We’re in the last week of November and one point separates Celtic, Inverness and Dundee United at the top of the table, with Hamilton a point behind. Dundee, who put on a credible performance yesterday, sit alongside seventh placed Kilmarnock, nine points of the pace. That’s more than half the league within nine points of the top.
Remember the day Accies relegated Hibs, and we were told how the Championship would be vastly more competitive than the Premiership this season? There’s a nine point gap at the top of the Championship, which is the least competitive senior league in Britain.
If you were an investor in a Championship team located anywhere outside Gorgie, you might be running the numbers this morning on what another season of lower league football is going to cost to fund. With ever-diminishing income I know one club who could need £30m investment to get them through another 18 months of Championship football.
The chances of than kind of money materialising are zero, no matter if they flog their properties. There will also be a structural deficit, even with Premiership football, of having a massive infrastructure to support, without European revenue, of around £10m per season.
If you are a football club in Scotland with a large infrastructure to operate, maintain, police and insure, you need significant and regular European income. The cost of funding the job to overcome domestic and European competition (all of the latter would be seeded), runs into many tens of millions.
No one has even pretended they have a viable plan to overcome such obstacles. Hope you can find the fun in financial fundamentals.
Thanks for the feedback on Caesar & the Assassin, which is available here on CQNBookstore, but… if you go here, for an extra £1.01 you can get the book and a DVD (from Cesar (sic.), 6-2 game, Road to Seville, Birthday Bhoys Beating Barca).
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Cowiebhoy
He looked ONside to me.
Catch up soon .
Good night all
Bada Bing
VG regarding suits getting made in Goa.
Is the 9th a date.
Ps will be wearing my Ant Hill (Clyde)suit.HH
TET
The boy needs game time and a midfielder with 1/2 a brain – that can play a ‘through-pass’ to feet. We could off-load 10 players and I doubt we would miss them.
One ‘creative’ midfielder could be the making of this Team – I wish!
Cowiebhoy
Our squad is like my waistline.
Bigger than it used to be.
Too expensive to maintain.
Inefficient.
Aesthetically displeasing (well just me for that one)
Ever increasing, apparently inexorably.
And in need on very significant trimming!
LiposuctionScoutingCSC
HH jamesgang
Leftclicktic
Just watched, looked offside to me – whoooft ( wiping forehead :-) )
Hail Hail
Jobo 0716
You’re welcome.
p.s. I don’t think they were liquidated in Oct 2012 – I believe they “entered into the process of liquidation” in (July or August ? 2012), and it is due to be completed on 9 Dec 2014. But I have been known to be wrong!
HH
The lad Armstrong looked great in the 5 mins of highlights last night.
I know…….
And:but was a complete no show in the big games at the end of last season.
Sportscene can be a glorified YouTube clip with chronically crap pundits instead of adverts in between clips.
HH jamesgang
jamesgang
22:29 on 24 November,
Whit you dae thay weights wae ?
You never stoaped posting :-)
Hail Hail
Cowiebhoy
Willie McStay stated on Friday night, he had been in Spain looking at players in their 2nd division, still searching for a hidden gem :-)
___________________
Hope it’s one of the midfielders that laid-on umteen goals for Scepovic! :-)
Cowiebhoy
If Leftie says he was ‘on’ and you’re wrong…..then he was ‘on’ and you’re wrong.
He is the Oracle of Veracity and Wisdom on here!
HH jamesgang
Oh another
Arsenal or Liverpool, may be in for Virgil Van Djik in January
Bloody Norah, now at 10
And whit aboot Efe ?
Doc
If you are lurking.
A strange man came to your door yesterday with a package containing a recently published Celtic book and a DVD.
When he got no reply he left it by your Kitchen door down the side of the house.
If anyone else got a visit from a strange man baring CQN gifts and packages today well ….. lucky you didn’t stop and talk to him because he is prone to stopping and telling a story or two.
Tomorrow, the same man may well be delivering packages in the Dumbarton, Old Kilpatrick, Clydebank and Scotstoun areas – and maybe one or two in the city centre.
Jobo — had I engaged my brain I would have lifted yours too but the EK address threw me off as I could have come to your place of work with it tomorrow.
Copies of the book are winging their way to Australia, Canada, USA, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, UAE, Dubai, New Zealand and Ireland.
But those guys are safe because the chatty guy’s car doesn’t go that far!
Jamesgang
I was at Tannadice on Saturday,Stuart Amstrong ran the show from start to finish alongside Charlie Telfer.I hate to say this but Paton supported them well as the Defensive Midfield player.
I think Armstrong would be a good signing for us if United were willing to let him go to us.
Do you remember your youth as a time of hunger?
Oh yes, absolutely. If you didn’t have a job, you didn’t have money; if you didn’t have money, you didn’t have food – that’s the whole point. That’s why I did this barrowboy job as a child. I got four shillings a week and managed to put a little bit more food into the house. I had a maths teacher – Froggie Dawson – he was a rather fattish man, with a corpulent body. I remember one time I hadn’t gone to school for a couple of days; it was in the winter, and the snow was on the ground, and so when I came back, at the end of the class, he made me stay behind, and demanded to know: “How come you were off school yesterday and the day before?” And I remember lifting up my shoe – and I had cardboard there for a base, and it was all soggy. So he said – go home now, get there as quick as you can, and see me after school tomorrow. So after school the next day, when all the others had gone, he reaches into his drawer for a pair of shoes. And they were a bit big but I knew I could stick some newspaper in the front, and I thanked him profusely [sobs]. We didn’t have any hope at all that I could remember, until after 1945. We just didn’t believe they were going to do anything about it, because we existed under such a cruel system for so long.
From this article,well worth a look.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/24/harry-leslie-smith-nhs-great-depression-ed-miliband-advice
P
He spoke about the big Clubs in Spain, putting their youngster out to this league to get game time, experience etc,
Sad we have none of our own coming through
Left me thinking why we have a youth set up at Lennoxtown, when nothing is coming through ?
Hail Hail
P
hartz had a middy called Pallardo Gonzalez, they got him on a free, imo, he was the best player on the park, he rode all the challenges that came his way, and he sprayed the ball about, he came from Levante, now if they can get the likes of him on a free, just imagine with a little imagination, and a few bob on offer, what we could do !!!!
As I have said for long enough, they are out there.
Glad to hear RD is wanting to make changes to the scouting, it’s clearly not working out like it should.
And 100% agree that a proper middy who can see the killer pass is a must, it could help us for sure for the CL in getting there, we have strikers now that we have been screaming out for, now we can’t supply them………………Celtic at it’s best >}
HH
Zico
We did try to get him in August – allegedly
Hail Hail
zico-maltese bhoy
Was talking to the other member of the MaltaCSC about you at CQN Corner!
Poor Embramike was frozen!
We were thinking about you mhate.
Glad you saw at decent match. Shame it wasn’t with us.
Paton’s a useful player, scumbag or not (proven). Glad to hear Armstrong excelled.
Cowiebhoy
Am I not allowed a rest between sets Mhan?!? Yon Tins of beans weigh a ton!
Shower n cot time.
HH Timdom
Jamesgang
Seems a new Janis Joplin biopic is on the cards. I thought The Rose was good enough,tbh.
Here’s a wee sampler of her wares.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iJb7cBfrxbo
Man City v Mumich tomorrow tickets are on general sale.
Sums up City and why they will lose.
Munich
googy
I hope they score tho
I have them in an acca, both 2 score and BM to win >}
HH
Googy
I fancy a wee wager on Bayern tomorrow.
Cowiebhoy
If we did we should go back in again.
Armstrong can pick a pass,Score goals and runs all day just like SJ does for us at the moment.
Another young player they have that came on as a sub and scored the 3rd goal was Aiden Connelly,a fantastic player.When he came on he got a standing ovation from the crowd round about me.He is the son of the ex DU player Paddy Connelly,Definately one to watch.
COWIEBHOY
I’ve had a look through your discards and also through our squad.
We’re loaded with defenders,but I reckon Virgil will be offski in January,and I doubt we’ll keep Denayer after the summer. The rest are mainly kids,or prone to injury,so no more out from there.
Up front,we only have Stokes,Scepovic,LG and JG. No room for manoeuvre I’m afraid.
Midfield though…
Would anyone miss Boerrigter Berget Rogic Tonev?
Kayal,I feel,has come to the end with us,possibly Commons too,and Wakaso will be too expensive-for what he offers-in summer.
Seven places freed up,with negligible drop in quality,and the chance to bring in youth to the first team.
Listened to Willie Mc Stay at the Greenock CSC on Friday night.
The guy spoke so much common sense about football and displayed such a love of Celtic in the way he spoke that I genuinely despair that we can allow men of such calibre to leave our club.
Having heard him on Friday I’d be overjoyed if he returned in any senior capacity.
( he was able to laugh off the Radio Clyde spot in jig time.)
Please Celtic, make it happen.
Jamesgang
Cheers.Thanks for best wishes.
A big Hail Hail to CQN corner and Embramike a true Celtic gentleman.HH.
On our youth system ..it was mentioned at the AGM.
Pretty sure it was Peter Lawell who said there were not as many coming through in last 2/3 years as hoped for.
I’m not sure what the problem with our youth system is, but the facts are undeniable that we have less home grown in the team than either 10 or 20 years ago.
I watched Sportscene the other night, and between Ross County and Dundee there are enough ex Celts to make up a league of their own.
Sadly none of these guys made it at CP, nor, did they bring in decent transfer fees.
Is the problem ..
Scouting -are we signing wrong players or looking in wrong places?
No opportunity – are good youngsters avoiding us as chances are limited?
Is it our coaching – are we more concerned with winning than developing ?
Have youth players got it too easy, or do they loose the hunger?
I suspect it is all of the above
My own solution would be to ditch the whole lot pre under 20, and take the supposed £2m running costs to buy 2 or 3 Snodgrass’, McCarthy, Griffiths types every year, after they have played 30/40 games, but before they get attention of English clubs, and hoping we get a 65/75% success rate.
praecepta-After RD saying last week he wants more Scottish players,a wee loan move for Ryan Gauld might be on the cards.HH
Zico-aye the 9th could be on HH
BMCUWP
If you include VVD that was 8 :-)
I agree, I also think Biton and Henderson could do something for us,
But
They ain’t getting game time, which they need to develop with is, I would have them in squad before some we have agreed could go :-)
I had forgotten Rogic as well
Hail Hail and goodnight Timworld
Bada Bing
You have mail.HH
From today’s Guardian:
• Carmen Martínez Ayudo is 85, she’s a widow, and she lives in a small flat on Calle Sierra de Palomeras in the working-class neighbourhood of Vallecas, to the east of Madrid, just as she has done for the last 50 years. Or at least she did until this weekend, when the bailiffs came to evict her. A €40,000 loan her son had secured on her home with a lender had increased to €70,000 and he had defaulted. The man who had given her the loan would not listen to laments or accept a rent from social security. So Carmen was out on the street. But then a group of men came to her rescue.
The men are footballers and the play for Rayo Vallecano. Their coach, Paco Jémez, announced on Saturday morning that he and the squad will find Carmen somewhere to live and pay her rent. They will also be setting up a fund to help other people in similar positions. It will cost them more than their club has paid for players this season. “We couldn’t just stand there; we will help her so that she can live somewhere with dignity and not feel alone,” Jémez said.
The following morning Rayo, a club whose fans have long had a left-wing identity tied to the neighbourhood, faced Celta. Banners were hung all round the three-sided ground. “Carmen Stays”, said one. “The pride of a neighbourhood”, said another. At the end, a huge banner declared: “The evictions of a sick state/the solidarity of a working-class neighbourhood.” Rayo won 1-0 but Jémez was not that impressed. “There’s something more than just winning,” he said.
——-
Really heading of to my scratcher
Bada, would take Ryan Gauld before Anya
Jimmci – I thought he was back at Celtic ? scouting
Clashcitybhoy, not at lot to disagree with there, save £2m a year and sign best 2 or 3 a year with game time behind them and potential, I could come up with 3 or 4 right now
Nytol :-)
COWIEBHOY
True,but the seven I mentioned wouldn’t be missed.
TIMGREEN
Brilliant piece of work from Rayo Vallecano. Hugely impressed by it.
Cowiebhoy
Maybe its time to apply a ‘cull’ philosophy at an earlier age? Keep what’s perceived to be the exceptional and make space for some ‘bought-in’ (even if entails heftier % cuts for the selling-club). Fast-track a few – exposure/ sell – try and get a reputation for producing a few players (like Southampton) who embark on 2/3 sales processes before hitting the big time.
As far as I can see – its all very well producing an Aiden (circa £10M) every 3-5 years + selling-off others for Development Fees (occasionally getting circa £500K) – all we are doing is balancing the books/ paying running-costs.
We would be as well scaling down and tying-up more deals akin to Jason D (productive loan at a cost for a year) or John G surplus to requirements (but in last year of contract). If JG does the business and we can offer a decent contract then we’ve got him for little more than the stipulated D/fees and ……………..
if the quality is there – then there’s the chance of short/medium benefit (football results) + a likely profitable sale (see; V67, FF).
Repeat process – ad nauseam.
H!H!
Alright lads, not been on in a while. This got sent around employees of the council today. Any comments on the wording? First paragraph disgusted me:
‘Beyond Religion and Belief’
Workplace Seminar on Sectarianism
Thursday 27th November 2014
2pm – 3.30 pm
Learning Academy, 40 John Street
I would like to invite you to the above seminar which considers sectarianism in the workplace. Sectarianism in Scotland is not limited to football grounds, it is far more wide spread and can be found in homes, communities and workplaces.
Glasgow City Council is committed to ensuring that inequality and discrimination in the city and the workplace are not tolerated and work is underway to eradicate hostility, prejudice and discrimination that continue to be manifested against particular groups. This includes promoting behaviour change to reduce discrimination through a focus on prevention and awareness raising.
This seminar, delivered by Nil by Mouth, will last approximately 1 – 11/2 hours and will raise awareness of stereotypes and how sectarianism manifests itself in deliberate, subtle and unconscious ways.