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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C’mon Celtic get these Bhoys back on board ASAP
Night Bhoys & Hail Hail.
Bhoys r us
Has a nice stink to it
Sumffin we can awe love
All,
No-one underwrites a share issue unless there is a high chance of take up, or they see a long game or they have an un-natural empathy to the business
DDesmond always underwrites, but is slated
DMurray did not, but was a hero(till found out)
Why do we implode?
How big is DD as a stakeholder?
38% 51% what is it?
It should be posted daily on all Celtic blogs
Scottish media say jump.
Plenty Hoops fans say how high?
Sad but true.
Def away this time.
Hail Hail.
I present to the board of a 1bn revenue company every month and have to show progress from me and my intern and a few people inputing
This is OK
PL has to report to the board on a 60m? Turnover and he earns 700k?
What do i earn!!!!
What would James Connolly vote ?
You know it.. Get off your knees
Y E S
If PL goes, I’m yer man
Actually, Cowiebhoy is and i will be COO
CanajunBhoy
A timely reminder.
Thanks for all your great work.
Enjoy the retirement ;o)
HH
Jim Murphy is a self serving political careerist who would sell his granny to secure a vote. I have experienced the man. That said, on that tragic night he showed his human side…
On another matter… The club being fined for flying a Palestinian flag, while Israeli flags are flown without sanction, was replied with a jaw dropping ‘WTF’ by a couple of Americans of a Jewish persuasion….
I would love to have a beer and conversation with Jim Murphy, and my American friends., about that anomaly. I am sure Mr Murphy would have a reasoned response.
Yes. To local accountability and subsidiarity in an increasingly globalized corporate world.
Canajunbhoy – Go raibh maith agat.
HH.
I came on here to laugh at Rangers but was quickly enraged by the sneering tone of those St Stivs comments about Jim Murphy MP. I’m not going to turn this into a political argument, just set out the facts, which I know well, due to the fact my daughter was in the Clutha at the time of the crash and spoke to Jim Murphy outside (she knew him from a school event years earlier).
Jim was walking by the Clutha moments after the crash (I think he may have been in the Scotia across the road), saw the commotion and went over to see what was happening. Folk on the right-hand side of the pub who had been watching the band walked out of the right-hand door relatively unscathed through a cloud of dust. This, thankfully, included my daughter.
All the destruction and, tragically, death and injuries, were at the left-hand side. Men there did indeed form a human chain to try to get inside and pull people out. The scenes inside were, I’m told, horrific. My daughter and other women were shooed away by the men who were there.
Due to my daughter’s involvement, I took a great interest in the TV and newspaper coverage. I saw the Jim Murphy interview many times. I don’t know if he spoke once or twice at the scene but it wasn’t more than that, I’m sure.
Frankly, he looked in a state of shock. He tried to describe what was happening. He made it clear there were people doing a lot more than him at that left-hand door.
At one point the interviewer said: “There’s blood on your shirt.” Jim stared ahead and mumbled: “It’s not mine.” I thought he was going to break down but he held on.
He paid tribute to those helping and to the people of Glasgow. At no time did he suggest he had been in the Clutha or had done anything heroic.
His words from the BBC interview then appeared verbatim in numerous newspaper reports, as they had been relayed by news agencies at the time.
My daughter recalls Jim being genuinely concerned at the scene but, then again, everyone was in a state of shock, unable to quite comprehend what had happened.
Given how shaken he looked in that interview, I’d hazard a guess that Jim maybe saw some things he’d rather not have seen.
But, and this is important, Jim Murphy did not appear on ANY media outlets the next day. And I am absolutely certain he would have been inundated with requests from TV, radio and newspapers. This, I’m told by another friend who knows him, was by deliberate choice.
It’s a shame that the seeping of poison into the current political debate has led to this shameful attempt to question the actions of a decent man at one of our city’s biggest tragedies.
He just happened to be there, not by choice. He did what he could.
And when a TV camera was shoved in his face he spoke, still in a state of shock, with a great deal of humility and honesty.
Then he went home to his family and stayed out of the limelight of what was a still-massive story worldwide.
Those are the facts.
PJBhoynyc
I am out of touch on this, but were the Israeli flags flown etc at Celtic Park?
rwe
02:13 on 4 September, 2014
Why not?
Lord Livingston of Parkhead a non paid member of Glasgow Celtic FC executive board is a Zionist
Not surprised to hear that Israeli flags are flying at Parkhead
Palestinians are definitely not us!
Desmond has his barrow in the market place…
Molly is the singer in a band…
Desmond says to Molly “Girl, I like your face”
And Molly says this as she takes him by the hand…
O-bla-di, o-bla-da, life goes on, bra!…
Lala how the life goes on…
O-bla-di, o-bla-da, life goes on, bra!…
Lala how the life goes on.
Desmond takes a trolley to the jewelry store…
Buys a twenty carat golden ring… (ring!)
Takes it back to Molly waiting at the door…
And as he gives it to her she begins to sing…(sing!)
O-bla-di, o-bla-da, life goes on, bra!…
Lala how the life goes on…
O-bla-di, o-bla-da, life goes on, bra!…
Lala how the life goes on.
Johnbhoy: I have my own thoughts on Jim Murphy, but that night, your recollection is the same as mine. Shocked. Did what he could. Human side…
RWE
Not that I am aware of….
But they are flown elsewhere at other grounds…
So what is the new name…..?
In tune with the US Open I suggest the Ash Stadium.
Green, Whyte and Ash…
You couldnae make it up…. Karma.
Yes: For the nail in the coffin.
Pjbhoynyc – it has to be in a Uefa tournament for them to take intetest. Prime suspects will be Ajax and Spurs I expect.
Weeminger:
Correct:
But the usual suspects are no even in the line up….
What intrigues me, here in NY anyway, is an acute awareness of the difference between anti Zionism and anti semitism. When NY Jews understand, and Gentiles elsewhere do not…. We have a problem.
JohnBhoy
02:10 on
4 September, 2014
Well said.
My niece was there that night, walking up to the Clutha when it happened. She wasn’t injured and she did what she could to help.
So did Jim Murphy, whether you like his politics or not.
Jesus Christ, what’s it coming to on this blog? I used to love it. Now I’m giving up even lurking.
Greeninbingley
03:14 on
4 September, 2014
JohnBhoy
02:10 on
4 September, 2014
Well said.
My niece was there that night, walking up to the Clutha when it happened. She wasn’t injured and she did what she could to help.
So did Jim Murphy, whether you like his politics or not.
Jesus Christ, what’s it coming to on this blog? I used to love it. Now I’m giving up even lurking.
…………………………………………………..
This blog like everywhere else is made up of good decent people along with the nutters, strutters, hun trolls and the like.
When good guys walk away the bad guys win. Worth a thought?
Hail Hail
Snake Plissken
15:48 on
3 September, 2014
http://www.oilandgaspeople.com/news/1039/scottish-west-coast-untapped-oil-and-gas-reserves-worth-trillions/
Might be worth consideration by those undecided.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No “might” about it – this is a major reason to vote YES.
Many thanks to SP for posting the link.
Andy Murray loses first set to Djokovic in the tie break.
What a game this is…. I have work in the morning. Decisions….?
RWE
16 Roads
Thanks guys
This retirement lark ain’t half good. I can sit up all night watching the tennis and crawl into bed whenever it is finished.
Come on Andy !!!
Morning fae Glesga Airport,Algarve “golf trip” with the bhoys..:)
Considering Craigie Whyte got everything for a pound, anyone else think Mike Ashley has paid too much for the naming rights to Ibrox?
Nae luck Andy.
Bed time for me now.
Hopefully by the time I awake, Guidetti is confirmed as a Bhoy.
Hail Hail
Andy worn down in 4 sets.
The 3rd and 4th he was in pain.
I’ve just been informed I don’t need to get up to put my grand daughter on to the school bus at 8am. Long lie for this berr.
Mornin bada
Enjoy yirsel,here’s a tale for you while your havin a beer
A couple were invited to a swanky family masked fancy dress
Halloween party. The wife got a terrible headache and told her
husband to go to the party alone. He, being a devoted husband,
protested, but she argued ands aid she was going to take
some aspirin and go to bed and there
was no need for his good time to be spoiled by not going.
So he took his costume and away he went.. The wife, after sleeping
soundly for about an hour, woke without pain and as it was still early,
decided to go to the party. As her husband didn’t know what her costume was,
she thought she would have some fun by watching her husband to see how
he acted when she was not with him.
So she joined the party and soon spotted her husband in his
costume, cavorting around on the dance floor, dancing with every nice
‘chick’ he could and copping a little feel here and a little kiss there.
His wife went up to him and being a rather seductive babe herself, he
left his new partner high and dry and devoted his time to her.
She let him go as far as he wished, naturally, since he was her
husband.
After more drinks he finally whispered a little proposition in
her ear and she agreed, so off they went to one of the cars and had
passionate intercourse in the back seat. Just before unmasking at
midnight , she slipped away and went home and put the costume away and
was sitting up reading when he came in, so she asked what kind of time he had.
‘Oh, the same old thing. You know I never have a good time when you’re
not there.’ Then she asked, ‘Did you dance much?’
He replied, ‘I’ll tell you, I never even danced one dance. When I
got there, I met Pete, Bill Brown and some other guys, so we went into
the spare room and played poker all evening.’
‘You must have looked really silly wearing that costume playing
poker all night!’ she said with unashamed sarcasm. To which the
husband replied,’Actually, I gave my costume to my Dad, apparently he had the time of his life.
HH
CELTIC assistant manager John Collins has expressed pride in his side following tonight’s charity game with Villarreal.
The Hoops started with a strong XI in the 4-2 loss but gradually bled in a selection of Under -17 players who held their own against the La Liga side.
A header from Beram Kayal coupled with a wonder strike from Jo Inge Berget in the first half put the Hoops 2-0 up, but the Scottish champions were eventually pegged back by a second-half masterclass from Villarreal striker Gerard Moreno.
Speaking exclusively to the official website, Collins said: “I thought we started a bit slowly but their first team is very good and we had some youth players in so we have to be realistic in our expectations.
“I asked them to try and pass, be brave and we gradually got into the game and got two wonderful goals. We were perhaps a bit fortunate to go in at half time two up but we had some great play.
“As a coach you are delighted to see special goals. Leigh has a wonderful left foot and he did exactly what I asked him and Kayal left the keeper with no chance.
“I don’t think Jo will hit a better shot in his career but I was probably more happy with the young players.
“Lindsay and Thomson were great and little Kieran (Tierney) had a wonderful performance. His passing was excellent and his performance was good.
“It was a great experience for them against a very good team. They made us work and we were disappointed to lose the goals but we did so much work. We have to be realistic.”
Although the match ended in defeat for the Hoops, the Celtic legend still found many positives for his team to take away with them on the trip back to Scotland.
He said: “I told them after the game, you saw how they continually passed and move with quality. That’s why we come into training every day – eating, sleeping, breathing football.
“That’s the standard we want to get to. You watch that level then try and replicate it. You learn and go back to the training pitch but that comes with proper work and that’s the standard we want to get to.”
The transfer window now has to be gauged on our CL status
As the players who we needed for CL qualifying did not arrive till after we were knocked out , we have to look at the window as another shambles
In all business people are responsible and made accountable for failure
So who goes , Lawwell or park
You have to look at park in his recommending woeful forwards , who had never been goalscorers before they came to us and surprise surprise kept up the same when they came to us
He is a defo for being booted out
“So why did Charles Green sell the naming rights to Ibrox for just £1? What did the Yorkshireman gain from the deal?
Why did he waste a quarter of a million pound trying to nullify the contract with Ashley?
Why has Mike Ashley not rebranded the stadium already?
How long is the contract with Sportsdirect?
Why did Green and Rangers not disclose the stadium naming rights deal to the London Stock Exchange?
Why has it taken until now for the current Ibrox board to disclose Charles Greens ineptitude?”
http://www.scotzine.com/2014/09/the-famous-name-of-ibrox-sold-for-1-by-charles-green/?
Any news on the Swede? Let’s hope if he does sign he doesn’t turn into a turnip.
That mike Ashley is a moron .. Businessman my ass
Craigy Craigy whyte bought the old club for £1 … Stadium .. Training ground .. Players .. Trophies .. History etc
Ashley buys the naming rights to the stadium for £1 .. They saw him coming eh ;)