When rumours of Carl Starfelt going to Russia first surfaced last week few of us believed them. Russia? Not right now. But we all had the debate, would you sell him? He has been part of an incredibly successful Celtic central defensive partnership: won five from six trophies, never lost a domestic game in 90 minutes, plays on the left, the list goes on.
But you know the mantra, manage your assets or fail to manage your assets. We should always be ready to trade a 28-year-old player who is second of two central defenders. You and I have seen too often the consequences of failing to manage our assets.
We are now first and foremost a trading club. Wish Carl all the very best at Celta Vigo and trade up.
Given this article of faith in how business should be done, the only remaining question is price. Despite that glorious record in the last two years, Carl’s value ceiling has been set by performances when hundreds of scouts watched games he played in throughout his career.
Like Josip Juranovic in this sense, keeping the likes of Naymar in your pocket at the World Cup will not move the dial much. We paid £1.5m two years ago for the player because Rubin Kazan had no other takers. £5m today is very much his ceiling.
We hear lots about how difficult it is to settle into a new club, few had as difficult a challenge as Carl joining Celtic. He signed during a 2021 lockdown but was not permitted to travel to Scotland until 31 July that year – the day Celtic were due to play their opening league game against Hearts at Tynecastle and Ange Postecoglou wanted him in the team.
To stay the right side of the law (we are Celtic, after all), on 30 July Carl and a driver sat at a service station south of the border until midnight. The driver took a photo of Carl, with metadata confirming location and time, before travelling to Celtic’s hotel.
He arrived in the early hours, had some sleep before rising to meet his new teammates at breakfast. On 31 July he travelled from Southwaite, met dozens of new faces, a new manager, new tactics, all in a new country. He played 90 minutes and offered no excuses for his rustiness, just got on with the job. Quite heroic.
Tonight it’s the turn of Hibs and Hearts to try to contribute some Uefa coefficient points to the Scottish clubs’ cause in the Uefa Conference League.
Hearts are in Trondheim to face Rosenborg. The Norwegians are 18 games into their league season so will be miles sharper than Hearts, but this is not the Rosenborg we remember. They are eight in the table; memories of 13 titles in a row and regular Champions League football are a fading memory.
Hearts are capable of progressing to the playoff round, where they would face either Hajduk Split or PAOK. They can be hopeful.
Hibs are home to Luzern tonight, who finished fourth in Switzerland last term. Swiss football is now a toy thing for Young Boys, so this tie is certainly winnable, but Hibs will surely Hibs it, denying Aston Villa a trip to the Festival later this month.
The additional Champions League monies we talked about yesterday looked in jeopardy 20 minutes into a scintillating performance by Newco last night. Around that time, the scintillating part ended as a dour Servette settled in for the night.
Having sat through the whole game, I feel a bit foolish for putting our league title chances as low as 67% on Friday. Newco have a lead to take to Switzerland on Tuesday, there remains every chance they will progress against a team that did not create a single chance in the first leg and will need to score at least once to stay in the competition. But goodness, the early signs from across the city are heartening.
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Forget about europe this year……….
Can’t remember which interview Rodgers said that this team was not a continuation
It is a new team, with a different style
But am sure he said it
We are in year 1
This is building and assessing
Yes we have lots of cash
I very much doubt it will get spent till atleast the new years transfer season
And more likely next summer
This year is ALL about the league
Europe is an after thought
Yes, we would like to do well
But I don’t belive its the priority
Build a new team
Create systems (note not just one system)
Develop players and move on those that won’t
Assess is this years motto
SFtBs @ 5:15 PM,
There is no mystery to the John McGinn deal, we know what happened, the Board’s greed screwed the deal up – they were prepared to blacken the managers name and the players name instead of
admitting their culpability they acted totally unprofessionally.
Turning to the topic of McGinn, Rodgers admits not completing a deal for the Hibs midfielder “left the door open” for Aston Villa to show an interest.
“He is a player that we clearly wanted to bring here,” he said Rodgers. “I was really interested in bringing him in from a few months back.
“We haven’t been able to complete a deal and of course when you don’t complete a deal on a player it always opens the door for other teams – a club like Aston Villa, who have clearly interest in him, who have a big history of their own, a great club with excellent facilities and now financial backing.
“So we have to wait and see on that one.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/sport/football/45102192.amp
In fact we seen that “blackening” turning into “character assassination” when BR and staff left – most of us will remember and you and I debated the revelations that came out
A freelance journalist had the exclusive on BR leaving, then an exclusive on Neil Lennon coming back as caretaker.
The ex-“Celtic View” journalist was scathing about the midnight flit – Brendan was secretly tapping up Celtic’s backroom staff, referring to him as fraudgers, no one knew he was going.
Of course no direct quotes from Celtic but she was right in her exclusive about BR going and she was right in her exclusive about Neil Lennon coming so her source was at Celtic Park
The whole of timternet was full of what Fraudgers the Rat was up to.
That story has an
UPDATE
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17459237.brendan-rodgers-leaves-celtic-leicester-city/
Quite tame really, quite an “edit”, think the newspapers* and her lawyers did the smart thing, liable can be very costly.
*Several Newspapers run with her exclusives
Sevco’s speculative approach is constant- how is it working out for them?
Well, not that I’d recommend their approach but they won the Scottish Cup, The League, got into the final of the Europa Cup, got into the UCL group stage, guaranteed themselves European football group stage football this season and managed to get out of their FSR bind.
The idea that Neil Lennon got more financial backing than Brendan does not stand up to scrutiny
Yes but it does stand up to financial reality.
I am not sure if we even have a shared understanding of the term “inside forward” as I think the term has dropped out of use for a long time. In their time at Celtic- Abada and Maeda have been wingers…
Yes, I wasn’t denying the fact we have a lot of wingers, you can hardly blame BR for that, he hasn’t bought any of them.
He has said he’ll assess the players and everyone will get a chance, in fact his last press conference he indicated that this process is more or less over and he’d talked to the players.
His frustration seemed to come from players appearing, seemingly from nowhere, when players he wanted were lost.
Current example, when the Board were supposedly closing the JMcG deal, they were actually contacted the other side of the planet (literally) to bring in “winger” Daniel Arzani
I am betting 2 tops
Good points, Brendan has already turned down China and Saudi Arabia though
We’ll see…
Hail Hail
Hearts 1 down👍
WESTCRAIGS on 10TH AUGUST 2023 4:04 PM
Has anyone watched the recent Charlie Nicholas interview on the BBC? Charlie told the same tale in an article in the Evening Times 30 years ago.
Desmond White wrote the playbook on how to get rid of successful and popular players and managers and make sure that they were the villains of the piece. The Celtic support turned on Charlie. If the internet had been around in 1983 charlie would have been snake eyes and rat face. Charlie would have been a judas and a traitor.
*hmmm Charlie the spoofer, well the much loved Davie Hay once said that for all his alleged faults Desmond White always had Celtic’s interest at heart.
TEXASTIM re: Guilt
I use Protonmail for my email and it comes with a free built in, rock solid VPN. Pop it to UK and iPlayer is your uncle.
Aipple
Never knew that RE protonmail
I use Private Internet Access, which appears to be getting slower year on year
What does everyone else use?
AIPPLE on 10TH AUGUST 2023 5:11 PM
SAINTS STIVS re: Guilt
Finished Season 2 last night, did not disappoint.
—————
Sorry to disappoint Aipple, but series 3 is nowhere near as good as 1 & 2. Is watchable, but didn’t do the first two series justice imho.
!!BADA BING!! on 10TH AUGUST 2023 6:16 PM
Hearts 1 down👍
—————
Doh! Was going to head into town and out a double on them and Hibs both to lose, but couldn’t be arsed in this heat! 😳😣
They are both rank in Europe. Occasion seems to get to them.
THE EXILED TIM on 10TH AUGUST 2023 4:36 PM
If Carl has moved to be closer to his lady friend he sure has made a total bollix of it, Glasgow to Lisbon would be quicker by plane than Vigo to Lisbon, it’s less than 400 K by car, but it takes a few hours
A nice part of the world k
Has it got any cooler bout the cave area?
HH
Before anyone asks, I barred myself from online betting.
Too easy to lose a lot!
Doesn’t feel like money when it’s just numbers on your phone. 😂👍
2-0 rosenberg
THE EXILED TIM
I saw the Evening Times article and it was way off the mark.
Yes it may be circa 400k from Vigo to Lisbon, but Carl and Jacynta could obviously live at some halfway point in between. There is a good road down the coast and they do have excellent cars in that part of the world. The article implied that air travel was the only way to commute.
If ,as Paul suggests , Rosenborg are a shadow of their former selves , it’s maybe just as well for the jam farts .
Saint Stivs at 4:57pm
Reasonable response. Cheers.
“modern day professional player”.
Yip. Agreed. That’s what he is.
I get the impression some of the angst around this non signing arises from the perception McGinn was “one of our own who got away”
Not for me.
I honestly feel zero connection, empathy, affinity for this guy.
IMHO, if he was a Celtic fan, he’d be a Celtic player.
He ain’t either.
The noise about this … FIVE years later … is bewildering to me.
CHAIRBHOY @ 5:18 PM
You do know tapping up is illegal?
———-
Lol.
Indeed.
As does every club.
Which is why no club directly contacts under-contract players with more than six months left on their contract.
Doesn’t stop a player’s agent talking to an agent who does some work for a particular club sometimes.
🤔🤔🤔🤔
AT
Inside the cave is Ok, but it’s too hot outside, sucks the life out of you as they say, in saying that it’s actually cooler than it was when we first came here, the age thing as a lot to do with things, the North of Spain would have been a better choice in hindsight, but like an ejit I chose the wrong area.
…………………….
Tom
Didn’t read it there, no matter it’s virtually a 4 hour drive between Vigo and Lisbon, if they are happy with a couple of hours commute daily, fine, they might even split up, who knows.
Embarrassingly low crowd at Easter Road.
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 10TH AUGUST 2023 4:41 PM
A fine response :-))
Caught Reporting Scotland during dinner two nights running.
Last night’s report stated Sevco were involved in the “Champions League”.
Tonight, Hearts and Hibs are playing in “qualifiers”.
Perhaps a different editorial team tonight.
Then again, perhaps not.
TOM MCLAUGHLIN on 10TH AUGUST 2023 7:34 PM
Embarrassingly low crowd at Easter Road.
Reporting Scotland indicated 14,000. I`m guessing that is not the case?
Anyway, I am just about to add to the viewing figures.
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL on 10TH AUGUST 2023 7:36 PM
I think the BBC is getting worse. Anything to do with our banning of them?
TOM MCLAUGHLIN @ 7:09 PM
“I saw the Evening Times article and it was way off the mark”
—–
Tom, I doubt a more factually accurate statement will ever be posted on here.
hohn mvginn is on one ofe the sports channels now, my story.
really good watch,
tales of hating playing against his brothers, neil lennon going on at him, so far …..
Looks like Aberdeen heading back to Gothenburg in two weeks. Hacken 3-1 up after away leg in Vilnius.
B2B
IMHO, if he was a Celtic fan, he’d be a Celtic player.
He ain’t either.
The noise about this … FIVE years later … is bewildering to me.
================
Agreed
And never saw it put as succinctly as that
Well played and time to move on
tnt sports 2
snd he never says old firm it is celtic rangers
HS – honestly?
I doubt it.
BBC Sport Scotland has been an editorial and leadership basket case for a decade.
IMHO, more likely a symptom of the SMSM’s incessant stretching of reality when it comes to Sevco.
I didn’t watch a single minute of the game last night …. but I saw a BBC trailer the night before.
Bizarre doesn’t begin to describe it.
Oh, BTW, I saw two minutes of the pre-match piffle.
Alan Hutton mentioned “the gap” twice in fairly quick succession.
gow did you ebd up at aston villa ? “a good agent”
Honest John McGinn, great interview.
He is no Neil Docherty McCann
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL @ 7:32 PM,
The point being the world and his wife knew John McGinn was wanting to go to Celtic and Rod Petrie was having none of it.
He was selling the player in the 2018 summer transfer window.
Of course, he could have done an Mbappe and refused to go anywhere and allowed his contract to run down.
No way would Rod Petrie allow him to go for a song in January 2019, so it would be the summer 2019.
Yet the fact is, Hibs, Brendan Rodgers and John McGinn thought it was a done deal in June 2018.
There were various opinions on why the Celtic Board scuppered the deal…
– They had pulled the carpet on BR and were refusing to buy him ANY players (the China crisis theory)
– Peter Lawwell and Rod Petrie had an intense dislike for each other and PL refused to be “held to ransom”.
– The Celtic Board thought they’d get JMcG on a pre-contract cheaply in January, when they realised he was going to AV, they offered Hibs more money, too little, too late.
At the end of the day it showed how Scottish football in general and Celtic in particular were were screwed up at executive level. More to do with the Institute of Chartered Accountants than football I’d suggest.
We have moved on now and we have a grown up Accountant as CEO.
Hail Hail
5 years ago……
Still atleast starlord aint getting abuse…
Oh wait
Apparantly he moved to be closer to his burd (who 400km away lol)
Lol
No Abuse for the Starlord from me, all I said was that he made a bollix of things if he thinks he will be closer time wise, we all make mistakes.
Guessing that there might be an airport in or near Vigo?……
Not only 400km but a different time zone
It’s 2023 not 1923
There is, but no direct flights to Lisbon, stop over in Madrid.