The most striking aspect of our preseason games is just how synchronised everyone is. We look like a team in every sense of the word. Contrast that with the disjointed look we had at the start of last season, with then new manager Brendan Rodgers changing things around. Or worse, those early days of Ange Postecoglou, when we fielded a defence of Ralston, Welsh, Murray and Taylor in a Champions League qualifier.
Celtic will start the season on Sunday with a settled team and manager, and should make good headway early in the season as a result. There will no doubt be disruption before the end of August, though. Players will arrive into the first team, while none of us will be confident of keeping Matt O’Riley until the window closes. Stability never lasts long in football.
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Here’s a take from a Hun website on Bennetts interview today:
Points picked up on:
Stadium – Spouting shite for 10 minutes,
Losing 10.5 m a year pre-player trading wasting resources – unsustainable for the club
Board have backed each transfer window – board have backed 11.5m on permanent transfers this year (including Jan) excluding loan fees
Clement – All in on the job
Clement trading model – Recruiting for long term and short term
Clement stated this is a bigger rebuild than he expected in may
New CEO news soon
Whoops, apologies for the swearies
I’ve got this image of wee Kev telling Jock Stein who he should sign or he won’t invade the pitch again for a Hampden riot
SFTB
No chance he was there anyway. 😂
Interesting that he would use an update on the stadium building work to talk about an operating loss and how much they’ve already spent on transfers.
An exercise in expectation management with 5 weeks of the window left and just before they move to hampden for a while
I would imagine this isn’t just about this window, this is about cutting their wage bill and spending sensibly on transfers for a good few years.
To make them more attractive to potential sellers? You decide
Potential buyers
Rumour of 2 Italian clubs interested in idah. I’d be disappointed if we don’t get him in. His vital goals, his headers (attack and defence) and his hold up play. He know/loves the club and has more potential to improve.
Watch the last 10mins of the cup final. Rangers barely got a chance to respond, largely because of Adam Idah. He drew fouls on the halfway line with strong #9 play, he held the ball up on the right wing and left wing , he cleared corners with his head.
He’s precisely what we en been missing since giakamakis and idah is faster and more all round capable.
Get him in Celtic -deal ahould have been done weeks ago – now we will pay more if other clubs are interested. No brainer for me!
CELTIC40ME
Potential buyers? Maybe , but a skunk is only attractive to other skunks . I can’t ever see them being a straight and upright outfit . especially with the glib and shameless one forever lurking in the shadows .
Well Chairman Mao has just told the ugly mob,that no Legoland till end of September,but don’t take that seriously.Seeming ly there are another 2 ships delayed.Even they are not swallowing that.22 mins of pish,was the verdict.
Best of the replies
” Does he think we are stupid”
“Joe Biden made more sense”.
Stebhoy,
And how do you suggest we should have got Idah weeks ago.Really interested.
I thought I was pished when I seen high heid hun spouting that keech. Haud oan, I am pished.
skunks are just smelly badgers.
pepe le pue csc
I’d offer more than the 4m we offered. I’d offer less than the 8m they are asking. (If these reports are accurate). We paid more for eduard and idah has shown his ability. My opinion. Other suitors will result in Celtic having to pay more potentially.
bigrailroadblues on 29th July 2024 7:22 pm
Who is unfurling the flag at Paradise on Sunday? And don’t say craig whyte.
it is peter lawwell.
and they pulled the old flag from a drawer.
https://www.theflagshop.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1aa45e34d8351bef7860daeb50e7952c/g/r/green-yellow-union-main.jpg
bennetts speech was straight from the big book of administration for dummies.
chamions league or bust
GLENDALYSTONSILS on 29TH JULY 2024 8:00 PM
I think that’s got to be their plan
I think Bennet is trying to make them less toxic, less aggressive and a viable business. With the reliance on their support with their superiority complex it’s a high risk strategy, there has to be something behind it.
He will be worried for his and his families safety now, he doesn’t seem like the sort of guy who enjoys it.
I do think this is their last chance for a while, we’re miles ahead of them in every way, but they have a good manager who seems to understand what needs to be done and seems committed for now.
Big resets are all the rage at the moment, I think this is theirs
Hearing Norwich want £7.3 for Idah , won’t accept anything less .
lynott67 on 29th July 2024 8:46 pm
Hearing Norwich want £7.3 for Idah , won’t accept anything less .
i would not pay that, and i bet they do accept less once we get near the end f the window.
SS ,
Hope we get him too
I wouldn’t normally post this kind of stuff , however it was a good source close to the player .. I could be wrong .
Evening all.
I decided watch 20mins of that Hun promo. ( I know )
It amazed me how many times Bennett levered in the word ‘People’.
C40me
The whole interview from Bennett is on utube,.
Aspirations vs Caveats,saying plenty,filibusting to pass time.nowt definitive here, …sounds like a only an excuse skit
https://youtu.be/FNozPJ7HkaQ?si=J7EZKewqoNVERcv8
HH
If we got £4.3 million for Oh, £7.3 million for Idah is understandable…..£3 million plus Mikey Johnston might do it…..
SFtBs @ 4:20 PM,
The fact is, if it’s moneyball or “moneybags”, it’s the implementation that is all important.
You are completely aware the vast majority did not want Lenny back.
You are also well aware that having Big Pedro, a Chartered Accountant and financial controller as the de facto Director of Football was called out as a barmy situation.
Many, including myself predicted the car crash before it happened, and what’s more, you know they did.
Moneybags as you called it did not fail as a strategy
The failure came because of crap recruitment decisions
Let me give you an example that you agreed with at the time…
We should have gone with Toney instead of Ajeti
That’s not being wise after the event, you, me, and many others said that.
Hail Hail
Embdy seen Melbourne Mick?
this.
——————–
Peter Lawwell may be the pantomime villain for many Celtic fans, but his role in hauling the club clear of financial oblivion and towards continued trophy success is too often underplayed
By Hugh Macdonald
Published: 07:30, 28 July 2024 | Updated: 07:30, 28 July 2024
There was a sobering conclave after the tumultuous drama that had infused a season.
The meeting in a hotel room in Donetsk in October 2004 came just over a year after Celtic had reached the final of the UEFA Cup.
The mood was not congratulatory. Celtic’s power brokers Brian Quinn, chairman, Dermot Desmond, major shareholder, and Peter Lawwell, chief executive, had a conundrum to solve — and it had little to do with losing 3-0 to Shakhtar Donetsk in a Champions League tie.
The question was this: how had a massively lucrative 2002-03 season — that included the run to Seville with major broadcasting rights, given the team faced sides from Germany, England and Spain — ended with the club losing money?
It had just added to already substantial debt. How could this be addressed, and quickly?
The precise nature of the discussions and the decisions reached have never been formally publicised but one just has to examine what happened next to divine the conclusions reached.
If Celtic’s then model could not be sustainable — even with extraordinary achievement on foreign fields — how could the club go forward with a sense of viability?
Celtic embarked on a programme of living within its means, ending the wage structure that resembled that of top-level English clubs.
It was a defining moment. Fans have since regularly bemoaned that the club did not ‘kick on’ from Seville, did not back the manager, did not ‘invest in the future’.
In truth, Celtic were staring down the barrel of a solvency event if matters were not addressed.
The last 20 years have shown how successful the club has been in not only becoming one of the most admired operations in Europe in terms of the balance sheet but also enjoying a domestic dominance that is unprecedented.
Celtic have become the biggest club in the country in terms of season-ticket holders, merchandise revenue, blue-chip sponsorship deals and trophies won. They have money in the bank, wads of it. It carries a heavy influence in the Scottish game and, indeed, in the corridors of Europe.
It is a remarkable story but its hero is also its pantomime villain. Lawwell stands as the human pinata. Every ill is traced back to his door, every criticism is directed at his presence in the club.
As another transfer window unfolds, as another season prepares to launch, it is not difficult to find criticism of Lawwell online and in print. But surely there is a persuasive case to be made regarding his influence on an extraordinary era for the club?
The defence of the club chairman is easy to make, save for donning a helmet to protect oneself from the sharp rocks occasioned by an avalanche of criticism from his detractors.
First, there has to full disclosure. Any support for Lawwell is dismissed as being made by Peter’s Poodles, a designation given to some in the media. My admiration for Lawwell is not clouded by the fact that he is the man I fell out with most in my years working as a chief sports writer.
He defended Celtic aggressively. He pursued the club’s interest with energy and political savvy. We fell out. We fell in. There was always a wary respect on my side.
Second, there has to be the recognition that some criticism is not only valid but necessary.
Celtic is an important facet of many people’s lives. It stands for much more than football and it is right and proper that a board and its chief executive, now chairman, should be scrutinised carefully and with some asperity.
Thus the controversies over the Living Wage, the tension between income and expenditure on players, the dynamic of a ‘family club’ being a public company, all, and more, have to be part of any narrative. Lawwell’s popularity has ebbed and flowed on the tide of such issues. This is to be expected.
However, there is a narrative that is, frankly, preposterous. It has Lawwell over his years as chief executive as the man to blame when things went wrong, though not much ever did.
It now has the chairman, sitting presumably in a high-backed chair and stroking a white cat, dictating all that occurs in planet Celtic, perhaps beyond. If there was any truth in any of this, it has now disappeared. Lawwell’s role at Celtic is now largely as an administrator of due business diligence. The decisions that earn him much of the flak — who is sold for what and who is bought for what — are now not part of his remit.
This has already been made clear recently by a Celtic blogger with a solid history of club contacts and insider knowledge. It will be dismissed by some as pro-Lawwell propaganda. But it is still true.
Consider this. Brendan Rodgers is undoubtedly a Dermot Desmond appointment. The manager has the ear and carries the favour of the major shareholder.
Can one seriously suggest that Rodgers or, indeed chief executive Michael Nicholson has to wait for Lawwell’s approval of any deal? It is absurd to think so and betrays a lack of knowledge on how the club works.
Yet Lawwell and the truth of this assertion will be pilloried. The argument has moved beyond the reasonable.
There must be some sort of balance sheet compiled. Yes, on the debit side there have been downsides. European progress has stalled, but financial chasms can be cited.
Yes, issues over the Green Brigade have been handled clumsily. Recruitment has been a constant controversy, though it often goes unremarked that Celtic’s policy recently has produced a financial surplus, while delivering trophies, despite the regular incantation of disastrous windows.
Yes, the Living-Wage wrangle was unseemly and uncomfortable to those who view Celtic as more than a plc.
However, the upside of Lawwell’s tenure is astonishing. I use the term advisedly.
When he was a boy, living in a working-class home on the south side of Glasgow, he celebrated Celtic winning the title in 1966. It was only the second title Celtic had won since the cessation of hostilities in the Second World War. A year later he was standing in birthday tracksuit as the Lisbon Lions came home with the European Cup. This was glorious, joyous triumph.
But it signalled a transient era, not an enduring change in Scottish football. Celtic won nine consecutive championships but so did Rangers. Dundee United and Aberdeen also became the best teams in Scotland for a period.
The vista of the 21st century is completely different. Celtic have won 41 trophies in the new millennium. Lawwell has been at the club for 36 of them. One cannot blame him for ‘losing the 10’ without recognising his role in acquiring the 36.
Celtic are also financially successful. Some may snort at the importance of this, but one does not need to look far to see how the contrary can destroy a club. It is also pertinent to add that Celtic Park has been improved and Lennoxtown built under his watch.
Celtic are influential. At one time, the club were embroiled in continual battles with the domestic authorities. From Robert Kelly to Fergus McCann, the power brokers at Parkhead found much to anger them in the actions of the regulators.
Lawwell was similarly unamused at times but found a way to make Celtic’s case with a political subtlety that is at odds with his reputation as a bruiser.
Beyond these shores, his role as vice-chair of the European Club Association has given him a seat at the high table. There can be no doubt the club has benefited from that, not least in the preservation of a champion’s route to the lucrative group, now league, stages of the biggest club competition in the world.
He has also presided over the substantial growth of the Celtic Foundation. McCann was the driving force behind restoring the charitable aims of the club as a priority. Lawwell has pushed this on. It routinely raises and dispenses millions to the needy every year.
This is not to suggest that a campaign for canonisation is in order. Lawwell has argued and fallen out with many inside and outside of Celtic Park. He is not perfect but every decision made was in the best interests of Celtic. This has led to him being courted by Liverpool and Arsenal. He rejected both and stayed on at Parkhead.
The club stands firmly at the top of domestic football. They walk securely though the challenges of the game beyond these shores.
Celtic would not be in such a position without Peter Lawwell. This is surely inarguable.
It’s not moneyball, it’s completely different
i will say it again.
i was happy when neil lennon won the league and cup, and then got the job fulltime
Read Michael Lewis’s book about it, although the theory is long outdated
I’d recommend any book he’s written, he makes the complex simple and what might be boring very interesting
Moneyball, the Big Short about the 2008 banking crisis, Flash Boys and The Undoing Project are all excellent reads if you want to know more about smart people doing interesting things
TheLurkinTim, he was on yesterday.
He struggles getting past the adverts :(
His books make you realize that smart people look beyond the conventional for an answers complex problems. And have the courage to stick to their plans no matter how controversial or unpopular they are.
Distract with History….Betray the manager, con the Season Ticket holders
CELTIC40ME…
Yes, I think you find many are aware of Michael Lewis and how smart the guy is
In fact didn’t they make a filum about it!?
He came to my attention during the 2007 financial crisis, he predicted it with great accuracy, was often on Bloomberg TV
Gillian Tett who was a Financial Times journalist at the time also predicted it….
May be fholk aren’t as stupid as you make out
CQN was banging on about Micheal Lewis decades ago…
Now “moneyball” Celtic Glasgow variety
I’ve never been against it, even now we could buy two “moneyball” players every window, thanks to big Pedro we have the cash to speculate
As long as the player recruitment is fit for purpose why not indulge in a bit of moneyball
We have Scouts and Coaches with an ‘eye for a player”, we have a first class player development set up now, so yes, a couple of moneyball guys every window
As long as we can get the Kyogo’s and Kasper’s in an awe…
Hail Hail
THELURKINTIM @ 10:05 PM,
Good to see you back:)))
Hail Hail
I did not want Toney over Ajeti
Toney was 24, had only played in the third tier of English football and had no age-group caps for England. Northampton town, Barnsley, Scubthorp, Wigan and Northampton Town.
Ajeti had been top scorer in the Swiss Super League and had ten caps for Switzerland. 3 goals in European competition
Hindsight has shown it to be a poor decision but at the time Ajeti was the better choice for me.
This ignores that it wasn’t necessarily one of the other, the story goes that we didn’t sign Tibet because we didn’t sell Edouard as planned.
And who knows for his long he would have got away with betting against his team at Celtic
Toney instead of Ajeti is a component of the recruitment not the strategy itself. Both Abet and Toney were expensive buys. My reference for Toney was his pedigree not his price tag.
The main point you sidestepped is that the spend levels a player retainment you and others asked for was granted that year AND it was not a success. You pin a lot of blame on Lenny and he had a bad season but so did all of our big buys and big retained players. If it was the no-brainer everyone said it was- it should have been able to resist Lenny’s leadership and still deliver success.
But we lost.
By 25 points
Where was the vindication of your desired strategy?
I remember the last time the fanbase were happy about recruitment before 2020/21 and that was probably the Mowbray season when we recruited Robbie Keane at great expense. Robbie delivered all we asked of him but we still got worse and worse. A really bad season of ref decisions account for a bit of this failure but it shows again that it is smart use of money not just spending it that works.
Now all we have to do is define what buys are smart and which aren’t and I’m not sure either of us is too expert there. I have confessed several times that I thought Jim Melrose would do a better job for us than that McClair fella. I remain humbled by my idiocy in this field.
CHAIRBHOY on 29TH JULY 2024 10:06 PM
It’s not moneyball, though, even if you put it in inverted commas. It’s nothing like it
“Hi Adam. We’re two Italian teams. Do you want to play for us?”
“No thanks”
“Hi Celtic. We’re English clubs who want to buy Matt O’Riley. Would you like to sell him for £X”
“No thanks”
“Hi Celtic. We’re English clubs who want to buy Reo Hatate. Would you like to sell him for £X”
“No thanks”