Spurs have dispensed with the man once thought Europe’s hottest guru manager (don’t believe in guru managers). Villas Boas was a failure as manager but he was a mere symptom of their problems. Splurging circa £100m on vagrant misfits should be enough to disguise the fact that you don’t have a sustainable strategy. For a while. But primary responsibility lies with whoever authorised the budget in the first place.
Selling that chap with the funny hair to Madrid went some way towards offsetting the cost of this summer’s acquisitions, but Spurs wage bill for the new arrivals will dwarf the money paid to those who departed. This is the more serious problem.
They are left with players on long and expensive contracts who look like they auditioning for a West End show. Forget about Spurs recouping their ‘investment’, the chances of players attracting contract offers which match the cash the Cockerel coughs up each month is zero.
The Bale money is gone and those new contracts written in the summer will inhibit the club for years. What next: downsizing, or another visit to the roulette table, gambling with even bigger stakes next time?
Here’s what happens when you sell your star player: everyone and their grannie wants the money spent. “The [Insert club name] board need to show their ambition”. This comes from fans, the media, the manager, scouts, family members and every taxi driver in a 30 mile radius. And why wouldn’t they spend an apparent windfall, that’s what the money’s there for, after all.
It’s at this point clubs lose all self-awareness. Reinforced by the success which led to the development and profitable sale of a prime asset in the first place, the organisation’s view of its reach, not to mention competency, is obliterated. “We have spent money well in the past, look, here is the evidence, therefore we can spend this even larger amount of money well now”.
With this belief now orthodoxy, every pore in the organisation secretes an intoxicating scent attracting the club to market. Unfortunately, the rewards for spending big are heady and instant, though they seldom last as long as the hangover.
Directors are celebrated, ticket and merchandise sales get a short-term kick. The manager and coaches get to play with more expensive toys; quite literally, everyone is happy. This is narco-football, only accommodated by ever-bigger hits. For some, this narco-football offers proof that management share wider stakeholder aspirations. I contend otherwise.
The heresy to this orthodoxy reads differently:
Clubs should mistrust their successes, they are evidentially more random than most are prepared to accept.
Windfall transfer income is more likely to draw clubs away from the part of the market they are most competent in. It is an acknowledged fact that sellers and agents literally see them coming.
Don’t go searching for the instant hit, you’re more likely to miss. If necessary, take some short-term pain while using resources to enhance recruitment infrastructure.
Heresy in any area of life is seldom met with quiet contemplation. Narco-football heresy is more likely to be met with a rationalisation that the heretics don’t share orthodoxy’s core values – sustainable success of the football club – no matter how many references to “sustainable success of the football club” they make. It’s Salem-esque.
The orthodox-heretic analogy is evident where three or more are gathered in any club’s name. The first club who manage to unite everyone behind the heretic’s charter will clean up/reach nirvana/find salvation/achieve ultimate enlightenment/do lunch with Tom Cruise.
CQteN St Patrick’s Day Dinner is now FULLY BOOKED. Many thanks for everyone who responded so quickly. We are well on the way to raising the money to build a kitchen and shelter at the Kholoni Primary School in Malawi (for details check here).
Just a few posting days left to order your CQN Annual before Christmas, £5 from every sale goes to the Malawi appeal:
Sean Fallon: Celtic’s Iron Man:
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Totally dumbfounded.
p
SETTING FREE THE BEARS
IIRC,the downsizing began in 2003.
Since then,we have consistently signed players who weren’t good enough,even as far back as Laursen,Fernandez,et al.
In that time,prior to the summer,we had moved on Petrov,signed in 1999,and McGeady,brought through from the youth team.
Oh,and Ki. Then the windfall of the summer makes it look too easy.
Really? It works out at about £4m per year in transfer income.
And,er,that’s it really for the big returns on our investment.
During the ten years since 2003 we’ve been like a blind man at a dart-board.
And that is no way to operate a long-term policy.
Trabzonspor 9th Jan
Ajax 11th or 12th
surely not.
p
Paul67
(Winning Captains)
The underlying philosophy to Celtic’s player development strategy must always be sustainability. Always. Anything else is riding the illusion wagon in search of dreams.
However within that strategy there must always be room for continuing improvement and what I would like to see is the CQN Magazine arrange an interview with the Celtic staff whose job it is to manage the strategy, to let them explain how they work (e.g what information sources they work with as tools), where they learn from (e.g Ajax/Lyon) and then talk about the problems/issues they face in implementing that strategy..
Not the financial ones where a player (whatever his age) has gone past his development stage elsewhere and is priced beyond our reach, but things like immigration laws that give other clubs an advantage, the timing of the season and transfer windows that stop us rebuilding for the CL from January for fear of dropping points that put the title at risk.
Then move on to what the solutions might be e.g. – lobbying Government to ease the rules on immigration or the SPFL to change the season.
There may be other issues not even recognised but I reckon an interview that might help inform and educate the supporters to accept not that the philosophy is right, that is really self evident, but within that philosophy and the strategy that has been adopted, Celtic are pulling out all the stops to reduce the risk of failures and improve the chances of success.
The overall aim would be for all parties to inform and be informed and hopefully emerge wiser afterwards.
(The interview could even be audience based as a fundraiser and broadcast on CelticTV .)
re Ajax game in January
You couldn’t make it up.
Sometimes I despair.
Take a mid season break to ‘rest’ then sign up for a tournament to play 2 matches in 3 days and ajax possibly being one of those teams we will be playing!
That is a complete joke!
Antipodean Red,
our paths maybe crossed sometime, at least the families will have know each other somewhere along the way. I was never a member of the Hibs, but some of the uncles were. A lot of family occasions were held there. I like its continuity, its place in the town.
I liked that you gave the chapel its full title the other night.
There was a good link somewhere about the opening way back in the 1870’s I think, I need to find that to share.
BMCUW
Cheers, enjoy the CQN nightshift better. :))
st stivs,
‘There has never risen a greater’
Ajax in Jan or anytime outside of a game we need to play them in, why? whoever has agreed to this needs to explain why this was a good idea
Spurs-
Yuch
emeraldbee\o/ proud to be an internet bampot
12:45 on 17 December, 2013
Used to stay in the old Albert Abela guest house in Dubai mid 80’s, ironically now very close to the site where the Dubai CSC meets to watch the games.
Ajax game will be the showcase for the return of the Loovensmeister.
Another sickening example of Celtic the business, and a slap in the face for the fans and how they are viewed.
The perfect opportunity for the club to take a stand against right and wrong.
What a disgusting piece of hypocrisy, and probably part of a secret deal that
gave us Derk Boeriggter.
Says it all really, shocking.
Not a thought giving for the fans including myslef who had forked out on flights etc for the killie game in january to be told our players need a rest. We then go and agree to play a tournament with ajax after everything that has happened!.. Seriously i cant get my head around this.
Can anybody explain to me what Paul’s article is actually about?
I do like the sustainable team idea.
but i also like the old hands coming in and making a difference.
Lubo type brilliance.
takes all sorts. to make a team
Kitalba
“Are you honestly happy that we got rid of Hooper and never replaced him, projects aside?”
I’ll answer that question but will step away from your narco-football question as it is not my term.
I am not happy that Gary Hooper left (of his own accord rather than “got rid of”). We do need a centre forward. We thought we had two established (Stokes & Watt) but one has morphed into a provider, having been a much more prolific and orthodox centre forward in his younger days, whilst the other has, I hope temporarily, lost his sense of professional discipline.
So we bought three attackers (Balde, Pukki and Boerigter). The first is an orthodox centre forward but of a type that we have not seen at CP since Alan McInally; he is still capable of coming good and has a good goals scored to minutes played record for us (I have my own doubts, for what they are worth, but then, I thought Jim Melrose might score more than Brian McClair when we bought them). Most of us see Pukki as an attacking mid rather than orthodox Centre forward and Boerigter as a winger/striker rather than a middle man but you could have said the same about Willie Wallace and John Hughes respectively. The test for me will be how many they score and how much they contribute, not how orthodox they are. At the moment, they are failing to impress but Kelvin Wilson came good after a poor year and Vic Wanyama took 4 months to start to show for us.
Now, should we obtain a new centre forward in January? Probably, yes.
We have strong doubts about Pukki/Balde and Boerigter filling the hole left by Gary. We have little faith that a returning Bangura will strengthen that department even though he is closer to an orthodox CF. And we have no sign of Tony Watt screwing the nut or even wanting to be a success here.
So, yes, on this occasion, I want a better replacement for Gary Hooper. That does not make the overall strategy is deficient; it just means that we have, thus far this season, got it wrong, and we will need to try and rectify it. We cannot always afford the luxury of rectifying transfer errors; sometimes you have to live with your mistakes or take a financial bath on them like we did with £5m Scheidt and £3m Juarez.
We can buy big to dreplace. We can buy small to do so. Or we can replace from within without buying (Denny Johnstone, James Forrest). All of these approaches will be gambles as there are no no brainers.
I wish us luck with that.
Was originally going to post re AVB, but very disappointed to hear that we are going to play Ajax during this coming winter break. OK the “Clubs” maybe have a decent relationship, but given the “fans” factor, surely to God this can only be seen as an OG of 25yarder proportions??
HAIL! HAIL!
Token
Ajax weren’t responsible for events in Amsterdam. Their fans and the police were.
Neither will be there in numbers,so even though I am not in favour of playing them outside of competition,I can understand the rationale behind it.
Maybe we should get them not to bring their Ultras if we don’t bring ours….
Three complaints about playing Ajax in Antalya in January.
1. Given what happened at home and in ‘Dam, I would prefer to have nothing to do with Ajax for a while.
2. We have enough changed fixtures to suit TV without our club doing likewise.
3. I spend a large part of the year just along the coast from Antalya …… but I will be in Glasgow this January. :-(
Cant imagine how those accused of hooliganism in holland will feel when they here our board have agreed to play Ajax.
Obviously some decent money on the table as organiser feel the loyal celtic fans will turn out in force as usual.
Hopefully no one travels to watch these useless friendly games.
Well done celtic.. Money 1st fans 2nd
Don’t think we need to sign anyone in the next window with the possible exception of a goalkeeper as FF will probably leave then or at seasons end.
We have an abundance of young talent who are being held back by a cautious coach and average signings.
We will win the league this season so it would be a good time to try and assess what talent we already have at our disposal.
Why sign Loovens when we have Enough defenders?We can supplement with a youngster.
Let Ledley and Sammi leave and recall Jackson and McGregor plus Rogic should get time to see if he is up to the job.
Balde and Atajic should also be given more time on the field and we have Watt hopefully returning next season.
I would rather see the money being spent to improve the coaching staff.
We seem not to be a complete team.
Paul67 the disconnect at Spurs between coach and signing of players seems to be the normal in football now.
Our coach seems to have reservations over many of our signings is this due to him being disconnected to the process.
We should look at why there seems no great connection between the youth and first team coaching and systems and try to integrate as one seem less unit rather than random compartments.
Celtic will earn a wodge of cash from playing 2 Europa League teams in a big Turkish holiday resort..
BMCUW FC not PLC *irony*
What is the rationale? – spell it out so that we can see it for what it is.
Re AVB,
heard on the radio this morning, that statistically he is Spurs most successful ever manager!
Lies, damned lies etc.
But last season saw Spurs have their highest points total in the Premiership. This season they are in last 32 of the Europa, last 8 of the League Cup (a home tie v West Ham) and currently sitting 7th in the EPL only 6 points behind 2nd placed Liverpool!
And was given the ole 9, 10, Jack after Sundays humpin from Liverpool.
HAIL! HAIL!
Token
Whats the deal with mcgregor at notts county ?
Anyone see him play yet for us or them ? Attacking midfielder by sounds of it…
sftb,
I think bmcuw’s definition of our ‘strategy’, a blind man at a dart board, sums up our strategy very well. I said last week, if any of us failed in our normal 9-5 job as many times as our transfer strategists have then I fear we would be looking for alternative employment. In the main, it’s been our money that has been wasted.
AR
SFTB, you endorsed Paul’s article as (from memory one of his recent best)
Orthodox:
You put a keeper between the posts. Defenders in front of him, midfielders in front of them and at the sharp end you put a striker.
How many ‘internationalist’ keepers do we have?
How many ‘internationalist’ defenders do we have?
How many ‘internationalist’ midfielders do we have?
How many ‘internationalist’ strikers do we have? I mean Strikers, not projects or Samaras or Stokes.
Ambition? I’ve repeatedly asked on here what is the ambition of our club? I’m at a loss to answer that. I’ve played football and supported Celtic for more than fifty years and this is the only period in my life where I don’t have a clue as to what is the ‘ambition’ of my club.
Am I a ‘narco-football heretic’ because I would rather my club replaced our only striker of worth with another striker (even one who was coming to the end of his career) rather than beef up a beefy squad well capable of winning the SPL, with bloody expensive projects who rarely string two successive games together? For why did we buy them?
We wasted more money than the cost of a good striker (okay an on paper good striker). I’m not advocating a 5 million pound spend, nor a ten million pound spend, or any other million pound spend on a striker, I’d just like to see our club stop penny pinching and do the ‘orthodox’ thing and have a striker in our team.
Maybe, just maybe, if we had less projects in our squad and but just one striker, we might just still be in Europe. And for why all the expensive projects… because they’re foreign? I can think of no other reason and if that is so how fecked is the structure of management at Celtic.
If we have no ambition to progress in Europe then can the ‘projects’ and let a Scottish boy, or any other nationality we have in our youth system, have their chance.
I reiterate, I have not a feckin clue what is going on at Celtic anymore and Paul’s article came across to me as a slap in the face for orthodox supporters. A wee bit of ‘expectation’ management and I still don’t understand what narco-football heresy means.
What the hell has what happened at White Hart Lane got to do with Celtic? How many times have we heard Celtic say they don’t manage their success by the failings or otherwise of other clubs.
None of our options are gambles if the SPL is the ceiling of our clubs ambition, none of them.
The ole Celtic Ticket Office – – is ahem well closed
BOURNESOUPRECIPE
It will be explained that the clubs have always had a good relationship,trouble was caused by small,non-representative minorities,we need to build bridges with European teams to project our brand outside of Scotland,etc.
I’ll bet no-one from the club mentions those still facing prosecution in Amsterdam. Oh,yeah. I can see the rationale fine.
And that’s before anyone even mentions money-which,strangely,I doubt Celtic PLC will.
BMCUW
IIRC,the downsizing began in 2003.
Since then,we have consistently signed players who weren’t good enough,even as far back as Laursen,Fernandez,et al.
When MON had spent this year’s and next year’s money on the top loading big signings, he was left with having to spend lesser amounts. Laursen still cost £1.5m and he certainly was not bang for buck. McManus, who was there, was used to greater effect by WGS who was not afforded the unsustainable transfer funds that MON enjoyed for a brief period. We also had Juninho and still had Lubo- both of whom he used sparingly.
In that time,prior to the summer,we had moved on Petrov,signed in 1999,and McGeady,brought through from the youth team.
We’ve moved on a couple of years here. We brought through McGeady and Maloney from the youth team and, when WGS came, McManus too. And we continued the success, 3 out of 4 league titles improved upon MON’s ratio and we added two last 16 CLs.
Oh,and Ki. Then the windfall of the summer makes it look too easy.
We’ve moved on to Mowbray era now and I’m not sure of the gist of your point here. If it is that we had money to re-invest then I say we did so. We have to use the transfer money of the player sold to pay for his costs while here and for the costs of any failures who we signed as punts at the same time. A £6m transfer sale does not translate into £6m to spend. Sorry, if that was not the point you were making here.
Really? It works out at about £4m per year in transfer income.
Sorry Bobby you have lost me here. Are you saying that we are spending less than we take in? Firstly, I’d say it is hard to be sure since the figures are often secret and a tendency to round up ever sale by half a million and round down every buy by the same amount, or vice versa, can prove the argument both ways.
My argument has always been:-
If anyone is stealing money from the club, then show me and I will join you in the revolt. As far as I can see it goes on player’s wages, agent fees and he greedy world of football. Share dividends and Board bonuses, which I favour curtailing, do not account for the difference in us buying for £2m rather than £6m.
Plus, we made losses on more seasons than we showed profit. We should not want to remain in debt year on year and chase up bad punts by punting again and punting bigger.
And,er,that’s it really for the big returns on our investment.
During the ten years since 2003 we’ve been like a blind man at a dart-board.
And that is no way to operate a long-term policy.”
southside, always the bigger picture in mind.
Jobo Baldie, pretty chilled, actually.
dessybhoy, it’s underway for European competition.
Celtic_First, wee blast from the past there.
Honest Cover-up, all true. Not easy, though.
SFTBs, high praise indeed. Agree about the fart.
EKBhoy, aye, true.
Auldheid, good call. Never had success attracting that kind of interview, alas.
BMCUW
Thanks.
*Wonders if they factored the GB hopping on cheap flights Sun sea booze and broken seats*
Hows shaun maloney doing this season.. He was impressive in the premiership last year.
proudbhoy
Ehh…………injured
If our objective ambition is to win the SPL then we have a squad the size of a Goodyear Blimp; if however we actually ever did have any ambitions in Europe beyond qualification then our squad, regardless of size lacked quality.
For me that is gross mismanagement, by whom, I don’t know, but it is in my eyes a waste of money to sustain such a squad. How many meals could Mary’s Meals buy if they had but the wages of just four of our bloated squad?
Turkey Ar La CSC