One year ago, we dared hope for an invincible treble but it seemed impossible, even the greats never achieved it. The Lions lost home and away to Dundee United in season 1966-67, while we achieved the treble on only two other occasions. When Tom Rogic dinked a 90th minute winner in the Scottish Cup final you and I knew the level of achievement.
At that point, 2017 went down in our history as a year bettered only by 1967. 2003 came close, but season 2002-03 is remembered fondly for its endearing frailties. Celtic were simply peerless as they secured the club’s fourth treble.
With half of season 2017-18 complete, the first leg of what would be an unprecedented second successive treble is complete, but signs are clear that this team peaked some months ago, despite qualification for the Europa League knockout rounds.
Aware of the exceptional (from a Scottish perspective) demands on his players of completing in every round of cup competitions, a dozen European games and international football, Brendan Rodgers has rotated his squad this season more than any previous Celtic manager. While this was doubtlessly the correct action, performances inevitably took a hit when our two exceptional and experience strikers were watching from the side-lines. In football, you often need to take a backwards step to make long-term gains.
This didn’t really bothered me. I liked watching Odsonne Edouard, Anthony Ralston and Calvin Miller. Being able to win the league while developing talent in this manner is one of the few benefits of being stuck in a small league.
Ultimately, even our top performers struggled to raise their game. Defeat eventually arrived, a timely signpost for the club as they plan ahead.
You and I have studied the structure of the club for many years. We have never known it to be as stable. Income last season topped £90m, the first time it reached this level, and with a fair wind, it could reach nine figures this season.
These riches come with fresh risks. Wage levels have rocketed in line with performances. We can afford our current operating levels – and can even afford an occasional reversal in the Champions League qualifiers, but there is a misalignment at the heart of what we are doing.
In his opening transfer window, Brendan added Moussa Dembele (who was already on the Ronny Deila target list) and Scott Sinclair. Both made a phenomenal contribution to the success which followed. This season, with Scott struggling to recapture his earlier form and Moussa hampered by injury, the big contributions have come from players who were at the club under the Ronny regime. Indeed, of the Celtic team which ended the year, only Olivier Ntcham was a Brendan Rodgers signing.
What we have added since the summer of 2016 is management expertise. Brendan took Ronny’s squad to levels none of us thought possible, but only two of his signings are automatic first-choice.
This is not necessarily against plan. When you sign French youth internationals like Ntcham and Edouard you do not expect them to immediately displace more experienced players. Players do not mature at the same rate – Kieran Tierney got their earlier than Kenny Dalglish, so if the plan is to recruit the best French and Scottish youth talent, patience will be required.
Notwithstanding this, Brendan will want to have more of his own signings grabbing starting slots in the big games. The players who were there under Ronny have made Herculean progress, but that invincible treble was their high point.
On that front, Lee Congerton joined in March as chief scout, a few months after the phenomenally successful John Park era ended. Scouting is as much about relationships as judgement and the environment is not conducive to friendship-making. Park’s job became increasingly difficult, despite his encyclopaedic knowledge of players sound judgement. Over his tenure, the Celtic proposition became comparatively less attractive.
The mere fact that Brendan Rodgers is manager changed this. Moussa didn’t sign for Ronny in January 2016 but put pen to paper for Brendan six months later. It is the job of Lee Congerton to make the most of the Celtic proposition, Brendan Rodgers and Champions League football to deliver players that can push us further in the Champions League.
Nothing of significance has changed in our chances of escaping our playing environment. We will remain in Scotland until at least the bubble inflating football incomes elsewhere bursts, most significantly of all in England. Within months the next England and Wales Premier League TV rights auction will conclude.
Premier League audiences have dwindled since the last rights were issued but Sky TV’s entire existence is predicated on winning a significant portion of these rights. The Premier League is trying to attract bids from Amazon and Facebook, so it is possible rights values could increase despite falling audience figures. But we can hope.
Until then, our role in the world is to dominate the life out of our domestic rivals, qualify for the Champions League and continue to add to the unique story of Celtic.
I loved every minute of being a Celtic supporter in 2017. It was thrilling, captivating and inspiring. Whatever it brings, your club will be an exciting place over the next 12 months. Enjoy it.
Take care and thank you for all your support. I hope you each have a Happy New Year and healthy 2018.
NEW CQN PODCAST OUT NOW! CHRISTMAS JUMPERS FOR GOALPOSTS
Paul John Dykes and Kevin Graham are joined by Celtic authors, Stephen Sullivan and Stevie Murray for a special festive episode – Christmas Jumpers for Goal-Posts.
Stephen Sullivan is a former Celtic View reporter who wrote the much-lauded Sean Fallon biography, ‘Iron Man’. He is now the editor of FIFA.com.
Stevie Murray has now written two books on Celtic – ‘Ten Men Won The League’ and ‘Kenny of the Celtic’ – and he is a respected and authoritative voice on the club.
Treat yourself to a signed copy of Jim Craig – Right Back to 67 and you will receive a copy of That Season on Paradise signed by Bertie Auld, just order the Jim Craig book at CQNbookstore.co.uk and we’ll do the rest…
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Is it time to set up a “booing section”
Can i suggest allocating around 30 or so places in the centre of the standing section. Their boo’s would be drowned out, and i suspect they’d very quickly become the “boo-hooing” section.
Never in 50 years boo’d a Celtic player. Not even when they come back with another club.
BB- Ditto HH
Ipswich 11/2 v Fulham…..mmm
BATEEN BHOY on 2ND JANUARY 2018 6:25 PM
Not even la petite merde?
IKI
VG :-)
HH
SA YA FP ( expletive )
U ANAW SS
JF YA W W ( expletive )
DB You’re a BS ( cliche )
answers by email to Paul67@celticquicknews
SID1888 on 2ND JANUARY 2018 6:47 PM
BATEEN BHOY on 2ND JANUARY 2018 6:25 PM
Not even la petite merde?
Made me laugh there :) , never uttered his name since…
BB
Tom Rogic’s replacement?
Me neither BB, he has been LPM or Judas to me ever since, a vile creature
Tommy ( Tid ) Callaghan went from Celtic to Clydebank FC ( what happened to them? ) and then on to manage Galway Rovers in 1978 /1979
@wiki
still see him supporting the Hoops on most match days
the day of Kings…….
off for my tea
BSR- I think Christie will replace either Rogic , or Armstrong , who i have heard might extend his contract.The boy Morgan is similar to these Bhoys, very promising prospects, but i’m guessing BR looking for a couple of established guys soon.HH
Pair of strikers for season 2018
BSR- Been saying for ages we need 2 up top…
Phil is up on the board room crisis at the bigotdome, in fighting :0)
BADA
Team 2
PRESTONPANS BHOYS on 2ND JANUARY 2018 7:15 PM
Ah wish …….but dont believe
H
BSR – Team 2 will have our support …
PB- had info from a good Bhoy on here that the huns are revolting…..Frankie Howerd CSC, trying to bin The Lying King….
First Celtic player I heard booed was Willie McStay. Was at Tannadice, a midweek game if the memory serves me right. After all that family have given to Glasgow Celtic.
Some supporters act shamefully.
Strangely enough I’m sure I saw Willie on the concourse under the Celtic end on Saturday.
Just read Phil , if true who called the meeting with Regan, Sevco or Regan, I will go for Sevco, wont get my hopes up, even if they liquidated they would be facilitated back into the top league by the end of the week. Sevco II or whatever more remakes than Jaws
Big cup winners
I have a complete goon behind me , whom I now blank out, he’s not to the point of booing but everything else is total negative. This guy would have criticised the Lisbon Lions, at the final………
The suggestion has been that Morgan will go back to St Mirren next season if they get promoted and Jack Ross is still there. Rogic i think is 50/50 to stay or go. It will depend on the offers he gets from elsewhere. It’s a big ask for Christie to fill his boots, i think Ryan will be back and heavily involved in domestic football at least. Hayes will have a part to play too next season.
At the end of this window things will be a lot clearer. I actually think Moussa will still be here, purely down to the fact the offers wont come in. Armstrong will probably stay too. Jozo and Erik are the ones most likely to go. Boyata will be off in the summer i think.
I think Brendan will go with a preferred defensive pair of Compper and Boyata. Ralston has a big chance to force his way in to the starting 11, offering an injured player a 4.5 year deal suggests that is the plan sooner rather than later.
Brendans no1 targets in this window will be no’s 7/10/11 type players imo, to come in and make an impact now and to be ready for the CL qualifiers.
I wonder if Ajer could play in front of Compper and Boyata as a defensive midfielder. Kris seems to have all the tools with the exception of defending cross balls. He is a midfielder to trade i think.
BOURNESOUPRECIPE on 2ND JANUARY 2018 7:10 PM
That’s what we need, strikers who can bust the net, to cheers of ‘bra-vo!’
Bound to be better than some of the udder strikers we’ve signed.
Bada
Even the DR have been critical of the lying King!
BCW- Willie stays not far from me, chat to him regular, a great guy and a great family.He works at Lennoxtown, i think his role is to try and develop the guys about 16/17 , and keep them on the straight and narrow, he has told me stories of Brendan reaching out to staff , who are in the canteen, security, HR , office staff etc, an exceptional.man.HH
Scottish mainstream media welcomes 2018 because it couldn’t be any worse than hosting an invincible Celtic run ( to match our first under ‘now Willie Maley was his name’ ) or could it?
Jim Spence reporting on radio from ‘the Brechin hedge’ and Only an Excuse’s dictionary for Sevcs with the meaning of Liquidation a rare Hogmanay TV highlight for Timdom .
BBC Sport hit back for Sevco with MEGA coverage of the Scottish Cup and loan deals for the Debt dome? ( or the Loan Dome? ) mibbees it’s the new champions of Sevconia, Cup?, given the new digitally enhanced and re orange mastered full coverage compared with the condensed fake news of consecutive trebles?
Fraserburgh up next with our Glasgow Giants ( or yon teams deid © LG ) Scaled down dependent on how ‘the draw’ progresses, but on a high is the Evening Times anyway with DVD’s of the Sevco w̶i̶n̶ draw since Celtic started the regression a quarter of the way into our invincible run, ages ago.
Ssssshhhhh …….don’t mention ‘biscuit tins’ or they’ll continue with this pesky Timmy regression, we are inclined to call the perpetual G.O.D
More Popcorn CSC
PB- the L5 brown envelopes have disappeared possibly? But the inbred monkeys in the SMSM would do it for free anyway HH
the only former celtic player id boo and feckin boo loudly a, certain mr johnson, once a hun always a hun.
Bada
I’m 95% sure it was him. Thought it a wee bit strange him being in the concourse.
Right enough, last time I saw his brother was on the Gallowgate near the forge roundabout, unnoticed by the support…. It was the Larsson benefit match against Sevilla.
Paul had a teenager with him in the Hoops, LARSSON, emblazoned on it.
Made me smile.
alaskan bush people reminds me of the business management of sevco
Pitch close to unplayable at Swansea ….
Nobody ever booed Kenny Miller??????..
BCW- Probably his Bhoy? That makes us feel old….laat time i seen Paul was when i was ar my car off Springy Rd after a game, Paul was rushing to his car, if he asked for a parking space at CP , he would get it i’n sure.seema MON said a coaching job was his, Kenny McDowell got it …..Paul walked away from Celtic after that.
Prestonpans Bhoy
I know pal, they spoil the match sometimes.
I’ve got 2 or 3 immediately behind me who voice their perils of wisdom throughout. One guy just repeats the same mantra “go forward”, “go forward”. Puerile but hardly offensive.
There’s one largish dude, who has the same high pitch squawk of BFSDJ. He can be heard from a full section away and what is clear it is foul abuse of Celtic players.
okay quiz question and before anyone says i dont believe you gods truth, mid 60s st josephs boys guild play a knockabout game with ramoan school non catholic dont like to use the words orange bassas, in the ramoan line up a mr drew jarvie anyone remember him it was my job to mark him first tackle he nearly broke my leg not maliciously just the guy was a good playe,r anyway heres the question in my team was a former manchester united and scotland player who was it.
Willie Morgan?
Does anybody have a link to Phil’s latest piece about meeting between Regan and them, or what the gist of it is?
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!