A year after trying and failing to sign him from Lech Poznan, Celtic have secured the services of Aleksandar Tonev from Aston Villa. Tonev has blistering pace, a right footer who is usually used on the left, he is an archetypal counter-attacking player.
The player’s profile blossomed during the first six months of 2013, in particular after he scored a hat-trick for Bulgaria against Malta, which brought Villa and Celtic to the table. The step-up to the English Premier League from playing a speciality role for Poznan was, not surprisingly, too much.
Aleksandar plays the same position as Georgios Samaras, albeit he’s a completely different type of player, but we will look to him to do the same job – be an out ball away from home in Europe.
Ronny will have seen him only from DVDs, so he’ll be keen to get him onto the pitch tomorrow morning for a run-out ahead of St Johnstone. Let’s hope the manager likes what he sees…. It’s a worry. The most promising part of deal is that Aleksandar has a point to prove, I’d rather hungry players with a point to prove than those who’ve too much on the clock.
Welcome to Celtic, Aleks.
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Trying not to moan about the tic today..hate it.
Chilling to some classic songs of resistence
Boys of kilmichael
Hills round dunloy
George and pop
Freedom sons
Loud and proud
Well said Barcabhoy
moonbeams wd. wee oscar’s our bhoy and kano’s our mhan.
07:58 on 12 August, 2014
Absolutely spot on , no money for a man who wasn’t really meant to be in that position .
The nay sayers on here come out in force when there’s a bad result. Load up on the same tired old arguments. Unable to give credit when things go well.
Posters who rush to judgement based on their agenda damage their own credibility.
Zero chance of these same posters even being on the site if Tonev and others turn out to be inspired signings. Thats not their thing, they aren’t there to support, only to run down the club.
Good morning friends.
Bleak, grey, dismal looking and uninspiring.
More prawns in your sandwich,Sir?
And we laughed when Hearts announced WONGA as their sponsors.
MWD says AYE
TinyTim,
Was reported on here they were lucky if they had 18000 at the game at the weekend
Barcabhoy,
That may well be true. But I can’t help but think that some people (not necessarily yourself!) find ways of justifying the club’s strategy no matter what.
Sign big money players from the EPL – “smart”
Don’t sign big money players from the EPL, look at the SPL – “smart”
Ignore the SPL, look abroad for youngsters to sell on – “smart”
Sell those youngsters for big bucks and replace them with loan signings – “smart”
Meanwhile the quality of our squad declines, we lose a promising young manager in still-mysterious circumstances, and we have gone from beating Barcelona to fearing Maribor in the space of two seasons.
Whatever else this is, it isn’t “smart”.
Denayer coming in surely paves the way for Virgil moving out. Should be another £8m – £10m in the coffers….
I doubt we will have an option to buy Denayer though.
TBH I have no problem with loan signings as long as we have an option to buy..
And I certainly ain’t no happy clapper.
Barca..,
That’s not true and you know it, there are one or two who only appear on bad results, most naysayers are consistent, the problem now is that the numbers are swelling by posters who were previously board supporters.
19tr old loan signing with no option to buy totally contradicts previous statements by Ronny, was this forced on him and did he even have say ?
Atranmore, only if Peter got the razor on loan with an option to buy right before a big date. Kind of sends a signal he thinks the dates not important enough or that we will not be good enough for the lady in question.
My take on loan signings is at least we don’t have to wonder if we will sell them this time next year.
Berget though… Why?
Barcabhoy
I do love your generalisations. You might believe all that tosh but I note many Celtic supporters on here, some who have been posting for as long as you, who have supported the club, supported the PLC, supported the balance sheet, given credit deservedly to both team and business when it is due, recently bein to question the clubs strategy and policy.
But generalise away and shoot everyone down. That sadly is the methodology of all the Yae sayers on here who cannot bring themselves to admit that there is something drastically wrong with the clubs current strategy.
Maybe one day, possibly when the Hun is back our expectation may rise again to a level were we believe we are in it to win it over going through the motions.
One cheap option after the next will eventually blow up in the face of our board! You can’t always be lucky.
MWD says AYE
Barca..,
TET comes on and tells us there are plenty of Spanish players who would likely jump at the chance of the money Celtic can pay and he means players of a higher quality than the current squad, do you agree ?
canamalar- you mean ones like Miku and Lassad?
There are plenty of diddies playing in every league in Europe who would jump at the chance to pull on the hoops.
“19tr old loan signing with no option to buy totally contradicts previous statements by Ronny”
No it doesn`t……..but the poster`s comment is a good example of how keen some are to extrapolate the negative .
JJ
Barcabhoy
That was NUFC idea
HH
Barcabhoy
2 great posts there IMO.
HH
Canamalar
I know you asked Barca but the incredibly obvious answer is that TET does not know that. Equally obvious is that Peter Lawwell must be very stupid not to follow the suggestions of so many on here and make Celtic successful and rich. Either that or these `suggestions` are not quite as simple to enact as many seem to think.
JJ
Goldstar10,
Is that how you rate all Spanish players ? Are you saying we should not look in Spain because those players you mention are as good as we’ll get, I’d say that was more a problem with the scouting than lack of available affordable talent.
Meanwhile we are looking for diddies elsewhere eh ?
JJ
Are you happy with the clubs current managerial and player recruitment policy?
MWD says AYE
Barcabhoy
Sensible and balanced posts,it’ll never catch on
Face facts, we’re down sizing and budget cutting until the new old firm gravy train is up and running.
Agree with barcabhoy , stopped lurking as much as the negativity on here is off the scale.
New manager , period of transition , calm down and give him a chance.
If Europe doesn’t pan out ,that will be dissapointing but not the end of the world.
We are rebuilding, it will take a two , three , four transfer windows.
Big money transfers doesn’t guarantee anything .
Canamalar- The lesson from Miku and Lassad needs to be heeded. The lower reaches of La Liga will not have many gems, any that are there will get a better offer elsewhere.
5th generation
what are we building?
MWD says AYE
Well said Barcabhoy.
I have laboured the point before. How we would love to have taken the likes of Bangura, Boerrigter and Balde on loan with an option to buy.
The transfer window still has nearly 3 weeks to run. Traditionally the big signings don’t materialise until the last couple of days.
As for Tonev, he is being written off before kicking a ball. Larsson was surplus to requirements at Feyenoord as was Sutton at Chelsea. Were they called rejects and flops?
I’ll reserve judgement until the end of the window.
Carrigan –
“Dropped points on Wednesday and Saturday and another CL battering on Wednesday should do it.”
Spoken like a true hun.
JJ,
TET told us last night a team recently filled its team with bosmans that would likely hammer Celtic.
However, how do you know what TET knows or doesn’t know ?
He lives in Spain watches Spanish football and is a Celtic supporter so I naturally associate his opinion as a wee bit more sophisticated and discerning when looking at players, as he has watched some great Celtic teams and should have an idea what a good player looks like on the park.
Peter Lawwell is currently not trying to make Celtic rich he is concentrating on a fight for survival, at least thats what we are being fed. He is gambling that the only future we have is part of the old firm, I fear this gamble will come a cropper and Celtic will be left with only old firm supporters.
The shirt doesn’t shrink ok buy smaller shirts
We are undergoing a transition folks and I for one would be eternally glad if we entered the 21st century as a football club with a professional ethos that focussed on all elements of playing – the proper scouting, coaching to improve players, diets, stricter lifestyle regimes – in short a more european approach to complement a fine training complex and some great infrastructure that we invest in.
Who knows it might complement the Euro league structure we need to hone our senses too at some point.
A manager like Ronny is very much part of that. His part in all this is to get the performances on the park to the right level and win things but he has a support infrastructure that we as the supporters pay for to make him successful. You can see in his appointments around him (the guy at SG and the promotion of Jim McGuinness) that this will be very different from Neil’s rather approach.
I understand the frustration on the blog. I know there are those whose very personality will be enjoying any discomfort but there are genuinely others who feel uncomfortable. Change is uncomfortable and like everyone else I’d have loved to have seen a statement of intent yesterday.
I’m not a board lackey, apologist or otherwise but I try and analyse what I see in front of myself and that is always subject to change. Whilst I don’t believe Peter Lawell is the devil incarnate there is a risk aversion about our strategy that irritates me.
Tomorrow night is being drummed up as ‘do or die’ by some and others have called for boycotts. Their right. I just think that’s wrong. How the 2 ties against Maribor stack up and the end of the transfer window and I think we’ll be in a better shape to assess where we are going.
I am sure this will get lost in the angst and frustration on the board today but like any good therapy I feel better for writing it :)
Hail hail
MWD
a) I am happy to wait and see re Ronny Delia.
b) I don`t know enough about the recruitment policy to be either happy or unhappy.
I am happy being a Celtic supporter and am really looking forward to Saturday.
JJ
ernie lynch said ,”Face facts, we’re down sizing and budget cutting until the new old firm gravy train is up and running.”
Those are not facts.
JJ
Tom…,
“The transfer window still has nearly 3 weeks to run. Traditionally the big signings don’t materialise until the last couple of days.”
Remind us all of the last “big signing” made in the last 3 weeks ?
Tonev struggled at Villa last season. A young Bulgarian, away from home for the first time. Kind of reminds me of a young player we once had …
Not saying that Tonev is guaranteed to be another star, but let’s at least give him a few games to see what he can do.
ernie lynch
Looks like that to me , then we will see what happens . If Celtic / the board ( whatever ) accept /treat them as if they are still the same club and restart the OF crap then many supporters will have a decision to make .
Jungle Jim
09:08 on 12 August, 2014
It’s an opinion that is entirely consistent with the known facts.
Big wavy,
Can you point to the boycott calls, I’ve no seen that