Over the last few days of the European transfer window I was keen to find out what business Ajax would be able to complete (what Milan and Barca did is of scant interest). Between Friday and yesterday Ajax lost two players, Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen moved to Tottenham, and yesterday, Belgian defender, Toby Alderweireld joined Atletico Madrid.
Both were big players for the Dutch champions, who could realise €20m from the sales, but attempts to sign Ola John from Benfica and Eljero lia of Werder Bremen failed, instead they paid Heracles Almelo €2.5m for midfielder Lerin Duarte.
The Amsterdamers had a frustrating final few hours of the window. No doubt potential targets were worried about having to face three huge teams in the Champions League. In a difficult group, this is what counts as a break for Celtic. Only five games into their league season and without Champions League qualifiers to use as a yardstick, the group stage will come early for Ajax.
Living adjacent to an over-monied behemoth has considerable drawbacks as even our top clubs struggle to retain teenagers in the face of English lower league competition but such a rich market can also bring enough transfer income to make the difference between feast and famine.
The English Premier League spent £445m on transfers outside England but apart from Celtic and Hamilton Accies, who between them will earn around 4% of that total, I don’t think anyone else in Scotland got a piece of the action.
Nurturing and selling talent to England has to be a strategy for dozens of clubs here. Paying (for them) top wages to players who are no longer able to gain employment in England can only be considered a waste by comparison.
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Same theme. Here are two BBC Paul Murray stories, one from last night,the other last year http://t.co/WnDvEWlLmv and http://t.co/I4vDstpdyG
Kayal33
Good – much deserved. re. his clas with Lustig – it’s difficult to tell whether it was accidental or not, but the fact that he played like a thug throughout the entire game suggests Gunning knew exactly what he was doing.
*clas = clash
Has Stokes not been charged for moving the ball 6 inches before the free kick?
Twitter.
Let me take you back just 8 months. #Syria http://t.co/OyoSW4lXqD
Gavin Gunning up on a charge, big Pedro on the job already , gawn yerself big Pedro
TBB,
You articulated what I was wondering and hoping to hear. Big Nan seems to suggest that McClelland is a mate of Salmond’s and might be able to use that influence to get round the SFA’s rules governing who can and cannot be a director. Could he?? Sounds like corruption reaching to the very highest levels in the Scottish Establishment…..
It’s great news that Paul Murray and John McLelland could be joining Sevco’s board. These are two individuals who watched (and probably helped) Rangers go down their disastrous road to oblivion.
Why on earth Sevco fans would welcome them back is a mystery to me. ‘Good Rangers men’ I suppose.
Get them in there asap is what I say.
Graham Spiers on Shortbread last night equated Rangers fans’ conspiracy paranoia to Celtic fans crying foul over the title stripping verdict.
i.e. Being angry at a decision which stated there was ‘no sporting advantage’ gained in a decade of undisclosed player payments is on a par with thinking the government, the footballing authorities and HMRC unfairly singled your club out for not paying £millions in tax.
… wrap it up in a bow and call it ‘Old Firm’.
TBB
I am with Ernie in this one.
The SFA is The Rangers football Club.
HH
In=On
Up_over_the_goal
Ok the SFA is the Old Firm
HH
Paranoid Huns…
Monaghan 1900
Sincerely hope that some ‘Timposters’ add fuel to that thread – heh! heh!
Maybe they’ll run a campaign to: Sack the BoardS!
Alfred Hitchcocks uglier wee brother joins SFA board shocker………..
yorkbhoy
09:53 on
4 September, 2013
Monaghan
FF post
I have an old E Tims T shirt with paranoid on it… Should I forward it too them….?
——
Is it GREEN and WHYTE?
If you are interested in the stars or in wider discussions about how science and religion overlap and complement one another, or in just hearing an amazing speaker, this is not to be missed. Edinburgh, September 14. Brother Guy is dynamite.
http://www.lauriston.org.uk
Maybe Peter Lawwell fixed this up.
Awe_Naw
I don’t share your outlook, although I have some sympathy with it. The SFA have alwyas historically favoured Rangers – I hope there is no need to bring up the many examples.
Celtic have come a long way since the Farry era. Good negotiation involves a win/win approach rather than stomping all over your adversary, and Lawwell has been adept at chipping away at the edifice. There’s probably a Sun Tzu quote I should Google right about now.
HH
up_over_goal
“Celtic have come a long way since the Farry era.”
Can you give me some examples. I dont live in Scotland .
Thanks
HH
Monaghan
Ahh yes it is Green and Whyte… It all adds up now…
Should we replace the Paddy McCourt chant with
Peter Lawwel’s Unseen Fenian Army
2 and a half hours in the dentists chair this morning.
I am dribbling like a 6 month old baby.
A mate of mine tells me that clubs have 7 days after the window closes to sign players on loan.
My view is that when the window closes that is it for any players apart from those out of contract. (Of course I know the rules don’t apply to some cheats…err I mean some clubs who can sign ‘trialists’ at any time even it appears during embargos.)
Any CQN experts out there who can confirm the position?
I’m sure you are right and yer mate is wrong deek.
But I dont fit your requested criteria. :)
“Celtic have come a long way since the Farry era.”
Can you give me some examples. I dont live in Scotland.
OK – (off the top of my head) so from a position where we were effectively stopped from signing a player (illegally, as it turned out) by the Head of the SFA, and where we had Ally, Doofy and Boogy walk out with smirks on their faces after their farcical ‘hearing’, Neil Lennon’s own disciplinary hearing interrupted (again illegally) by the rangers supporting head of the SFA, who spent the rest of his time issuing public pronouncements on the case, channelled through his minature dinosaur
(deep breath)
we have seen an independent body on disciplinary matters set up for the first time in the SFA’s history (founded 1873), a new league body where the likes of Jim Ballantyne and David Longmuir can no longer exert their influence, as well as separate independent bodies to deal with matters such as Rangers’ non-payment of VAT and PAYE (you’ll remember how delighted Coisty was at that when he instigated his campaigns of threats and intimidations to its supposedly anonymous members).
Things aren’t perfect – Ogilvie is still president, but hopefully his days are numbered – but we have seen more change in the last 2 years than at any other time in Scottish football history. All of this has happened through politics and talking, and would not have been achieved had Celtic adopted a confrontational approach, tempting as it always is to do so.
Ten Men Won The League
2 and a half hours in the dentists chair this morning.
I tend to make appointments –
at tooth hurty.
Of course the real advantage of playing at Murrayfield is that you can have those picnics on the tailgate of the old Range Rover before going into the game, washed down with beer aplenty, and if you wear a kilt you can guarantee your sporran will not be searched…
1 day in the job and Peter Lawwell is handing out 3 match bans for players kicking Celtic players
up_over_goal
Well put
………………of course that should have read……………joins the ranjurs board…………
or should it?
;)
up_over_goal
As far as I can see it is just a game of Masonical Chairs. Nothing has changed since the days of Farry… nothing.
Its not ideal to have to play at murrayfield but its the only big ground, One thing I don’t think anyone has mentioned was the no semi or cup finals at hamdump this season.
I for one hope murrayfield comes up for us as I don’t want to go to the asbestos dome and stick money in the deed ones pockets!
Comments?
did I break the blog lol
With the amount of shots we put over the bar Murrayfield would be a good shout.
twists n turns.
you have mail.
celtic *o* lennon
I would imagine the only way Murrayfield would be used for semi finals or the final, is if Hearts or Hibs were involved against us.
Although, they did not allow the above to contest a final in Edinburgh only a couple of years ago, so quite possibly the above could be rubbish!
oldtim67
Are you a Postman?
I suppose when I think about sfa will decide so bulging bags of cash for the deed ones it is then which will not go down well!
A Stor Mo Chroi
Nothing has changed since the days of Farry… nothing.
That’s just a lazy, negative soundbite to make you sound hard-bitten. I know there’s a happy, dancing, balloon-sculpting A Stor Mo Chroi just waiting to get out.