We spoke about the prospect of two 27-year-old left backs next season: Kieran Tierney and Greg Taylor. Both excellent players but without development potential. Our right back options are similar; Alistair Johnston and Tony Ralston are both 26.
Alistair has been a revelation since he arrived in January 2023, replacing Josip Juranovic, who had just played in a World Cup semifinal. The Canada international will hopefully stay through the peak of his career, which would leave limited opportunity for Ralston, during his own peak period.
Tony came in from the cold and featured heavily during Ange Postecoglou’s first term in Scotland. The player has established himself in the Scotland squad but will forever play a bit part at Celtic.
Tony needs to move on; he should play regularly during his prime years. Celtic cannot abandon player development. Backup roles should be for young players with potential to grow into great assets. Player development should again be a crucial part of out strategic plan.
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Gene,
😎,permanent sunglasses is the life.😃
TB
Not for Mourinho, Ancelotti, Conte etc – they’re ego driven
“49ers takeover to be completed any day” Rangers News.
Having been ” Baited” a few times by this ridiculous rag,this headline surely had to have some basis to it.
Suckered again.Not a word,except they better get a move on,those pesky 49ers.
DOH !!!!!!!!!!!!
Gene,
As the wonderful Inspector Clouseau would say,”They are fils”
GENE on 23RD APRIL 2025 4:11 PM
Tontine Tim This is the game to which I was referring
*aye as I mentioned I was over here at the time and there is a huge amount of Italians living here and any I knew thought that they were out after that game
The moral high ground of the blant’R cellar
Stopped goin to games light years ago
Defender of orange white trash yet talks of the fight against British imperialism whiie defending his union,chameleon like to fit just like his unionist hero Grifter Galloway
Defender of Brexit,the empire is dead tho its refugees are welcome.Celtic founded from a time when its population doubled,hard as it was being a club with Catholic origins in the land of the reformation,it has been built by that diaspora into the finest example of the irish diaspora at work on the planet.open to all and long may that annoy you.
Unaware to the himwit his money is getting cut
A racist skank of the highest order,regardless of the moniker kev,418/9 to your latest paragraph scroll by,your mental torture and duality there publically.
Hapless,isolated so he turns onto the colour of skin with boundless ignorance,
Keep girning scroll by,you dont attend games,stick to bein submissive to your orange neighbours and an apologist for their fan base.
The huns liquidated due to their own self harm and hubris,maybe wan of your blantR huns will pump ye for old time sake.
Simply a racist,get yourself some help
having brendan wuth 14 months to go on his current term, is no different to having the manager on the rolling 1 year agreement.
stepping away from that and giving him a 3 year deal for me was o risk and a smart thing to do.
that recent interview, he was asked specifically and directly, are you staying , and are players going,
he said 150% he is here for AT LEAST another season, and would be talking to DD about plans.
his situation, for me, is no different to greg taylor in his last year.
at this moment as well, i wouldnt want big ange back, feel he has become diminished by the EPL experience.
Brendan on the other hand will once again have a pick of jobs should he wish to move on, but retirement i would say no.
Shipbank Shipwrecks gathering on Friday from 12. Sorry for short notice. Well I’m not really as you are an absolute fooking shower.
Yorkbhoy @ 3:24pm.
Brilliant point.
Dear Manager, we want you to be fully invested in our long term goals.
Only minor risk to you is a slow ramp up in onfield capability which might put your short term goals (season 23/24 springs to mind) in jeopardy.
Oh, and you might get sacked and have your reputation tarnished for coming second in a seemingly one horse race.
———
Very flippant response by me but intended to illustrate an important point.
Finding the balance between short, medium and long term goals is very difficult …
For Celtic
For every football club
For every business
Needs everyone bought in and pulling in the same direction.
… while click baiters, drunken hacks, amoral media bosses and (sometimes) well intentioned fans attempt daily to drive wedges.
Every year they speculated MON was going home to England on his
RollingContract CSC
Genuine question.
Has anyone in football management ever signed a rolling TWO-year contract?
QUADROPHENIAN on 23RD APRIL 2025 1:59 PM
Kyogo’s purchase and sale wasnt part of a player trading model. His sale price was an anomaly – the second most for a player into the top 5 leagues aged over 25 who hadn’t previously played there coming from a league like ours. It sounds convoluted but in terms of strategies that yield tens of millions of pounds in profit its pretty basic reasoning.
In effect there was no transfer fee anyway, it was a swap deal for Jota. I doubt very much we’d have found anyone to pay that amount of cash for him at his age and his profile. I htink thats been born out with the amount of minutes he’s played for them – he’s been on the bench and didnt even make the match day squad at the weekend.
Not a series of circumstances that could be reliably repeated so not something a sensible business would base a strategy on
Enjoy Brendan while we have him.
HH.
In effect there was no transfer fee anyway, it was a swap deal for Jota. I doubt very much we’d have found anyone to pay that amount of cash for him at his age and his profile.
who moved in which direction first and what fees ?
As sure as night follows day…………there will be plenty of “49ers” headlines/`”good news” next Monday after we win the league and yet more if/when we beat them at Mordor.
The huns need hope lest the whole thing comes crashing down.
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL on 23RD APRIL 2025 4:50 PM
“Dear Manager, we want you to be fully invested in our long term goals.
Only minor risk to you is a slow ramp up in onfield capability which might put your short term goals (season 23/24 springs to mind) in jeopardy.
Oh, and you might get sacked and have your reputation tarnished for coming second in a seemingly one horse race.”
That is, or should be part of being a Celtic manager. It’s part of the deal almost every other club our size. He’s not getting a job with this amount of control anywhere else. Can you imagine any of the premier league clubs giving their manager full control over the transfer strategy?
Its not like the squad outwith the development players shouldn’t be good enough to win this league anyway, as we’ve seen with the collection of players Brendan inherited, but Celtic do not have a record of sacking managers. He would not have got the sack had we lost the league last season.
Brendan is paid more than any Celtic manager ever, his work should make allowances for the longer term needs of the club.
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL
“Needs everyone bought in and pulling in the same direction.”\
That clearly isnt happening. They arent and the club isnt as good as it could be as a result
GM,
the guy they suggest Thewell is interesting-ish.
Why leave everton on a cusp of a new era to come to rangers ?
check out this guff, he is in for a suprise about thems culture and how they support their club.
at everton, i think he means arithmetically,
—————
Financial targets:
I think what we’re trying to do on the financial side is just apply some financial common sense. I’m not the greatest mathematician in the world, I’m not that brilliant at that side of things, but the reality is, you can’t spend more than you earn. So bringing us back into some sort of financial balance and applying that common sense is a big part of the job.
Four strategic pillars:
We’ve got four strategic pillars. 1) We’ve got who we are. At every football club, culture and identity is really important to people and so it should be and we don’t want to get too far away from our way and Everton way. 2) How we play. There are loads of different examples in the Premier League and all over the world of people having very clear ways of playing and the benefits that they get from that. 3) How we support, so what do we do in terms of our operational method, stuff like performance analysis, coaching, medical services, sports science. Can we create a really strong golden thread that runs through all our departments, like a best-in-class type of philosophy? 4) Staff development. I’m a big believer that you’re only as good as the sum of your parts. If you’ve got staff that you continue to develop and continue to help to improve, and they can provide better quality service, better expertise around the building, then you’re only going to be that for it. So we sort of focus on those four things.
A so successful Celtic will find speculators, widespread those that were sufficiently content in the days of dining on Sir Minty’s succulent lamb. The bygone years before these ‘terrible treble tediums ‘ when we were fed with Ronaldo bids, floating pitches, casinos, retractable roofs and our ‘development bhoys’ faced up to the latest England star.
celtic40me on 23rd April 2025 5:21 pm
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL
“Needs everyone bought in and pulling in the same direction.”\
That clearly isnt happening. They arent and the club isnt as good as it could be as a result
——————-
how isnt it happening ?
SAINT STIVS on 23RD APRIL 2025 5:27 PM
“how isnt it happening ?”
Brendan has a different view on a fundamental part of the clubs strategy to the board. He’s made it as clear as crystal that there are tensions about the profile of the sort of player he’d like to sign. They arent pulling in the same direction when it comes to a very important part of how the club is run
Theres an obvious compromise being made, Brendan is such a good football manager that they are prepared to let him do what he’s not so good at. Its difficult to argue with results, we’re better off with him as manager right now than without.
The risk is, and its by no means certain that it will work out like this, failures in the things he’s not so good in – strategy, recruitment – do not show up as immediately. We have experts in both who are being ignored in favour of someone with no track record of success in either.
Leicester should be a warning to anyone who suggests we hand everything over to Brendan. His recruitment was poor there – his signings took them down. I watched them the other week, half of the team was signed by Brendan, they were poor with him in charge, they’ve been bloody awful this season.
celtic40me on 23rd April 2025 5:38 pm
SAINT STIVS on 23RD APRIL 2025 5:27 PM
“how isnt it happening ?”
Brendan has a different view on a fundamental part of the clubs strategy to the board. He’s made it as clear as crystal that there are tensions about the profile of the sort of player he’d like to sign. They arent pulling in the same direction when it comes to a very important part of how the club is run
——————————–
I hear this, from P67, sometimes B78 but I dont see it evidenced by the actions of Brendan or indeed the board.
When did he make it crystal clear that he wants different players than the board strategy allows ?
He has been allowed to extend players contracts, spent on 2 record transfers, and also Paulo, allowed to bring back Jota and KT. Allowed to spend big on another centre back. And indeed he has let players go when their valuations are met.
He didnt get a preferred striker in january, but, was the preference not actually available.
Too much is put onto assumptions, I believe there is alignment, and we are a better team for it.
Doing well in europe and a potential treble, aye it is just papering over the cracks.
celtic40me on 23rd April 2025 5:48 pm
Theres an obvious compromise being made, Brendan is such a good football manager that they are prepared to let him do what he’s not so good at. Its difficult to argue with results, we’re better off with him as manager right now than without.
The risk is, and its by no means certain that it will work out like this, failures in the things he’s not so good in – strategy, recruitment – do not show up as immediately. We have experts in both who are being ignored in favour of someone with no track record of success in either.
—————————-
Induldge me some. Who are the business strategists and football recruitment experts being ignored just so Brendan can go do what he wants ?
also, from Brendan doing what he wants, who is the actual failures he has recruited, if it was indeed all on him ?
och, and a btw from me, all the blogs and podcasts last 2 days, full of treble this treble that.
all too premature, too optimistic, too much just expected.
we have to win the cup final, and it wont be as easy as the 6-0 lcsf.
once aberdeen secure their european position all focus will be on that cup final, thelin is getting a tune out of them again, so lets not count out chickens just yet.
reminds me of the ten in a row chat before the season even started.
what a beutifil night it is out there,
would have been a great night for a set of football fixtures, but not in scotland, our league bosses prefer we play in mid-winter, in the dark on horrible pitches in terrible weather.
what a waste of springtime longer evenings.
joint statement time, we had better shut up shop, the rangers are coming.
There is no treble. We still have to win the league and face an Aberdeen side who have run the hun ragged this season and will be right up to facing us. We have to work for our glory. 👍
good evening champions
Good evening Jackiemac
Sustainable continued success is what we all want for Celtic. I think any sense that anyone on here doesn’t is probably nonsense. That said there are different ways of doing it and different risks to each of these.
Frankly I don’t even want to enter that debate anymore. If BR stays then hopefully he does with real accountability and big reward driven by goals for the medium and long term success and not the nonsense of a short term 3 year fixed deal he has. This is no real good as stated by GM.
Anyway la super ong post below but for me a joy to consider. Hopefully others can play the same game and get as much Celtic happiness.
Buzzing as always after ‘that lot’ lost on Thursday night and Celtic reached another Scottish Cup Final. I was struggling to get to sleep. I started to think how lucky we are to be living through such a period of domestic domination (especially this amazing period Paul speaks of re Cups since Brendan Rodgers arrived) and I thought of the Celtic eras in the past in my own lifetime. I was asking myself why I am not really enjoying this season despite our supremacy. To me personally it doesn’t quite feel as good as others when we have won / could have won less ? I don’t really know the answer to that question and I respect others may feel different but for me despite the trophy haul in each season, some seasons of success have often felt so much better than others.
I decided to try to help to get to sleep I would think of the best 5 Celtic seasons that I can really remember in my life. Not just ‘one trophy wonders’ eg 85/6 or 94/5 but whole seasons which have been best.
We are talking 1969-present as an era. I struggled with the task but got to a long list of 10 which proves my point as to how lucky I feel we are :
Ange 1st season 21/2 (2 trophies which should have been 3) after an appalling start to the league with half a team and most of the other half coming at the January window. Against a resurgent rangers fresh from their first league win in a decade and with the best manager they have had in nearly 2 decades (Gio) and a team which got to a Europa Final. Ange didn’t just win but he did it playing great hi tempo football whilst rebuilding his squad with sellable assets.
The Invincibles 16/7. The last one my wee mum saw. I will never forget walking down Aitkenhead Rd that evening with her getting a lift from a one legged hooped fan in a mobility scooter ! As that season began felt we had a challenge after losing the cup semi to our Glasgow rivals on penalties the previous year prior to their promotion to the top flite. They had ‘phoenixed’ finally and had Joey Barton. BR arrived and we witnessed and unparalleled domestic season. Football at another level.
The 07/8 season
Not the best to watch on occasions. Despite working with a rightsized cost base, compared to our income and what our rivals should have been working to, WGS was booed by our own fan base. Incredible to think that after winning 2 and heading toward our first ‘3 leagues in a row’ since 1974 (34 years) our own fans booed our team. After reaching consecutive last 16 CL places beating Man U, Benfica, Milan and Shakhtar many still did not take WGS to heart. Dont follow Sinatra eh ? The final day of that season said it all. When our manager paid respect to the recently departed Tommy Burns that night at Tannidice. What an end to a season, what a legend WGS is for me. Managed us to a budget to unparalleled recent European success whilst dealing with a cheering bloated domestic challenge.
The 03/04 season
A weird season perhaps but it really felt we were in our post Seville pomp. A few breaks like not gifting Lyon a last minute pen or not capitulating in Brussels and it could have been amazing. This was the last season a team outside the big 4 leagues won the big cup. We were also at the height of overspending with HL in his last season. Sutton Hartson et al still on the wage bill. We had actually won nothing in 02/03 despite Seville. We watched our Glasgow rivals win a treble. We bounced back big time domestically with a fantastic league campaign and Cup win. David Hay and Dominic Keane winning the league cup with Livi was another vicarious success. For me personally I attended all but one (Kaunas) of our 16 European games that season. From Budapest to Villarreal). Great times and plenty of great results. Beating Anderlecht, Lyon, Barcelona amongst others and going toe to toe with Bayern. It was last hurrah for HL and to be honest Sutton Hartson, MON and others would have served us better had they gone too. A great and memorable end of an era. 04/5 was a disaster as we adjusted our cost base and the other lot kept funding their fix.
MON’s first treble
This was the huge sign we needed. It was great to win to stop their 10 but how sustainable was it going to be. We had a great stadium but they were continuing to write their own rules. It was the peak of Hugh Gallagher and succulent lamb. They spend 5 we spend 10 bombast. Wee Dick ruled Britannia’s Scottish outpost and Murray (if he could have) jumped so high when asked. MON didn’t just burst their bubble he bullied them to dominate and win a treble first up. Carrying the fans with him all the way. ‘Extraordinary’ as he was want to say.
Hampden in green capped it all.
Stopping their 10 97/8
Never to be forgotten. The biggest emotional rollercoaster ever ridden. 9 years of conditioning us to be second at best. 9 years of entitled dominance for them. The unlikely Dutchman Wim and the chaos behind the scenes. The swede who gave away the first league game of the season yet we got to the last day with the league cup already won and only needing to equal rangers core to win the league. HL and Harald got us over the line and with a wee nod to George O’Boyle lol. We had the celebration of our lives. Glasgow was green and white again…..for a few weeks at least.
Our Centenary season 87/8
This one was written in the stars despite Souness et al. Sadly Davie Hay could not build on the first half of 86/7 and a solid positon and the Souness bandwagon was rolling. We recalled big Billy as a manager who had relegated 2 great teams in one season down south (both Villa and Man City). It was a masterstroke. He brought the energy, passion, leadership and experience to counter the Ibrox largess. Smart signings like Chris Morris at RB and Mick McCarthy at CH plus Frank McAvennie Andy Walker and Mark McGee alongside ex dons wee Joe Miller and Billy Stark augmented the basis we already had. Despite not winning the league cup we dominated the league from the start. We kept hearing how they would come back but we kept winning. For me the day I felt it was certain was the day I took my wife to her first derby at ibrox and we won 2-1. It was a long and enjoyable drive back to london that Sunday. The cup semi and final wins seemed inevitable despite going behind in both. It was meant to be. Great times and mostly made by mostly Celtic fans in the hooped jerseys. Probably the last time for that.
The 4-2 season 78/9
At the start of that season we had probably the worst Celtic team of my life until that point. Incredible how we had fallen from grace. It really was a workmanlike team which sat in 7th place in a ten team league when we played Aberdeen on March 1st. We had lost to Burnley in the Anglo Scottish Cup earlier in the season and lost early in the cups. Rangers were not great either under new manager John Greig. It went to the final game of the season on Monday 21st May (my last day ever at school / Modern Studies higher). Incredibly inspired by an Alfie Conn 1-0 win that March day we had gone on a great run. Our team of grafters had rolled up their sleeves and despite being nowhere near the top all season and reduced to 10 men when a goal down in a ‘must win’ game we dug deep and when Murdo unleashed the 4th we were in dreamland. They did not win the league, or even com close for another 8 years. This win destroyed them and only Souness / Murray could fix it and we know where that ended.
69/70
So this was the first season I can really remember. I believe I only missed 8 of our games all this season. My old dad took me home and away on the Busby and Eaglesham bus. We beat St Johnstone with a 2nd minute goal by wee Bertie in my first ever cup final. We won the league comfortably but were robbed of a treble by Bobby Davidson of Airdrie in one of the worst refereeing ever seen at Hampden v Aberdeen. It was in Europe where we really excelled. Beating the champions of 3 really top leagues at the time plus the Swiss champions to get to the final only to lose to one of the emerging Dutch masters in the shape of Feyenoord. The old men outside the chapel blamed Jock Stein for taking the game too lightly and the board for not giving the players a bonus. Of course the old men always knew best but had never really kicked ball never mind managed a team. It was an incredible season. Think about us beating Italian English Portuguese and Swiss champions to get to a champions league final. It is almost impossible to comprehend.
Neil and the 3rd Treble v Stevie G
This was special for me. There were other options for my top 10. 85/6 or Ange Treble, or Neil’s beating Barca in CL, or even Seville when we won nothing. I have gone for Neil coming back and completing the job Brendan started. The reason is that the pressure on us was intense when BR left. We were 7 points ahead but a few cracks were showing. BR had lost at Ibrox for the first time the previous month and their tails were up. There were 2 definite to go out of the 11 games and they believed. Questions were asked amongst the fans and it could have turned toxic. Neil was not the same level as BR as a manager. No one could pretend that. Broony / Cal and the dugs on the street knew that. He was our manager though and like Billy in 87 he answered the call. He was the right man for the job at the right time and ended up increasing the gap to 9 points by the end of the season. The first 2 tricky games in edinburgh v Hearts and Hibs were massive in projecting us forward positively with Neil. We beat rangers 2-1 and never looked back. I stood at Hampden next to Paul 67 in the rain as we beat Hearts for a 3rd consecutive Treble, ecstatic. By the time I got to Graces after the rugby final at Celtic park it was clear we had appointed Neil permanently. Who knows if it was right but he had Gerard’s number in normal circumstances. The following year we were ahead by 13 points when Covid struck. Neil stepped up to replace a top manager at a tough time and put our rivals in their place. Snuffing out the danger as he did as a player.
So to the point of it. My top 5. It was easy.
Ange 22/3
Brendan 16/7
Wim 97/8
Billy 87/8
Jock 69/70
If pushed on my favourite it would be the Centenary Season. Wim and Jock would be 2 and 3.
Go on and do this yourselves. It’s really fun and feel good. It’s much better than a stressful fight between those who think Brendan has our long term interests in the club or the short term interests in himself.
No matter what and who is responsible (and there are probably many) these ARE the best of Celtic times.
centenery
mon treble
invincibles
and that night we beat juve.
i cant articulate to the wider young family how very very special the centeneray double was.
this rangers takeover,
very very different celtic business that thems are going to try compete with.
get a share issue done, expand our stadium, get a move on.
Develop players?
There’s an idea….
St Stivs 6.17
Very true,we work towards a win,as they say in the climbing world assumption is the mother of all error.
HH
St Stivs
Agree re Centenary. Incredible season. Given what went before and came after.
I see that there are lots of people wandering around the Vatican wearing the R2ngers’ third strip – tops and bottoms!!