Celtic’s preparations for the new season kick up a gear this week when they face Sporting at Estadio Algarve tonight, before facing Middlesborough at Celtic Park on Saturday. With so many players involved in the World Cup, work for the official kick-off has been restricted. There is only a friendly against Milan to come before Dundee’s visit a week on Monday.
My general rule of thumb is that good ‘results’ in preseason are unwelcome. Ange Postecoglou’s 2-6 hammering by West Ham five years ago was a welcome tonic in this respect. Kyogo, Jota, Carter-Vickers, Starfelt, Juranovic and Joe Hart would soon arrive to kick-start our current five-in-a-row run. I expect my rule of thumb will be facilitated by Sporting later. Maybe for the best.
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Wednesday eve!
Mon the argies when it lands.
Bashi-Bazouks @ 11:01 am,
Yes, your point is well made.
Back in the day the excellent poster SFtBs, would take my comments apart, I would retort and a dialogue often insued…
That to me was informed debate.
However, my strong opinion is, there are now, and have been for a while, posters with an agenda – the commerialism at Celtic PLC is increasing all the time and the re-investment in the club and teams are relatively decreasing all the time.
Despite what is otherwise intimated people do benefit, individuals wealth and income does increase as result of this.
The Celtic support are the hens that lay the golden eggs and those that profit from that want to insure the status quo remains.
A different more effective business model, that helps support and grow the club will not be considered.
It is up to the certain associates of the Board to come onto the forums as agitators – targetting anyone from teir one managers who want ambitious change to mild-mannered posters who can see the failings and anomolies.
“A good starting point though would be to have someone actually in charge of the model and having a rough draft of what the model is”
Once again you get to the heart of the matter…
As well as being spot on now, this was exactly the requirement a dozen years ago.
The “model” as such, with the fancy data analytics doesn’t exsist, it’s old school trading, that is why they are never difinitive about the model, it is why the recruitment approach constantly changes.
The Executive want to control all this themselves, despite not having the skillsets they became defacto Directors of Football and defacto Head of Recruitment.
It’s ma’ba’ mentality seeps right through the hierarchy…
If you make recruitment a “numbers game”, you don’t have to be good, you just have to lucky once or twice a season.
So you are spot on again…
““Over the last 10 (or 15 years), despite the huge and ridiculous churn of players, Celtic have one 3/4 of all trophy’s available and are considerably in the black moneywise – they would argue this is because they are trading effectively”
The actual money they trade with is “free money” from the Celtic support who queue up to give them it…
It’s not as if fholk in Glasgow say, you know the R2ngers are looking good this season, think I’ll swap my Celtic SB for one of their’s.
Or, do you know that R2ngers second strip is class – think I’ll give the Celtic anniversary one a miss a wear the R2ngers one.
Doesn’t happen does it?
As BSR points out Celtic are a generational thing, a connection much deeper than football never mind commercialism.
The “free money” pours in, they buy players in number, they sell an HVP, say what clever boys are we, then stash the money away in a PLC bank account.
Now, debating with the agitators is futile as they follow no facts, no reasoning just the agenda – if they can’t think of some nonsense to shore up their bogus arguement – yesterday’s lead a case in point, they will play the poster, get as low and nasty as they can.
So yes, it is like wrestling with a coalman and you do end up mawkit – but when they’ve got away with it in the past, it has held back our club and done untold damage.
Hail Hail
Is this game being streamed ?
It’s on Celtic TV CLIFTONCELT.
Good afternoon all from Arches Bar, Swords. Lovely day in County Dublin. 🍻🌞
A lot of good work getting done in preseason with a group of players who will bear little resemblance to our first competitive match day squad.
Youngsters who will be farmed out or sent back to the b team
Star players who will leave. Players who haven’t returned for the World Cup.
Players who won’t join till all remaining negotiating days have gone.
Some things we can’t control. A lot we can but choose not to. Our two biggest rivals in the Spfl have 7 or 8 new signings in for preseason tactics strategy familiarising etc etc. Exactly what preseason should be about. Whether any of their new signings woukd be good enough for us is not the point, it’s their strategy and outlook that sees a bigger benefit of preseason than going to the wire on deadline day
But hey it’s not our structure and strategy that’s at fault.
Have a good one BRRB.
The Arch Bar ffs 🙄
Aipple
Just 1?🤔
“My general rule of thumb is that good ‘results’ in preseason are unwelcome…”
You have a point, yet often a good preseason indicates an under-prepared squad.
Last season we were looking good in preseason until we went to Como and some decent opposition, that was an omen of what was to come.
Where as the year before we went to the USofA and had a good preseason, we hit ghe ground running and had an excellent few months up until New Year.
So I’m of the view we will see a much improved performance on Tolka Park and some green shoots of opTINism arise…
In Martin we trust…
Hail Hail
BRRB – Swords? I guess on your walk from the Saltmarket to the Brazen Head yesterday, you turned right at Sharkey’s and just kept going.
Coming sometime soon ,
Adidas elite : the Celtic Brian Wilson Executive Slippers Range, ( more in them than not )
Home and away versions in traditional Hoops or Plain Boardroom beige
only £67.00 👍
🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪
The Battered Bunnet
Caught the Ryanair 8.20 from Alfredos. 😂
The game will tell us nothing we don’t know already.
We need quality players. Same as it ever was.
Celtic…everything we do is world class…. PISH
‘A clubwill be formed for the maintenance of’
Shirt sponsor!!
Soundswrongcsc
HH
Remember Celtic TV is now Celtic Player – make sure you get your digital Celtic account, if you haven’t got one yet….
Hail Hail
An Tearmann
“A club shall be formed for the maintenance of the Shipbank Shipwrecks”.
Fixed that for ye.😉
Vietnam war era hippy or a Govanhill global warming type hippy?
Dippy hippy who can be nippy.
The Hippies Were Right!!
Hail Hail
“our current five-in-a-row run”
—————
Full throttle on this, is it?
Don’t recall it working out too well last time, but let’s go with it again – anything to keep those nasty European ambitions in check!
Anyway, our friends Across The City will be delighted that we are running with it and especially this early. Incredible that you can get so much out of something without even needing to put any effort into it. And they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch!
“My general rule of thumb is that good ‘results’ in preseason are unwelcome.”
Was not so of the 1966-67 per-season which forged our greatest ever team. 11 games played in USA and Canada – 8 wins, 3 draws and then 4-1 against Manchester United in Glasgow.
GlassTwoThirdsFull @ 12:37 pm,
Yes, if Celtic can’t be bothered making the effort to get mullions of UEFA money – there seems to be other clubs in Glasgow and Edinburgh that are willing to give it a pop…
Hail Hail
Hrvatski Jim – good point.
Preseason 87-88 sticks in my memory.
Celtic 1 Arsenal (at a canter) 5
Unlike you Paul I do not have a rule of thumb for these games
… beyond “the result is meaningless”
BTW – The Celtic Ange inherited was in a bad way.
McNeill turned that 1-5 around quickly.
Ange’s 2-6 took a lot longer to improve from
If the skelping by the luminaries that were West Ham United was a catalyst for getting good players in ?
Not a brilliant process but a brilliant outcome.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cy7370x2yp7o
They don’t even try to hide it any more.
£12m CB purchase last season.
Not a single game played for Spurs.
Sold for £46m
to the same club you paid £52m to for a CB
… a fortnight ago
Profits all round … on paper.
Only a few sections of the stadium open on Saturday, Middlesbrough will have more fans at it
Gentlemen, start your engines….
CHAIRBHOY on 14TH JULY 2026 12:03 PM
“The “model” as such, with the fancy data analytics doesn’t exsist, it’s old school trading, that is why they are never difinitive about the model, it is why the recruitment approach constantly changes.”
That is absolute guff.
You’ve had it explained to you three times by me alone, but you played dumb and told me you still didnt get it. Its clear and obvious if you want to understand it but you dont. You even claimed the board had a secret model and a public one.
Your model changes, not theirs.
Dont sign any development players.
Only sign”quality,” at their peak.
Dont sell our best players.
Dont look to make profit from player trading.
Dont use data analytics.
Don’t sign Kuhn.
Its all been there at some point.
Theres consistency in the model but you’re so desperate to show how it doesnt work first you argue against it, now you say it doesnt exist in a coherent form.
There’s been an argument on CQN about the model for years now, you’ve been one of the main protagonists, playing dumb and changing tack when it suits.
5 years ago we didn’t have diffident Mickey as CEO and square jaw McGraw as CFO. Also Despot wasn’t quite as embittered towards the support (even allowing for the COVID season protests).
On paper this shadow Celtic team should get skelped but games aren’t played on paper etc.
However, P67’s growing anxiety is valuable information.
Bought
🇨🇴Camilo Duran undisclosed fee
Sold
🇭🇳Luis Palma £3.5M
( well done got our money back )
🇯🇵Hayato Ianamura £1M
( very well done, big profit )
🏴Stephen Welsh ( nominal fee undisclosed )
Net spend, still nothing CSC
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL on 14TH JULY 2026 1:10 PM
Spurs signed Vuskovic when they were stockpiling young development players and spending a barrow load of money on them
They’ve pivoted, too late for Ange and Frank but they are now overpaying for players with the profile that Ange asked for. Players for now, not a couple of seasons time. They’ve signed two prem quality centre backs, they now have four top quality cbs in Romero, Van Der Venn, Senesi and Van Hecke. The Dutch starting centre backs, a World Cup winner, a really good centre back in Senesi. Dragusin has gone out on loan. Romero says he’s staying now. Vuskovic isnt getting near the first team anytime soon.
Vuskovic had an excellent season on loan at Hamburg, a lot of Spurs fans want him to stay. Very good data.
Brighton have a different model to Spurs now, they can sell Van Hecke who moves on to a bigger club and get a very highly rated very young player in return who fits their model and can be developed at their pace.
Everybody wins
Onion Bears, eh ?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20yqvrn0qvo
Cause trouble wherever they go.
BTW – 2 direct quotes from the Chief Constable below spoken just 6½ weeks apart.
One is about football.
The other is about organised crime.
Take a guess at which is which.
“Disorder, violence & thuggery is unchecked”
“a clear and obvious downturn in activity”
🤔🤔🤔
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself”.
Groucho Marx/BRRB.
I finally watched the Shelbourne game tonight and a few loaned-outs could be like new signings:
Balikwisha and Maik are actually real players so could bolster our ranks under some coaching encouragement. Paulo looks to have beefed up a bit; which could be good.
Alas, Shin still looks lost.
Of the kids, only the lad Ure looked promising in that runout.
KTF (tho I would not welcome a pre-season belting unless it was to scare the suits into, you know, signing some top kwality, 11th hour transfer windae pickups!)
PS: Thon Coldwater TV show wi Ewen Bremner was entertainingly weird !
Celtic40me @ 1:48pm – cheers.
I hear you but my point was these deals could have been done at £30m and £24m
… instead of £52m and £46m.
That they were not … and timed as they were to coincide with specific trading years …
(Van Hecke was signed right in the middle of the World Cup group stage ! )
.. was quite deliberate.
This shenanigans is nothing new
https://www.espn.co.uk/football/story/_/id/37584543/barcelona-swapping-arthur-pjanic-was-business-move-all-wrong-reasons
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c844482gpveo
BTW, on the data – I hear you but have doubts and suspicions.
Vuskovic “excelled” at Hamburg.
The same Hamburg who finished 13th in the Bundesliga, just a few places above relegation.
That Vuskovic won more aerial duals, against Sagittarians, weighing less than 75kg, every second wet Mittwoch?
Doesn’t, IMHO, turn £12m into £46m.
PS “Never trust a hippy” as young Master Rotten wanst warned us young punks ;)
I think this “strategy”, whatever it is, is now running out of road.
The buy later, or even later than that, or not buy at all, while selling your best assets has now been shown for what it is: a contrived strategy to make our league appear competitive.
The fans who support this ideology, I believe are now damaging Celtic every bit as much as the vocal discontent within the stadium.
How this naked greed from the Board is countered I do not know. We now seem to be in a situation where they are either punishing the fans for their disquiet or are wedded to the same philosophy that the stand in Chairman alluded to as being an error that had to rectified this season.
That there seems little ambition beyond domestic football from the Board is negligence. Why should fans buy tickets for European matches if the Board have no interest in it. If fact there seems only the bare minimum ambition domestically now. We all know Maeda wants to go and Engles also wants to leave. We have known this since January but seem to have done nothing to prepare for it.
Now we’ve heard the counter argument that the transfer market is fickle, and we all know this, however for one club to continually have the exact same difficulty window after window after window points to more than the unpredictability of the market.
Quadrophenian, agree re Coldwater, Ewan Bremner is brilliant in it!