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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“Dear Reader
Hope you are Eddi?
That would be Perfect! ”
DD,
I can’t see the attraction:)
b2k
I share your views on nationalism on both sides. Equally though you have to consider what Government we will have post Yes. The thought of a SNP government in an Independent Scotland is a chilling prospect. So who else?
Labour? They will be in disaray for years after backing No.
So SNP it is likely to be for a good number of years. People need to think hard about that.
Before anyone shouts about Westminister Governments, I’m not over enamoured with the options there either. Just saying to think it through.
!!Bada Bing!!
Of course he’ll be his own man, but if he’s wearing no.7 theres no getting away from the fact that some greats have gone before him wearing that iconic number and rightly or wrongly it carries an even higher level of expectation!
I’ll go with big bad John;)
HH
Would you give the No 7 to a fella who is back up to Stefan ????
Tim Tanium
“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!”
Genuine question.
Between the EU ( especially the EU given that its laws override a member nation’s laws) , Nato and the UN is ANY nation in western Europe truly sovereign?
traditionalist88-i think a re-working of the Cadete song will be for him :}
GM
I see many attractions in Eddi! :)
Tim Tanium
Absolute sovereignity which doesn’t include control over interest rates or other economic levers from a central bank?
!!Bada Bing!!
Just asked him will let you know if he replies nothing on his twitter for 16hrs.
Elvis Presley just tweeted that he spotted Guidetti buying a cheeseburger in his restaurant. The search continues.
Meantime, footage has been released of the SFA trying to operate their fax machine on hearing about last minute paperwork coming through from CP on transfer deadline day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owSc9eC1-8I
!!Bada Bing!!
13:24 on
3 September, 2014
traditionalist88-i think a re-working of the Cadete song will be for him :}
====
Shouldn’t be too hard for the songwriters:)
HH
big wavy
13:24 on
3 September, 2014
Would you give the No 7 to a fella who is back up to Stefan ????
=====
Not sure if thats the plan?
HH
FFm
“Elvis Presley just tweeted that he spotted Guidetti buying a cheeseburger in his restaurant…”
Hope its cooked right through as per NHS food cooking guidelines.
Don’t want the boy getting another dose of food poisoning…
I was walking on Buchanan St yesterday afternoon about half one, when a big bald fellow walked past me, he had a CQN badge on his jacket lapel, who was that guy.?
Then the blonde one and I went for a late lunch in BV was a lovely wee lunch..
Anyway afternoon.
Ayrshire is Green and White
traditionalist88. Guidetti himself said big Peter offered him the No.7 shirt and he told Peter that it would be fun to wear it. H.H.
big wavy
13:20 on 3 September, 2014
Sandman – “A black man in a Celtic strip is tantamount to book-on-sight for Dallas’s covertly-assembled new squadron of Timbusters”
Really ?
=======================================
No, of course I’m wrong – over the years he and his ilk have proved to be unbiased, stable individuals with an upstanding sense of fair play and decency, and in no way resemble the sinister, bigoted, racist-supremast, secret society of small-minded, hate-filled habitual cheats I have portrayed them to be.
I will apologise in full to Brother Dallas at the first available Klan assembly.
traditionalist88
What do you think the plan is ?
Very un-Ronny like to play 2 target men. It’s Stefan with Wakuso one side and Forrest the other. Creativity by Tonev and legs by Brown and Johannsson.
Guidetti would be the back up to Stefan no ?
B2K
I’ll be 100% honest with you on the point about No voters and their dislike for the SNP.
Purely from my own perspective,of course.
Not that I have a vote,but it’s obvious how it would be cast if I did.
Yes,in my case,you are correct that I have no time whatsoever for the SNP.
And even less for Salmond. He has been for about 25 years my biggest personal loathe-and-despise figure in UK politics.
Not helped by his long-standing tactic of talking over interviewers till they finally give up.
But those are not be the main reasons for my opinion at this time.
It is because the economics do not add up. The groundwork has not been done re future infrastructure. There are too many important areas where the response is It Will Be Alright on the Night.
The timing of this vote is wrong for Scotland. Not the question.
Btw,most of the stuff on IWBAOTN turned out ok in the end. They were allowed another take and it was all make-believe anyway.
This isn’t.
Yes absolute sovereignty because we as a nation would then have the right to decide on al these issues as they affect us in the future. Membership of NATO, EU, whether we want currency union etc.
At this point in time our Parliament is a creation of Westminister and can be dissolved in by Westminster if they chose to.
At this point in time all those decisions are chosen for us by our larger neighbour. On only 2 occassions since WW2 have the votes in Scotland effected the outcome of the UK elections (ie a Lbaour Govt when England voted Tory). Generally what England votes…England gets.
I really hope we get Guidetti and that he hits the ground running, along with Stefan we really need them to be on top of their game.
I think in Salzburg we will be facing a Ronny style team but with 3-4 years more experience of the system he wants to play. Most definitely superior to both Legia & Maribor even though they have sold midfielder Sane for £ 10-11m…they will prove to be
a major handful over both games.
Plenty of work to be done in the short break to get the team properly organized and
playing somewhere near the fashion Ronny wants.
At least with the possibility of these 2 strikers, I am much more confident that we carry
a threat to the opposition.
Sandman
Ok. My eyes drew to the ‘blackman’ piece that’s all. You could have left jot at man in celtic strip and I’d be with you…
Nice touch of sarcasm though….
Siesta time zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
big wavy.Why not give both a game 45 minutes flat out from both mind you we haveto land Guidetti yet. H.H.
the long wait is over,
Indeed. Read about that – must have been a nightmare for the poor fella. If he has anything like the determination of his compatriot and our hero, then we may well have another fine player in our midst. With kind permission of the SFA of course…..>:((
Maley’s Bhoys@MaleysBhoys · 37m
48 years ago today, Celtic made their first ever substitution, replacing the injured Jimmy Johnstone with Willie O’Neill.
Tim Tanium
“At this point in time our Parliament is a creation of Westminister and can be dissolved in by Westminster if they chose to.”
In theory that may be correct but does that worry you?
Scaremongering and negativity come to mind.
They could also have refused to endorse an election like the Spanish Government has done with Catalonia. They didn’t though. Why is that?
KDC @ 12:45
Sorry was just out for lunch. I agree, but I’d like to see him in this role in new system, which as mentioned previously means rotation, including him at times moving up right hand side. Going back what I said earlier, and agreeing with Paul and yourself, there will be times when our shape is 433. I think 4231, if done well has a few shapes, dependant on offensive and defensive play- “compact”.
Either way Brown and Stefan certainly have the energy to cover it. Which is nice. © “The Fast Show”
No mention of Charlie Mulgrew in midfield Paul? I think he’s needed, left side of the three, to cover for Izaguirre. I imagine that Johansen would be the one edged out once everyone is fit.
Why can’t we do this anymore?
@ChampionsLeague: The @Malmo_FF side that reached the #UCL group stage had ten local players – following in @Ibra_official’s footsteps. http://t.co/elUiCctKYR
Why did K OF K tell us abt Guidetti??
Tim Tanium
Generally West and Central Scotland will get what it wants in an independent Scotland election. It would be grossly unfair if England did not have a representation in Westminister proportional to it’s population.
musters
I’m in the camp that would never ever want to see Charlie in midfield again. Too slow of limb and mind for that in Europe.
Stick him at left back to play more conservatively or an auxiliary centre half.
I think we will see less of CM this season than previously.
Also, he has too many tattoos to meet the strict rules of the new regime :)
MickTT
How big ??
Honest Cover Up
Not scaremongering just a statement of fact. Power devolved is power retained. I am arguing that we should take this opportunity to grasp the sovereignty of the people of Scotland. We can then build the nation that the people of Scotland want to have.
BMCUW
Bobby Slamond more loathsome than Tony Blair a man who lied to everyone to take Britiain into an illegal war? Really?
Notice Tony Blair was voted CQ Philanthropist of the year. Nearly spat my lunch out with that.
Anyway back to work.
Son mes que club
Because scotland doesn’t produce enough football talent anymore. Sadly.
The EPL top 4 would struggle with there same goal too.
Serious question – do foot ball teams still use fax machines for transfer deals ????
Severin Carrell @severincarrell 2h
Interesting talk that @YesScotland is sitting on @Panelbase poll giving yes vote its first lead; waiting to release it for max bang #indyref
Hmmmm
Lets hope this is true.