It was Brugge who showed the way in our Champions League game in November last year. They pressed Celtic in the middle third which was enough to inhibit our ability to progress the ball into advanced areas. Other managers watched.
Five weeks later, Phillippe Clement copied these tactics in a 3-0 win over Celtic at Ibrox. Barry Ferguson followed this up in March, winning at Celtic Park, then again in a draw at Ibrox. Already-eliminated Young Boys came to Celtic Park, went man-for-man in the middle and lost to a late own-goal.
We watched the same show in the Scottish Cup Final in May: 120 minutes of midfield suffocation before a penalty loss to weaker opposition. It was no different over 210 painful minutes against Kairat. Yesterday’s failure to land a glove on the most nervous defenders in Scottish football follows a well-established pattern. Russell Martin changed every tactic he has used in Glasgow and reverted to the play we all know succeeds against Celtic.
Games with against lesser sides and without Kyogo, Jota and Kuhn have floundered in the middle of the park. We seem to be focussed on adding attacking options today. This is necessary but attacking players are blunt if you cannot break a soft press in the middle of the park.
We got draws at Ibrox, against Kairat and in the Cup Final because we can defend well – Liam Scales was well worth his Man of the Match accolade. That will probably be enough to win the league while Newco beat themselves and the Hearts project is too new. But we are at a tactical cul-de-sac. Chris Davies did more than put the cones out.
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There’s been a lot of talk of how the players react to mention of squad strengthening etc. I’m not sure to what level posters on here have played football, though Stan Collymore recently posted to re his team, Villa. The words seem to apply here also
“In my experience when you go back to pre season and see 2 or 3 incomings, you’re like ” great, we’re much stronger”. Everything looks and feels slightly different because of new quality faces.
I guarantee that the seniors in the dressing room are thinking ” we’re weaker than we were but expected to be among the top 5 or 6 again? No chance!”, and that’s how it starts.
Then a couple of well liked players move on and discontent grows. Then one or two more start thinking about a change of scenery themselves and before you know it, the magic in the air, the spring in the step disappears.
That’s where we’re at.
And if Unai isn’t given the rebuild he wants, and his two trusty guys aren’t delivering for him, then this time next year we’ll be looking for a new manager too because others will want him in England, Italy and Spain.
So start the process now, it’s not about having money, we’ve got as much as anyone needs to compete with the owners, it’s now how much we bring in, how much we can create ( gems, homegrown and sales) and whether we can build a team to compete at last seasons levels in double quick time.
I believe we can but only if we start now. The rot has set in, it happens at most clubs, successful ones clear it away quickly.
Can we? That’s the question”
My opinion? Shambles of a window and we need to correct what went wrong. Starting today. Root and branch review. Removal of anyone who was asleep at the wheel.
5 hours tossing and turning my anger hasn’t abated much.
I wonder if celtic will release a statement apologising for this utter farce. Scrambling about in the last few hours to be gazumped by Charlton. How embarrassing is that .( world class)
It’s fkg boring now
Just waiting on BR getting the blame
I cannot recall a worse transfer window. A complete shambles. So demoralized for the upcoming season and September has only just started. Thank goodness I emigrated from Newcastle to Tokyo.
Amen! Ave Ave
https://youtu.be/VLR7s8Rq7Dw?si=XsXDahiHZWEXMANo
Just a £20 million profit from transfers then (roughly) who needs CL eh ….Shin and Johnny Kenny though ….deary fjg me
In any organisation with accountability, our CEO would be resigning today.
Any professional CEO with integrity, would be resigning today.
Michael Nicholson should be gone before lunch.
Lonely Woods Of Upton
https://youtu.be/-M3iL_f6Bhw?si=dA1bRuN5SrKS_9cO
I don’t know what Dominic McKay was fired for but it can’t have been as remotely as bad as this.
Asleep at the wheel……..car crash.
We await the puppet masters’ message with baited breath.
McKay was fired for giving James McCarthy a four year, £20,000+ per week deal when he was never fit.
Are we all concerned yet ?
Another belter of a window. Anyone surprised?
An Dún
And what about the chairman?
His transfer window spin still hangs over the club.
“…to come out of every transfer window stronger than we went in.”
What a feckin sick joke that is.
Is it safe yet 😳Not winning trophies for decades is killing me. No seriously, terrible CL, hugely underwhelming transfer window, rudderless team, it is shit and not what we wanted or expected.
What’s worse to me is watching the Timternet turning green hun. When did we become them. Hard read on here when posters tackle the player, and turn on each other. As humans just don’t. Enough mental health issues out there.
Big season ahead with a lot to play for. Taking your anger at life out on the hoops might help you feel better but it won’t help Celtic to keep on winning trophies. The players will reflect the confidence that you place in them. Win lose or draw. Celtic for me. Keep the faith.
STEBHOY on 2ND SEPTEMBER 2025 12:15 AM
Rodger now has to tell the current players they are good enough , after telling them they are not good enough
———————
Yea that right – same as every manager at every club in every country since forever – ffs do understand transfers and recruitment? Why don’t we just can the whole thing so nobodies feeling get hurt?
Greenpinata, careful with that hunterloper patter unless you want to join me in my pishy bed.
Hail the board and the blind faith CSC.
Vinniethedog @ 6:46 am,
What Chairman Peter Lawwell stated in about our huge cash reserves in 2023…
”History tells us that we will not always qualify for the Champions League and the benefit of holding cash reserves affords us the optionality of managing through seasons where we participate in the Europa League with the ability to retain our squad as opposed to selling key players to bridge the income shortfall between both competitions.”
Now we have actually added to the cash pile, not spent it shoring up the squad as Peter Lawwell said would happen.
This month Celtic PLC’s accounts will be published (2024 – 2025) and unless there is some sort of financial engineering going on, the annual statement will show a huge cash surplus.
We have added to that since June.
This is what our football club have to contend with.
Players that have gone since Ange left…
MF Aaron Mooy
FW Jota
GK Conor Hazard
DF Osaze Urhoghide
GK Vasilis Barkas
DF Carl Starfelt
DF Bosun Lawal
MF Ismaila Soro
FW Albian Ajeti
MF Yosuke Ideguchi
FW Mikey Johnston
MF David Turnbul
DF Alexandro Bernabei
FW Liel Abada
GK Joe Hart
FW Sead Hakšabanović
FW Rocco Vata
FW Oh Hyeon-gyu
GK Benjamin Siegrist
DF Bosun Lawal
MF Daniel Kelly
DF Yuki Kobayashi
MF Matt O’Riley
FW Mikey Johnston
MF Tomoki Iwata
MF Liam Shaw
FW. Kyogo
MF Kwon Hyeok-kyu
GK. Scott Bain
DF. Greg Taylor
FW. Nic Kuhn
DF Gustaf Lagerbielke
FW. Luis Palma
FW. Adam Idah
That is the Club doing what the PLC Board wants it to do for their recruitment strategy.
Managing the first team squad very well, many players off the wage bill,
120,000,000.00 in player sales.
Yet despite promises of every penny being re-invested in the Club, the team has been starved of investment.
The Board never do as they promise, if that’s an official Club statement on investment, promises to our prospective manager in Majorca, Celtic’s strateBoais to be a ‘world class football club’
Total Bunkum
Almaty, This Board
Will Be Synonymous With
Amity, And Jaws
Hail Hail
This is a disgrace of a site.
The board can act the way they do because of people like the owner of this site and his sycophants.
Wake up people!
This is a deliberate sabotage unfolding in front of our very eyes. It’s impossible to be this incompetent.
Never a truer word said than this……
A club like no other.
VALE BHOY on 2ND SEPTEMBER 2025 7:40 AM
McKay was fired for giving James McCarthy a four year, £20,000+ per week deal when he was never fit.
———-
That’s what I’ve heard. He was fired for a poor signing. If that’s the case, then…..
The kids will never have a better chance to make their mark than in this hollowed out squad.
McCarthy was a DD production
PeterLatchfordsBelly @ 8:01 am,
True – how many get into the UEL squad?
And the B Squad list of players
Celtic Europa Squad 2025-26
Goalkeepers
Schmeichel
DEN
Sinisalo
FIN
Doohan
SCO
Defenders
Simpson-Pusey
ENG
Scales
IRL
Trusty
USA
Carter-Vickers
USA
Hatate
JPN
Murray
SCO
Ralston
SCO
Tierney
SCO
Saracchi
URU
Donovan
SCO
Midfielders
HJ Yang
KOR
McCowan
SCO
Engels
BEL
Paulo Bernardo
POR
McGregor
SCO
Forrest
SCO
Forwards
Balikwisha
BEL
Nygren
SWE
Yamada
JPN
Osmand
Kenny
IRL
Maeda
JPN
Tounekti
TUN
Hail Hail
A Willow Flood transfer window .
Scunnered like the majority of other supporters.
We will still have “ never had it so good “ brigade on today .
TAURANGABHOY on 2ND SEPTEMBER 2025 7:44 AM
A welcome bit of calm to assuage my angst.
We have to write the Europa off and minimise the risk to key players. There’s no way we could play three games a week for the next 4 months without protecting key players. Maeda in particular has to now be protected.
It’s hard fathom how anyone who genuinely cares for our club can see this window as anything other than an absolute farce and an act of self sabotage.
It is quite clear that we have deliberately downsized and even that they have managed in a haphazard unprofessional way.
The loathing of the manager and his coaching staff must be off the charts if this is the levels that they are willing to go to in order to humiliate and destabilise him. Our biggest rival has upped the ante and it remains to be seen how that pans out but we have regressed and deliberately so let’s say they are 10% better and we have 10% drop off that a big swing and it’s self inflicted.
The consequences of not winning the league are huge and we have put that scenario in play – unforgivable with the financial advantage we have. Equally the damage to our reputation in football circles will be significant – our constant dithering and lowballing is embarrassing and incompetent and clubs/agents will have no confidence in dealing with us. Finally when BR does leave, and clearly he will, what kind of look at our business model and behaviour have we just given the football world? Professional, competent, competitive and forward thinking? Or petty, jealous, vicious, tight and conniving? With a new manager search in the horizon how’s that for an attractive proposition for an up and coming ambitious new coach?
Never been a merchandise buyer but EL package can do one – no chance another £ from me outwith ST and honestly that’s potentially up for grabs too.
I truly hope BR can galvanise this squad and create a real siege mentality in them and push title over the line, couldn’t give a crap about anything else.
There’s calm and there’s being blind to the facts.
Maybe the thousands of miles of separation induces or encourages the blindness.
Whether we sign iheanacho and , if we do , whether he and the others turn out to be any good or not, this window is going to result in a prolonged and loud spell of fury and criticism.
However justified that may be, the one group we have to support now is the team. Failing to do so could be footballing suicide and play into everyone else’s hands. You can be sure the MSM are not going to miss a chance to pile in , with some justification to say the least.
I take no pleasure in saying that and it all feels so avoidable.
The international break doesn’t help. If we had a game this weekend and if ( and it’s a big if) we have someone a skelping with the new signings putting in performances that might relieve some pressure.
It’s going to be a long 12 days or so and potentially a long and unpleasant season.
Today’s article should be a belter.
We have never had it so good
TLWIO, I agree. But we need to remember none of this is the supporters fault, we never contributed to this cluster fuck.
TIMMY7_NOTED on 2ND SEPTEMBER 2025 8:17 AM
There’s calm and there’s being blind to the facts.
Maybe the thousands of miles of separation induces or encourages the blindness.
_————
Maybe best to be both calm and clear sighted about the facts ( such as we actually know them to be) ?
Not sure much is ever achieved in anger. It is in my experience a blunt weapon often doing more damage , and in the wrong places , than good.
The professional thing for CFC today would be to ,calmly (see what I did there..?) , explain through our CEO or Chairman ( not BR) exactly why this window went the way it did.
There may be perfectly good reasons why it want the way it did that we aren’t privy to. In my view , as shareholders and fans we should , subject to issues of commercial confidentiality , be entitled to that information.
If there aren’t perfectly good reasons then at the very least the club should be announcing a full review of our procedures over the window and going forward. That might , although I doubt it , result in resignation or removal of staff at the heart of this.
All of that would show that we have a rational and reflective board in place ( if that is indeed what we have – doesn’t feel much like it at the minute) rather than the incompetent , faceless mutes which we will certainly be told we have by the MSM and , worse still, good Celtic men and women.
The latter , of course , being as entitled to their opinion as you and I are.
HH.
TIMMY7_NOTED on 2ND SEPTEMBER 2025 8:35 AM
TLWIO, I agree. But we need to remember none of this is the supporters fault, we never contributed to this cluster fuck.
———-
Never a truer word spoken
I wonder how PAUL and others are going to find a way to blame Brendan Rodgers for this one!
We are in serious danger of becoming also rans in the world of football. Every season the divide gets bigger between the rich and the “Less rich” football clubs. We are not respected in Europe any more and our league continues to drop down the coefficient ladder. What can we do?
We can try and make our club the best it can be. We are not doing that. Not even close. It is clear that we make the same mistakes time and time again YET we continue to do the same things that do not work.
Waiting to the last day to buy players is fine if you have already done most of your business. It is fine if you are a wealthy club willing to pay big money.
rangers have signed TWO strikers – both of whom cost money (but not ridiculous amounts) and have backed their manager. It shows that the CL is not a barrier to signing players as suggested by some. You CAN buy players if you pay the money. We were in a desperate position and still are. Maeda is a new father to a child and wife who live in Japan so it is no surprise he is not looking his best. That is the man we are relying on to win us the league.
Kenny. Yamada are not back up as they will hardly play. BR won’t select them. He will play others before them.
We are a badly run football club and a well run business. Those that have shares that receive dividends will be happy but for the rest of us we have to endure this disappointment every year. We need change at boardroom level
Leftclick, I’ll save you the wait. Nothing to see here move along bedwetters.
Everything I’ve witnessed from Nicholson would allow me to easily picture him ignoring phone calls rather than man up and tell someone the deal was off.
geebee1978
Exactly.
So, let’s see if Nicholson gets the bag.