matter, unless MA buys them out they are gubbed for the next five years or so. How’s that for short on detail and long on hope?
Posted earlier today about the plans for the day have pushed beer up the list ahead of red wine, have also prepped the bruschetta for dinner, smells lovely. Having a nice quiet one, however earlier comments about New Balance trainers made me go into my gym bag and lo and behold it is indeed New Balance I use! Not a huge trainer fan when it come to the ones I use for gym, so I just bought the comfiest looking ones I saw in Ashley’s emporium with the usual ” was a million pound now £50″ message. However I have recently just achieved a landmark of 5 miles on the treadmill in just under 50 minutes, not having been able to run for 20 minutes 3 months ago, I am pretty chuffed. Is it all down to the power of New Balance and by proxy the Celtic family?
Pog
wifes bitching about it so it must be cold.
About 16 and overcast
HH