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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Guys who are undecided or a no, take a look at the you tube BP Video about the Clair Ridge OIl Project within the Clair Field. Sorry I don’t know how to do the link.
sevenwan
This is what I get?
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/the-name-game/%23more-5040
Monteblanco
The article is from 2012
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then :-)))
I think PL’s doc should be on here everyday with a bulletin containing details of the sleepless nights he’s had at the prospect of ending up with 2 expensive strikers instead of the one as originally planned.
I think we should be told!
tonydonnelly67
12:01 on 4 September, 2014
This is what I get?
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/the-name-game/%23more-5040
——————————————-
Takes me straight to Phil’s latest. Maybe an issue with your DNS service?
hebcelt, if you go to some matches at fivepenny maybe i do .
hh.
tonydonnelly67 11:57 on 4 September, 2014
That will cost Ashley the same amount of money that convicted tax fraudster King is unwilling to fork out. As any Newcastle fan will testify, Ashley is not a man who throws cash around just for the sake of it.
Besides, Ashley has what he wants, the club shops. He earns a tidy sum from those without too much intrusion into his personal life.
Naming rights on the ground is just advertising space purchased for a quid, which he has the option to use at any time … most likely when the Zombies start getting on his case as he decides to spite them.
TD67
I canny get in either!
Natknow
Seems there are a few not getting it, so it’s not only me, could you post it in here and I’ll give it a try?
Cheers Trad88
I thought so but didn’t wanna confuse my Michaels.
He’s went from trying to palm off his £150 El ticket to claiming he ripped up his application for tickets during the maribor game.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuqry9SMjQM
Philbhoy
12:06 on 4 September, 2014
TD67
I canny get in either!
—————————————-
Phil/Tony – do you have the same ISP?
water wars will characterise the 21st century.
esp in the middle east and africa.
and a huge economic/environmental implications in china and other parts of asia.
while we’re unlikely to run out and unlikely to recreate bannockburn ya bass with our southern neighbours the whole climate change implications will (are already) having major implications on food production and costs.
Ok….so if I can flush out some climate change deniers with this statement then it’ll get really interesting…….
Ernie…if you come out and say I’m talking pants….then I shall unmask you as being…………….
………..my wee free auntie in the highlands……
……who likes the Union……and is constantly reciting the Daily Express……
……in the front room………
CluedoCSC!
HH jamesgang
Linky no worky.
TD67
I’m getting that aortic valve diagnosis thingy that you had a few months back.
Is it messy?
Jeans and t-shirt recommended, or can i go and booted straight from work?
PFAyr
Exactly the same amount of water has passed under the brigde every year (more or less)
for hundreds of years.
The amount of people using it has doubled, tripled, quadrupled
England needs more water (sourced locally) thats a fact. The question is Do we meter ours to pay for the infrastructure needed to supply them?
Or sell some to them?
Vote Yes
tonydonnelly67
12:08 on 4 September, 2014
Natknow
Seems there are a few not getting it, so it’s not only me, could you post it in here and I’ll give it a try?
—————————————-
TD – try this :
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/the-name-game/
go suited and booted
Geordie Munro
Yes a lot of hot air from people in the huff after the loss last week!
HH
Nat Know
That worked, thanks!
SRS
The sale of the naming rights was just another dose of asset stripping
Perhaps it was thought that if they ever managed to get themselves back into the big time ….Ashley could sell the rights back for the market value …should they wish to resist the renaming of their precious midden
As an aside ……do you have a take on what the Sevco financial plan is ???
IMO it’s utter madness to sanction the signing of new players when the business can’t get past Sept without a mercy share issue …how they been stuffed by lack of ST sales ?
steinreignedsupreme
If he ups them some dosh on a loan bases with Murray Park as the fall back on a no loan pay back?
Phil hinting that Ashley could sell on the stadium naming rights to a third party, that image rights to the use of the ‘Rangers’ badge may be making Chuckles a few bob and that administration may be soon…
HH
Philbhoy
12:11 on 4 September, 2014
Nat Know
That worked, thanks!
——————————————-
Musta been a dodgy link on the site earlier then!
The aquifers of England were at a low but are full to brimming now.
The middle east seem to get by on water purification, I’d imagine that could be an option for anyone running short of water.
‘KJ: For a company trying to raise £4m isn’t it damaging that your own chief executive is unwilling to invest?
SE: It looks worse than it is. He never had any shares so he’s not entitled to invest in this issue. I don’t know the reason why he hasn’t bought any. You’d need to ask him.
KJ: Isn’t he meant to be driving this bus?
SE: Is that a pun? Look, I’ve never really thought about it. I do what I’m doing. Whatever Graham’s intentions are they are up to him.’
===================
I’m almost coming round to the idea of keeping this show on the road for the laughs its given and continues to give!
HH
Monteblanco
No thanks
Traditionalist
The CEO will be the first guy in the know re finance etc
I don’t imagine he has any notion of buying shares …he’ll hang around long enough to get his bonus or until his wages cheque bounces ….good luck to him
Is it the company created under the umbrella second which is in trouble?
Or just money borrowed from a private individual?
Just what is going on over there- whit are they dain’?
PF
Well just remember to piss in it before they steal it and charge you for the privilege ;)
Natknow
Good man that worked thanks.
Second=sevco
.
Hope Guidetti can Play Football and is Not out New Accountant..
If He thinks it’s SIX Months till the January transfer window..
Must have went to the Same maths class as Old Sydney(WilloWindae)Tim..
Do the Logarithmoz..
Summa
Is it the new chicken old that’s running out of proddie cheques over by…..
……or the old egg……the one that went aff but gave its history to the new/since 1872 chicken?
I’m confused…….
HH jamesgang
….PFayr supports WeeOscar 12:11 on 4 September, 2014
Certainly Ashley has control of the naming rights, and he also has the option to sell it on if he wishes.
He could also appease the Zombies at some point in the future, to get a stronger hold on merchandising for example, by promising not to take up the option because he knows what Ibrox means to them, ect, ect, blah, blah, blah…
In my opinion Sevco has no definite financial plan. There appears to be no leadership at board level and the club seems to be bobbling along with folk hoping for the best.
Just last week Sevco publicly declared they are about to run out of money. A guy I work beside attended an interview for a job with them yesterday, and not as an administrator.
That suggests it is just a chaotic situation.
TD
The Sons of Paradise, according to the ever-reliable Google, are a Reggae Band from North Carolina.
I am sure that you will join with me in rejoicing the fact that, a mere 150 years after the end of the American Civil War, a reggae band can flourish in North Carolina, to the extent that they can market t-shirts.
I am less sure about the state of evolution of reggae music in South Carolina, the heart of the secession movement.
Maybe, local correspondents such as RWE can inform us. :-)
tonydonnelly67 12:11 on 4 September, 2014
“If he ups them some dosh on a loan bases with Murray Park as the fall back on a no loan pay back?”
The problem with that plan is nobody knows for certain who owns MP and Ibrox.
That is the great joy in this situation.
Thanks for the best wishes bhoys
out of surgery and in recovery ward…more opiates on the wsy…
only metal plates remaining are the ones in my neck…
hail hail…
….PFayr supports WeeOscar
12:17 on
4 September, 2014
Traditionalist
The CEO will be the first guy in the know re finance etc
I don’t imagine he has any notion of buying shares …he’ll hang around long enough to get his bonus or until his wages cheque bounces ….good luck to him
====================
Yeah, I just found it hilarious that the state they’re in Sandy was more worried about getting the p1ss ripped out of him by a DR journalist making a joke about a bus. What would he have done if Keith had said ‘aye mate what ye saying about it?’
We could be reading about a square go instead:)
HH