Last month I wrote about the highly-effective transfer windows culminating with the capture of Mikael Lustig in January 2012. The list of those who arrived over the next 18 months, culminating in the signature of Teemu Pukki on 31 August 2013, is largely a catalogue of expensive mishap. If only one of of the strikers signed during that period: Miku, Lassad, Balde or Pukki had made the grade, we would have been in better shape for the Champions League qualifiers.
Those mishaps sowed the seeds of where things went wrong recently but we brought in six players this summer, and in order to compete in the Europa League, we pretty much need five of them to command a regular starting place.
Craig Gordon is an excellent piece of business. Fraser Forster overcame almost all those doubters who would rather we bought Stipe Pletikosa in 2012 instead, but we have replaced Fraser with an equivalent, and banked the lion’s share of £10m in the process.
This alchemy is only possible due to doubts over Gordon’s fitness. We’ll find out how well-established his recovery is in the months ahead but the signs are good on this front.
Jo Inge Berget was signed on loan, like Amido Balde a year ago, he early in the transfer window. There is a great misunderstanding that there’s a shortage of players available early in the window. There are lots of players available the moment the window opens. For a reason. Jo wasn’t wanted by Cardiff City, who he made only two appearances for since joining in January.
He was given an unfair burden on his debut, in a highly-dysfunctional performance by Celtic in Warsaw, and, a solid performance against Dundee United apart, has been one of a number of players who have appeared lost in our game-plan since then. He has until Christmas to make his mark before he is due to return to Cardiff, but his chances will be limited by the subsequent signing on Wakaso Mubarak.
Wakaso is here on a year’s loan, with Celtic having an option to make the deal permanent, if he proves his worth. I hear good things about him; he has pace, strength, skill but his most prominent attribute is attitude, which he has in spades. This didn’t sit will in Kazan, where he was somewhat isolated.
Bulgarian midfielder, Aleks Tonev, bounced straight from medical couch to treatment table after his loan move from Aston Villa. He’s now fit and will be available for selection when play resumes after the international break and I hear Ronny Deila is keen on the player.
We now know that Manchester City teenage central defender, Jason Denayer, was brought in to play first team football. The player is highly thought of by City and Ronny, but I wouldn’t expect too much from him in what is his inaugural season of first team football.
Stefan Scepovic has the distinction of contributing 100% of the money spent on players signed by Scottish clubs this summer. He was Celtic’s first choice striker, and, as we discovered late in the day, was wanted by scouts in Spain, so the indicators are reassuring. His experiences over the past week have not without trauma for the player, but he kept focus and his word to join Celtic.
The overwhelming observation from our activity this year is the predominance of loan signings, which is a strategy I suspect was hatched after the ‘No refunds’ deals for Pukki, Balde and Boerrigter last season. We will get more from some of them than others.
Taking Berget for six months was clearly a short-term fix to an immediate gap in the squad. I don’t think we’ll see too much of him from now on. Despite the fact that Jo didn’t make a perceivable difference during our European qualifiers, I don’t have a problem with short-term deals in principle. We could have benefited from one for a target man.
Denayer will almost certainly return to Manchester next year, a more mature player, having pushed Efe and Virgil for a year.
Aleks Tonev and Wakaso Mubarak are here to impress, both are working for a permanent deal. I expect Mubarak to play in his favoured position on the left, with Tonev behind him in a more central role alongside Brown and Johansen.
Ronny has been putting apples in orange crates so far this season but with a central three of Tonev, Johansen and Brown, behind Mubarak, Scepovic and Forrest (or McGregor), he’ll have the personnel to play his favoured 4-3-3.
Two first team regulars left the club, the thoroughly professional Fraser Forster and Georgios Samaras. It was time for both to move on. Fraser, as Southampton was the right club for him, and £10m was the right price for us, Georgios, as he had become increasingly peripheral to team plans under Neil Lennon and would have been even more out of the picture under Ronny. Would Georgios have made a difference in our Champions League qualifiers? There’s a good chance he would have against Maribor but the gap against Legia was bigger than 6’3”.
Pukki and Balde were sent on loan, in the hope they impress and move on. Bon chance. Tony Watt was sold for £1.2m to Standard Liege, who will fancy they can take Tony’s undeniable potential and turn it into an asset their manager wants to work with. It’s been years since we’ve produced as exciting a young player as Tony but he’s now been shipped on or out by three managers.
I would still like to see John Guidette added to this list, even without European football – especially if he is prepared to stay beyond the end of the season. The incumbent strikers, Stokes and Griffiths, will continue to get game-time, but neither is suited to the lone-striker role.
I’m not going to sell a Europa League campaign as anything like the Champions League, but it is very important this squad is ready for Europe. Without much domestic competition (I’m ignoring Inverness and Dundee for a moment) we need to be competitive in the group stage and aim to progress to the latter stages of the competition.
Thumping Dundee United 6-1 taught us nothing, we need to mature as a team against European competition and exorcise the ghosts of Legia and Maribor. No matter how good the new arrivals are, there’s no way they would gel well enough to allow us to do anything more than endure >80 minutes of defending our 18 yard line in Champions League football this season.
We’ll miss the money, prestige and Zadok the Priest, but the Europa League is a better level for us right now.
My thanks to Canajunbhoy, who retires after running the Quick News section for the best part of a decade. Quick News will be back in a different format in the future.
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TOMMYTWISTSTOMMYTURNS
Eh?
Kris Commons deal in doubt?
Hope not. Get him on his new contract and stop faffing about.
Btw,nice to see ya dropping in. Been busy?
FIFA statement regarding Guidetti expected imminently.
I also think we came out of it slightly stronger (on paper for the moment) but hey! we’d have been going some to come out of it worse.
Credit is due after the results, not before them. Don’t count your chickens. As you sow so shall you reap. Experience is the best teacher. Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait.
As often advised on CQN keeping the powder dry.
Dear Reader
Hope you are Eddi?
That would be Perfect! :)
Dear reader:
It’s all about timing, ask Scoti who signed up last night and was promptly ignored.
weeminger
12:49 on 3 September, 2014
I would only need to argue who would pay a footballer who can’t play. If that inhibits his earning potential you’re infringing his ability to work
tommytwiststommyturns
Neither Commons or Stokes appear to be part of this brave new world and that’s despite 137 goals over the past 4 seasons between them.
They’d both better hang around as we all know they’ll be needed as this season goes on.
What if the statement is? We don’t know what the fuss is the sfa could do this
Well written piece Paul. A good summation of the comings and goings etc. Lets hope all these guys can gel into a formation and that a formation (of any sort!) starts working for Ronny D. As ever, after seeing a couple of new faces the optimism levels rise. Here’s hoping…..
HH
kdc
Please let that be the statement……….that would make my day.
Show the gombeens up!
Bobby – reading between the lines…ask Mein Host!
Been busy with work, but off to the Algarve tomorrow for ten days with her indoors….bliss!
Hope you’re well mate. Gutted I’ll miss yer Hojoba Hootenanny!! :-(
HH
TTTT
Tallybhoy
16roads and I were talking about a United Celtic Nation the other night.
A 22 million population could sustain a good football league, and National fitba team.
weeminger
12:55 on
3 September, 2014
Coolmore Mafia
12:53 on
3 September, 2014
Who are you referring to when you say ‘our’?
—-
catholicism or Catholicism..?
If the latter aren’t we about 120 years beyond that?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
When I say we I mean the club. We were formed as a Catholic club open to all.
Why not? Why not appeal to Catholics world wide primarily, then everyone else? Have priests blessing the team as they come out. Say mass one hour before kick off. Statues of the virgin Mary adorning every corner. It would certainly give us a unique identity as Sky beams it across the world.
Wakaso’s main obstacle won’t be his attitude, it’ll be the MIB’s.
A black man in a Celtic strip is tantamount to book-on-sight for Dallas’s covertly-assembled new squadron of Timbusters. He blesses himself, they’ll want him sin die and he’ll carry the entire blame for Admin/Liquidation 2 plus any civil unrest. Good luck, Wakaso.
Regards Guidette – whereabouts is the Hand Of Ogilvie in this sorry debacle?
re Guidetti-i would hope the Magnificent 7 music has been retired,along with the great man.Maybe Swedish House Mafie bangin’ choon?
Unconfirmed reports that Guidetti is confirmed…if that’s not too confusing!
D.R you a hun?:-)
HH
Welcome
Coolmore Mafia,
Sure…
Sounds great.
Write to big PL immediately.
I was saying we should have signed Guidetti last season. Unfortunately he had a couple of injuries.
I am excited about the possibilities if he signs.
Ach, I’m just trying to stimulate debate. Anything but slow death in our lifetimes.
is he Guidetti to go?
Correction from yesterday after my son put me right.
A player does indeed have to be a free agent at the close of the transfer window to sign for a club outside the window.
So even if Guidetti were to be released from his City contract, he couldn’t kick a ball for us until 1st January.
Coolmore,
I know.
I shouldn’t have nibbled at your first post… :-)
hh
darwinsbeautifulidea
I get surprised at how upset the No vote people are. If they could only separate their loathing of the SNP from the vote for independence I’m sure they would be more open to change.
I’m sure its been said before but in case it hasn’t, this is what you need to know.
A huge proportion of the Yes voters do no like/loathe the SNP. They will be voting Yes in order to give the people in Scotland the opportunity to build a fairer society with fewer Tories and much less likelihood of us invading other countries.
I was a Labour party member for decades and loathe nationalism but unlike many No supporters this loathing includes British nationalism. I don’t want us to stay within the UK because we think it is inherently good. It is not. There is no evidence to suggest that in the future the UK governments will change their views on attacking the poor and invading other countries much like they have always done. They starved my ancestors out of Ireland and the same disregard for human rights is still with them. I want no part of it and so will vote Yes.
Worried that if Guidetti transfer does not go thorugh he will go elsewhere and bang in the goals becoming another one that got away! David Ginola comes to mind. The administrators did us a good turn with the Legia result, hope we haven’t run out of luck.
CM
A huge Christ the Redeemer statue on the Main stand roof would be cool.
If he signs will we play the magnificent 7 or Big bad John tune when he scores?
Decisions…
HH
.
Dear Reader..
Do Not read If You are Dyslexic..Aye Voter..
Fear Bleeder..
Summa
Coolmore Mafia
13:10 on
3 September, 2014
Did you used to write the scripts for Father Ted? :)
Hoping we get the green light for Guidetti.
Yes! Because power devolved is power retained.
Scotland has an opportunity on the 18th September when it has absolute sovereignty over its future to decide to keep that absolute sovereignty and retain power in our own hands. Vote Yes!
Sandman – “A black man in a Celtic strip is tantamount to book-on-sight for Dallas’s covertly-assembled new squadron of Timbusters”
Really ?
Scoti
Welcome aboard
Sorry I missed you last night :))))Hail Hail
Summa
Do you also post on WBAQN ?
traditionalist88
13:18 on
3 September, 2014
If he signs will we play the magnificent 7 or Big bad John tune when he scores?
Decisions…
HH
neither,let him be his own man IMO,if he signs
TOMMYTWISTSTOMMYTURNS
Oh,blinkin’ flip.
You been taking lessons from The Token Excuse or summat?
Enjoy yer break,mate. Deserved.
I’ll see ya in the new year or thereabouts. After Cheltenham. Taking the week off for it this time,nae buggering about.
Wow. I hadn’t realised the total transfer spend for the top flight of Scottish football was one player @ £2.5m. Or 8 weeks 2 days and 8 hours’ worth of wages for Falcao.
I didn’t know that when I had a discussion (OK rant) with an English colleague about the corrosive effects of the EPL’s billions on other countries’ games but it does put it into stark relief.
maybe some twitter bhoy could ask Alex O’Henley?
b2k
Hail! Hail! to that sir!