“Backfill”, that’s the word used during January for practically every transfer. “Yes, happy to sell at that price, but only if we get backfill”. We sold out first choice striker without backfill. That is a ballsy decision for Brendan Rodgers and Michael Nicholson to sign off on.
If we win the league and Scottish Cup, any perceived risk will not merit a footnote when the season is reviewed. An injury, or two, to specific players and the footnote will grow into a paragraph.
“January is a difficult time to do business” is another mantra. Except at Celtic recently. Kuhn, Maeda, Hatate, O’Riley and Johnston all arrived since the Postecoglou era in January. Four of these players are still first choice at Celtic, while O’Riley left for £25m. You can sign quality players in January if you have the recruitment infrastructure in place and do not have a preference for players you have watched in person.
Brendan is a hugely successful and experienced boss. He has managed against or worked with many of the top players in Europe and has an enviable relationship with agents across the UK. He recently brought in David Pleat to add what he needs. Maybe it will all work out fine, but make no mistake, recruitment strategy has shifted.
Jeffrey Schlupp (32) arrived from Crystal Palace, replacing Alex Valle (20) in the squad. Jota (25) came home and has already shown us why. Alexandro Bernabei (24) permanently moved to Internacional in Brazil for a small profit. We will be talking about Kyogo 20 years from now, let’s hope the anecdotes do not include the consequences of allowing him to leave midseason.
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Hola.
Tt
The joys of a debate about recruitment
Cognitive dissonance ahoy!
Are we suggesting our present manager sold our top striker, without confirming and signing replacement?
Seriously?
Must be the only mgr on the planet who would take such a balls-uppy decision if so.
The entire recruitment team (and approach) seem to have become misaligned here.
I wonder how busy that direct line to DD is this morning
Coupla questions here…
Who groomed Mikey Nicholson to CEO the way he CEOs ? Did he have, say, an internal/infernal mentor?
Did Kyogo have a release clause in any of his contracts, giving him sway over when he wanted to move ?
What kind of Jan transfer window did Mark ‘gardening leave’ Lawwell just have (I’m presuming he’s at one of the world’s top, top clubs at the moment) ??
Time for Laundry
I’m pretty sure Maeda and Hatate were recruited as ones the manager had watched in person. Subsequent purchases in the Asian market from within the recruitment set-up don’t appear to have been very satisfactory.
Aye some shift, of all the gin joints in all the world he has to walk into ours,
“ I’m a football Doctor “ – Paul Tisdale Exeter City, MK Dons, Bristol Rovers and Stevenage.
AHEM CSC
PS Paul; don’t you regularly advocate/insist that the end of the transfer windae is when the smart and serious money gets scattered around and that early buying is strictly for the mugs ?
Celtic verse Dundee tomorrow PPV
adi_dassler not for 2nd best on 4th February 2025 12:07 pm
Time for Laundry
If you mean wee N’guemo , I don’t think we’re that desperate .-))))))))
Quadrophenian
Re Nicholson and his being ‘groomed’.
I don’t think he was. The club went outside for Dominic Mackay after Peter Lawwell left.
Watched in person. Sounds perfectly acceptable to me.
So is the club now planning for Brendan’s successor ?
Couldn’t give a monkeys , it is what it is ….we move on and do our best with what we’ve got .
Quadrophenian
I understand the lads gardening leave is almost up.
As for signing early it is interesting that only Kuhn (the above lads last signing) was signed from a market which was not in close season in January. Smart moves in my view.
SAINT STIVS on 4TH FEBRUARY 2025 12:21 PM
So is the club now planning for Brendan’s successor ?
Paul Tidsdales first
How lucky can you get having a tier one CEO already in the building when you sack the one you head hunted ?
Sorted CSC
Paul
Schlupp (32) is likely to offer us more than Valle (20) , as will Tierney (25) when he arrives. I’m not certain we would have signed Valle in any case , even if Barca had been willing to sell and the player was willing to sign .
It’s getting to the stage where BR signing a player he knows or has worked with is somehow seen as a lazy option .
No one complained when MO’N brought Neil Lennon from Leicester .
Hilariously incoherent rubbish, flatly contradictory in every way.
So Ange didn’t sign Kyogo, Hatate and Maeda based on his own knowledge, no? Or Aaron Mooy? It’s a coincidence, is it, that he just happened to work in a market we had never seriously entertained before?
What absolute bollocks, all of it. Anything to admit what every single one of us knows; that the hiring of Mark Lawwell was an utter disaster and one of many presided over by this board of tired old men who have been in place for far too long. And to blame Rodgers, as if he willingly weakened his own team when he has been out at EVERY press conference since practically BEGGING for a replacement player?
Now that’s what you call ballsy. It’s also insulting the intelligence of everyone on this site.
Does Kyogo have a wee brother ?
HH.
Thanks BURNLEY…
So it seems neither Dom Mackay nor Michael Nich had been CEOs before they got that title at Celtic. It’s quite a job to cut yer CEO teeth on (much like the manager’s gig!)
Mackay was a COO at the rugby and Michael was in-house Director of Legal and Football Affairs (but not deemed the first pick for the job despite being int he building for about 7 years prior).
David Pleat??? Brought in, it seems, to improve kerb-crawling techniques. Otherwise, talentless
I remember Ballsy and the Tired Old Men back in the days of the ole Burn’sssss Howfffffffff
– what a waste of time and money that was.
NAW ?
We have been in worse positions, the Supermarket Sweep trip yesterday is embarrassing, but the manager said he wanted a replacement in for Kyogo, Nicholson &Co have failed the manager.
While James Forrest makes a similar point to the one I made earlier re Ange’s recruitment of players he knew, it is a bit much for him to describe the OP as “Hilariously, incoherent rubbish”. That might be a more fitting description of the article he had up on The Celtic Blog last night and had to remove as readers questioned its coherence.
A bit of bed wetting in that article.
The manager asked for at least a winger and a forward with a left back sourced if we couldn’t persuade Arsenal to part with Tierney.
We lost a forward, bought a winger. We will now have to play Maeda as a vack up striker unless Kenny can come on and do a job. He looked lively up at Ross County a couple of weeks ago.
We lost a left back and sourced a, what we hope, is a temporary solution.
Regardless of how anyone wants to play this, the manager didn’t get what he asked for but yet again we’ve come out of a transfer window with a profit.
“Maybe it will all work out fine………..”.
Indeed, I sincerely hope it does. Early days, but what has just transpired plus signing an £11m project in the summer does not fill me with confidence.
Having said that, I agree “recruitment strategy has shifted”…………because it had to.
Change will always bring risk and uncertainty, but the “Yang window” rendered it untenable.
James Forrest – nice to see you posting. I enjoy your blog though don’t always agree with it, makes entertaining reading. Hopefully everyone remembers to play the ball and not the man today. Everyone entitled to voice their viewpoints. Some have agendas, some of us just ramble. Some of us, on reflection, take it all too seriously and forget to enjoy the journey. Happens to me a lot until I get a reality check and remember the football is supposed to be for fun.
Looking forward to seeing us run riot tomorrow. Maeda for a hat trick.
Hail, hail.
BADA BING
Imagine Brendan will not be available anytime soon for Celtic Media to explain what happened to “ all the work that was going on behind the scenes “ .
Glendalystonsils
Wee Landry RIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJqDN2OrTg
Two wants drive my consumption of CQN.
– to be informed
– pleasure
80% of the time it delivers both
95% of the time it delivers one or other
Informative and enjoyable leader Pablo.
In terms of recruitment strategy (how, by who) ..
… is this where the fault line lies?
Brendan deploying the traditional “the old guy has an eye for a player” approach?
It’s an impossible ask of course but I’d love to know what proportions the two ingredients into our recruitment strategy make up.
If it is
80% data & analytics AND
20% “this guy I know (who may also be me) has an eye or a nose for a player”?
I could probably live with that.
The relationship between the two – which feeds which more often – is also key, IMHO.
“ all the work that was going on behind the scenes “ .
What? Big Peter extending his heated driveway?
Anyway, Kyogo is history now…
Genuine question:-
When was the last time KT played a full 90 minutes ?
HH.
“.we tried right upto the last minute……”
I thought we had moved on from this stuff…
Aye, we might be forced to play a Japanese International Centre Forward, as a……. Centre Forward, jeez oh, why has that been allowed to happen??? :))) por cierto