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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“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”.
Paul 67 you having a laugh Forrest before Commons
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.
————————————————————————-
This is a recruitment website.
Did you see my post to you on polls?
POLITICS
Blah Blah, I’m on the wrong Site, are there not blogs for the independence discussions for people to post???
Blah Blah bloody blah.
FOOTBALL NON CELTIC
Are Scotland playing tonight?
This might catch on?
Wish Fifa would sort out this yes no decision on Guidetti so we will have some thing new to discuss. H.H.
Turkeybhoy
Hail! Hail! to that.
weeminger
15:37 on
3 September, 2014
Turkeybhoy
15:14 on
3 September, 2014
It would destroy the notion of the transfer window, as clubs could just terminate contracts at anytime for an ‘admin fee’ then the player could sign on anywhere.
It doesn’t fall foul of EU employment law because there’s nothing to stop a team employing a player even if he’s unable to play in competition. Somebody asked earlier why any team would do this, and the answer is, to stop another team doing it.
OK I get what you are saying,but my point is ,the european courts dont care about UEFAs ridiculous “Transfer window”.The first player taking his case to the courts saying that UEFA rules were prohibiting him from gaining employment would win.
How many clubs really want to take on a player who cant play for 5 months.Journeymen players I mean,not the Suarez of this world.If a club tell a player he is not wanted,and UEFA tell him he cant sign for anyone because they say so,they are on a loser.
RAGE
Ogilvie Out !
CHOICE OF WORDS
nelgy67
Paul thinks Forrest fits into RD`s system more so than Commons. You think the opposite.
I agree with Paul67. I must be having a laugh as well. Good. I like a good laugh.
JJ
On some match days :
4-2-3-1
Broony. Johansen
McGregor. Commons. Wakaso
——– Sepovic. ———-
However, to avoid the Warsaw debacle when playing against better opposition, the team needs to go with a solid midfield 3, and therefore Commons drops out, for a Biton, or Kayal.
4-3-3
Broony. Biton. Johansen
McGregor. Sepovic. Wakaso.
The problem in Warsaw was that we played 4-2-3-1 , was that the 2 centre mids were seriously isolated, as the forward 3 and 1 became a forward 4, and were so detached from rest of the team.
That’s not a flaw in the 4-2-3-1 system, more a flaw in the personnel chosen that night to take up the forward positions. Commons, pukki and whoever else played up top that night
Am I the only one even a wee bit confused?
It seems that Stefan Scepovic was always Celtic’s No. one target in this summer’s transfer window.
It also appears that Celtic was Stefan Scepovic’s preferred destination.
Given the absolute veracity of both the above, why then did it take an unseemly scramble in the dying embers of a three month transfer window for both parties to strike a mutually satisfactory deal?
My post at 15.57 is my last ever on the referendum.
Good luck to whoever wins.
YES,YES AND THRICE YES.
Turkey
that’s my point exactly
Turkeybhoy,
How can you simply assert that a future Government of an Independent Scotland will govern for the good of all? There’s hardly ever been a government anywhere who can make that claim, imo.
PHILOSPOHY
What does it all mean, ffs??
PLONKER
Is Ernie Lynch about?
ps yep that deffo works Kittoch! :-)
BAWBAGS
Can any one advise me where I can get a new baw bag cause the boys club need a new one
quonno. Because I think some one is telling porkies. H.H.
WANK
Ogilvie Out!
POSTERS ATTEMPTS AT HUMOUR
Good effort lads, got me laughing.
quonno
16:09 on
3 September, 2014
Am I the only one even a wee bit confused?
It seems that Stefan Scepovic was always Celtic’s No. one target in this summer’s transfer window.
It also appears that Celtic was Stefan Scepovic’s preferred destination.
Given the absolute veracity of both the above, why then did it take an unseemly scramble in the dying embers of a three month transfer window for both parties to strike a mutually satisfactory deal?
Quonno,its the fekin agents that cause the problems.Involved in everything.Did you see Falcao arriving in Manchester.Limos,Giant Jeeps,looked like the CIA were arriving.Must have been 10 in his entourage.
Celtic Football Club @celticfc 32s
Tonight’s match against @VillarrealCF is LIVE on http://www.celticfc.tv to all subscribers. KO 7.45pm Celtic Park time
RE:BAWBAGS
Canamalar – is that for a short wood? :-)
Buddhism,
Are you wan ?
sftb
The precise difficulty in dealing with the sectarian problem in Scotland led to a broadening of the words meaning evidently, to suit.
The OB act was the another vital tool in the broad brush approach.
It was a forecast on these very pages.
Kittoch
16:00 on
3 September, 2014
POLITICS
Blah Blah, I’m on the wrong Site, are there not blogs for the independence discussions for people to post???
Blah Blah bloody blah.
Just to keep you happy.
Today’s Herald reported that yesterday, whilst hawking his political mutton to a bunch of elderly Edinburgh Tories, Jim Murphy was still trying to distance Better Together from the Orange Order and other unsavoury extreme Right Wing parasites.
Problem for Jimk is that more than eggs stick.
Turkeybhoy
16:06 on
3 September, 2014
By the same token, why would a club release a player mid-season knowing that a) they’d need to compensate him for the remainder of his contract (or at least until the next window) and b) they can’t replace him.
If they are going to have to pay him anyway, they’re as well keeping him in case of injuries etc.
It works both ways. The rule has been in place since the transfer window was introduced, if it was such an issue we’d have seen Bosman II by now.
ADVERTISEMENT
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LANGUAGE!
Timothy.
NatKnow
16:14 on 3 September, 2014
LANGUAGE!
Timothy.
***********
Hee-hee-hee, nice one!
Has Michael Kadlec signed yet? I’ve been out.
Joe Filippis Haircut
16:10 on
3 September, 2014
quonno. Because I think some one is telling porkies. H.H.
I would never have dared to make such a scurrilous suggestion.
But it having been made, I wonder just who has been telling them?
Re: BAWBAGS
AoW :)
Genius
NatKnow
16:14 on
3 September, 2014
LANGUAGE!
Timothy.
Quonno…
It’s the nature of the beast…. And not just exclusive to Celtic.
Hence why sky sports have a deadline day program.
Players and agents, holding out to the last minute to gain the best deal for their client.
Can also work in the favour of the buying club… As with Sepovic, you would lettley find that his agent found late interest from Getafe, only to discover on deadline day, that they wouldn’t match anywhere near the terms on offer from Celtic.
Makes sense to me
quonno.I doubt we will ever know but my moneys on the player.H.H.
quonno
16:14 on 3 September, 2014
Kittoch
16:00 on
3 September, 2014
POLITICS
Blah Blah, I’m on the wrong Site, are there not blogs for the independence discussions for people to post???
Blah Blah bloody blah.
Just to keep you happy.
Today’s Herald reported that yesterday, whilst hawking his political mutton to a bunch of elderly Edinburgh Tories, Jim Murphy was still trying to distance Better Together from the Orange Order and other unsavoury extreme Right Wing parasites.
Problem for Jimk is that more than eggs stick.
———————————————————————-
We’ve had this a number of times. In some issues the UK Parliament the SNP voted with :
BNP
National Front
DUP
Assorted other loonies and psychos
Sticky stuff, huh? Works both ways.
LIMBO
If anyone’s going there soon, can you keep an eye out for John Guidetti and send him back.