Those of us wanting to bury the memory of the January 2009 transfer window now have the opportunity. Summer 2018 eclipsed not paying £4m for an injury-prone Hibernian striker, while capturing Willo Flood in what appeared to be a reluctant afterthought, by some distance.
To wonder where it started to go wrong, we have to look back at this January’s window. Celtic knew Dedryck Boyata was about to enter the last year of his contract and had been unable to get him to sign a new deal. An acknowledgement was made that this summer was the right time to sell him, so the priority for January was to acquire a direct replacement.
To this end, Marvellous Marvin Compper (then 32) was recruited from Leipzig, where he had been completely out of the picture, having suffered an injury last summer. While Jack Hendry also joined the club in January, he was considered a player with development potential, it was believed Compper would slot straight into the role Boyata filled.
It took Brendan Rodgers 83 minutes to realise this was never going to be the case. The player made two 45 minute appearances in the previous six months, the most recent in September, and was well short of what was required at Celtic. Scouting opportunities must have been limited to reserve football, if that.
Having missed the target so badly in January we started this window playing catch-up. Dedryck was denied a transfer to Fulham, which would have been accepted if Marvin was up to the task. He is not the first Celtic central defender in recent years to declare himself unable to play because he wanted a move, but his agent threw the matter into the public domain. The goals we lost against AEK will hang over the player.
Hibs John McGinn joined Aston Villa when Celtic thought he was coming here. Brendan Rodgers made his displeasure known on the next three occasions he met the media, sparking a media feeding frenzy. Unlike Boyata, McGinn would not have made a difference to our Champions League qualification campaign, but we are short for backup in his central midfield space.
Deadline day started with nothing more than a training session planned at Celtic but Moussa Dembele threw a strop. Late the previous evening he used Twitter to imply he had been lied to, then liked a Tweet by Chris Sutton asserting he was having a go at the manager. Ironically, and before witnesses, a few hours later he told the manager no one had lied to him. We lost our best striker on deadline day without replacing him, and most fans were glad to see him off the premises.
Amid all of the angst, the almost forgotten fact is that this was the window we broke our transfer record fee for the first time in 18 years. Odsonne Eduard arrived for £9m from PSG, but as he was here on loan last season, so not an enhancement to the squad.
We lost Stuart Armstrong and Patrick Roberts ended his multi-year loan. Both played less prominent roles last season than earlier, so their departure will not weaken our first choice line-up, but limits options the manager has, when tactics, injuries and suspensions require a change.
Lewis Morgan arrived from St Mirren, while Daniel Arzani came in on a two year loan from Manchester City. Hopefully one or both can fit into the Roberts role. Youssouf Mulumbu was a player who begged the question, ‘How did he end up at Kilmarnock?’ last season. The player looks the genuine article, and at 31, is younger than others who have arrived late in their career and excelled, but it remains to be seen if he can deliver for Celtic.
With central defence looking as vulnerable as we have seen it in years, Filip Benkovic arrived on loan from Leicester City.
By any measure, this was not a good transfer window. Last season we were schooled in the Champions League, not just by PSG, but by Anderlecht, at home. Granted, we outplayed Anderlecht in Belgium, but when the Belgians replaced their manager, they looked streets ahead.
My hope was that we would do a fair amount of trading. Move on those who would produce high fees and acquire players who can immediately enhance the first team. This did not happen and players like John McGinn would make no difference.
Progress in football is never linear. We had two years of unparalleled domestic success and Champions League football, but are still largely playing with a squad Ronny Deila had. Only Ntcham and Edouard were added to Sunday’s team by Brendan Rodgers. In short, it is not only the last two windows we need to analyse critically, the squad stopped improving after Scott Sinclair arrived in 2016.
I am sure lessons have been learned at Celtic but doing something about it is not always straightforward. Our scouting and recruitment resources do not match our Champions League ambitions. My expectations are the wage bill will be eye-watering hits a new peak when we see the accounts, I don’t think we can safely overhaul the structure and, say, offer the £50k/week levels now standard in England, but there is money for transfer fees, as the accounts will also show.
Despite that critique of our scouting, we acquired Dembele, Edouard, Ntcham and Sinclair over a short period. We have a model that works for us, but not this time. It is perhaps a mercy that the Champions League music will be missing this season, as we are miles short of what is required.
Petrov v Milner
More positively, get along to see the Petrov Milner game on Saturday. You can indulge in watching many of the greatest who have worn Celtic shirts over the last two decades.
And you get to support your Foundation. Ticket’s here.
171 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- »
Welcome back Macjay.
TGSC,
Sailing On….
Almore
I agree – very much not restricted to one religion or group, but the world sees it as primarily a problem for the Catholic church because of how badly they’ve handled it.
As someone else (McPhail Bhoy?) suggested – where you have unfettered & unsupervised access by adults to vulnerable people the risk os much higher – then the checks & balances need to be effective to ensure welfare of all.
I inlcude in that group, those vulnerable people AND the honest non-offending worker who’ll get tainted by the same scandal as the criminals.
MIT
Is that a blue dog tag?
lambert14 @ 1:14 pm
“Fletcher was not injury prone in 2008/2009..why do you think there was great interest in him at that time?”
Correct on your first but not your second assertion.Steven Fletcher had played 30+ games in each of his previous 4 seasons with Hibs.
However, as someone who remembers the CQN discourse from that year, Steven Fletcher was not highly sought after by Celtic fans, either on CQN or in the wider Celtic world. I dare say someone did ask a question about him at the AGM after he was proclaimed a success in his first season down south with Burnley where he was their player of the year, as they got relegated.
SF’s scoring record does not inspire confidence that he would have been the answer to anything.
2005/6 played 34 scored 8
2006/7 p 31 s 6
2007/8 p32 s 13
2008/9 p 34 s 11
all with Hibs
2009/10 p 35 s 8 – with Burnley
2010/11 p 29 s 10
2011/12 p 32 s 12
all with Wolves
In succeeding years, he score 11 goal in his first season with Sunderland and it has been almost single figures every year since (3, 5, 6, 10 and 2)
Even non-happy clappers like Tiny Tim were deeply opposed to buying Steven Fletcher.
It really is a Celtic Myth in the making and very few Celts who were around at that time would be pining for Steven Fletcher. We were hoping for a lot better.
Vale bhoy
Damn! I hoped no one would notice!
?
While I am on about Myths in the making, why did Paul 67’s opinions on Paddy Roberts, Stuart Armstrong, Steven Fletcher and Dedryk Boyata inspire such ire and accusations?
Is there not something lacking in self-perception to call him out for “Crystal Ball” type thinking, when the posters concerned hold the opposite, and equally Crystall Ball-ish, view that these players would have made a difference if they had stayed (or in Fletcher’s case, come to the club)? Why is only one side of this argument falling foul of this accusation?
It’s the same self-perception deficit which produces accusations of “expectation management” when the contrary views are also trying to frame our perceptions.
In the end, you can only convince people of the merits of your viewpoint by providing evidence, supporting statistics or convincing rhetoric. The minute you resort to dismissing an alternative view by mere name-calling , even mild names like Crystal Ballish, Expectation Management or Brennies (I know it was a tongue in cheek jibe but these things have the capacity to wound family members who read them) you merely diminish the power of your argument.
If the argument you are advancing is to win more support, then it will need a better effort than we have seen tonight. There are many posters on here capable of making a better fist of it than they did.
Paul 67 is not going to make your argument for you; he can only speak for himself. It is up to you to make your own point as effectively as you can.
If we can dismiss Paul 67 as merely a Lawwell Puppet, you invite a similar childish dismissal of your own point as a Kev Kultist.
Goodnight all from Govanhill Crossroads Blues.
MIT
I’m very disappointed in Seamus.
In fact I’m off to bed hoping he recovers soon.
HH
For what it’s worth (not much) my view on the transfer window and recent events.
Looking back, we’ll see 2018 as perhaps our worst year in terms of squad management. January was awful – Comperr was a replacement for Boyata who we all expected would leave after the World Cup and Musonda a replacement for Rogic who we all expected would leave after the World Cup. Hendry was a project – I’ll come back to him later. Both Comperr and Musonda were spectacular failures meaning we had to rethink for summer.
By summer, Rogic had re-signed (albeit just before the World Cup started so cutting it fine) and after what seemed like a bit of a faff, Eddy was signed permanently. It’s likely Eddy was seen as Dembele’s replacement when we inevitably sold him next summer – Lyon and MD’s behaviour put paid to that plan. We also knew Armstrong (after the faff of last summer, but to be fair he did sign and extension meaning we got a fair price, so hat tip to the guy) and Roberts would leave.
We also had the shambolic handling of the KT to Everton rumours. The handling suggests there was some truth in it, but we managed to hold onto him rather than selling for £20-30m as reported.
Brendan identified McGinn as a replacement for the Hair – a driving runner who would be a good plan B in tight games and would grow in his time here. Many of us disagreed with his potential signing or suitability for Celtic – I wanted him to come, which I’ll explain later) It didn’t happen anyway, as we all know.
He also, by some accounts, identified Schar as a replacement for Boyata, but we were too slow, he had a good World Cup, and Newcastle threw silly wages at him. Picini was identified for a right back slot – various accounts abound for what happened there…
All of which meant Brendan’s top 3 targets were missed. Given out shambolic centre half compliment – Jozo seems shell shocked or has packed it in, Comperrs a disaster, and Hendry is raw – it’s unsurprising that Brendan refused to sell Boyata, at least not before CL qualifiers were over (which would mirror what we did with Van Dijk). Boyata’s tantrum (and Brendan’s assumption Boyata would be fine with it) cost us big time there.
We ended the window having made Eddy and Bain’s loan signing permanent, bringing Izzy back, signing Arzani (Man City link), Benkovic (who the club had tracked since signing Jozo) and Mulumbu (who we all knew from West Brom days and played against us last season).
The result of all this was, in my view, a breakdown in two key relationships. Firstly, between Brendan and PL. Brendan is irked that PL failed to deliver the 3 players he wanted, while PL sees Brendan obstructing a potential £40m income from sales of KT and Boyata. I’m not sure that relationship can be repaired…
Equally worryingly, the relationship between Brendan and Congerton/the scouting department seems to have broken down, with our signings being proven at the club (Eddy, Bain, Izzy), tracked by the previous scouting team (Benkovic), part of our link with Man City (Arzani) or identified as doing well in games against us (Mulumbu, Morgan). That limits our options quite considerably, which is a worry when out strategy relies in part on buying potential to sell on at a profit.
That’s not the only risk to the strategy as a result of this window. While we’ve seen the Wanyamas, Van Dijks, etc come in for a couple of years and move on, equally important has been what I would call the “core”. A group of solid professionals who are here for 4-5 years, “get” Celtic, and form the “core” of the team and squad. That’s Broony, Izzy, KT, Lustig, Gordon, CalMac, Forrest, Griff. Some of those aren’t getting any younger and we need to refresh the “core” as well as the potentials.
This year saw the start of that – Hendry was seen as “next generation core”, alongside Bain, Morgan, Mikey Johnson. The key addition in that respect would have been McGinn. So, while Paul67 is right that McGinn may not have made much difference to our CL qualification, or been anything more than a squad player this year, he potentially would have been pivotal to what we do going forward, and I think that’s why Brendan was so disappointed when that fell through.
All in all, that leads to a disappointing window – both in the immediate term and in our hopes of getting 10. It was the beginning of a disconnect between the club and fans. Further issues have arisen that have exacerbated that disconnect:
Poor alignment between the Football and Retail sides of the business – for example the “buy like Celtic” adverts that came out soon after the McGinn deal failed (leading to jokes around “I’ll offer £1 for that £60 top. No? How about half now, half when I’ve worn it 100 times?”);
Poor social media/comms on transfer deadline day – not announcing Benkovic until 11:45 when he had spent the day training, etc. Announcing Okoflex on 1 September, etc;
The club’s response to the crush on Sunday – fans expect Celtic to provide a safe environment to watch the match, the club failed to do so;
And even the euphoria of the win on Sunday has been dampened by the club’s response to the McGregor compliance review (ie deafening silence).
So, instead of being prepared to go for 8 in a row and optimistic about 10 (and indeed 13 so we reach the sacred 55 before them – that’ll really sicken them), we’re now in a situation where the club is lacking leadership and direction at a crucial juncture, with fans and club divided and a failure of strategy to improve the team.
Instead, we’re relying on the “core” plus Eddy and Ntcham to deliver another title. Brendan can probably see us to another title, but longer term we have issues – Broony is getting on (and continually playing through injury, we have a load of players out of contract (the core of Broony, Lustig, Forrest) next summer with no sign of movement on extending those contracts (nor any movement on Griff’s extension which has tumbled on for ages) and limited confidence we can identify and recruit sufficient replacements/additions.
I’m generally an optimist, but I can’t help fear this is the season we blew the chance of ten and let them back into things. This season is pivotal – we need to clear the deadwood (we have 33 players – around 1/3 of those have no future with us either because they aren’t good enough or will leave of their own volition) and refresh the “core”. We need to start working together again. We need to review our strategy and how we deliver against the strategy. We need to all get back to pulling in the same direction. Above all, we need leadership at club level! Dermot Desmond demonstrates leadership every so often (appointing MON after the Dalglish/Barnes debacle) appointing Brendan after the semi-final disaster, but leaves alone when things seem to be going well and it unravels until he intervenes…Dermot, in the extremely unlikely event you read this, it’s unravelling…
THE GOOD SHIP CELTICA on 5TH SEPTEMBER 2018 10:20 PM
Cheers
:-)
Well thank god paul67have errr sorted out errr the rptramfer window errr debacle.
Itsomeones fault but we canny figure out who.
And as for Celtic and the latest cheat. Celtic are errr surprised.
That is it’s
Surprised.
Cheats (and I mean Celtic)
Strange lead article this.
As others pointed out Steven Fletcher wasn’t injury prone at Hibs. He may have had one season later on in England were he played less than an average of 30 odd games but injury prone? Strange to mention him though I appreciate the context of this being a comparable window. Why say he was injury prone though?
Let’s have a look at some other strange statements
‘An acknowledgement was made that this summer was the right time to sell him, so the priority for January was to acquire a direct replacement.’
Who acknowledged it? Brendan Rodgers?
On Compper – ‘Scouting opportunities must have been limited to reserve football, if that‘.
Who agrees and manages scouting reports and decides on targets? What role does Peter Lawwell play in deciding targets besides agreeing the budget for the transfer window?
If the total budget was transfer fee of £4m – for example – was this for all players. So Rodgers could choose to get Musonda then either 1 centre back at £2m or as he chose 2 centre backs? Was Brendan Rodgers constrained by the budget and how much was projected to be received for Boyata? Was the figure much less than £9m? Did the club consult the players agent or other agents to ask what value we would attract?
‘Dedryck was denied a transfer to West Ham, which would have been accepted if Marvin was up to the task’.
Who denied it? How much was offered and was Brendan Rodgers deemed solely responsible for Compper? As stated in the article he played 83 mins if it was Rodgers mistake he didn’t bleed the guy out in the hope he would come good.
Sviatchenko was allowed to go on loan and I assume he was sine died after a request to go when other clubs showed interest last summer? Simunovic the very obvious other.
If Compper was the replacement for Boyata who was the replacement for Sviatchenko? Hendry? But he is a project? So Simunovic and Ajer and Compper going for 2 centre half berths? Ajer a project himself and Simunovic played 30 games last season a few less than Armstrong and iconically a handful less than Steven Fletcher in his 2 final seasons with Hibs.
On McGinn -‘Brendan Rodgers made his displeasure known on the next three occasions he met the media, sparking a media feeding frenzy. Unlike Boyata, McGinn would not have made a difference to our Champions League qualification campaign, but we are short for backup in his central midfield space’.
Why do I feel like Paul doesn’t enjoy our manager making public announcements of displeasure? I think Brendan Rodgers has done well to keep a lid on his non vocalised displeasure re the length of time to secure Sinclair, the Edouard transfer saga, the length of contract negotiations with existing players, Piccini, McGinn, the Swiss Centre Back…
‘We lost Stuart Armstrong and Patrick Roberts ended his multi-year loan. Both played less prominent roles last season than earlier, so their departure will not weaken our first choice line-up, but limits options the manager has, when tactics, injuries and suspensions require a change’.
I’m surprised Paul hasn’t noticed that Armstrong was rotated in for underperforming Ntcham at points. Stuart was also managing injuries given he had agreed his move! He would have played a lot more. If McGinn had been signed we may have had him on in Norway or indeed the second period in Glasgow v AEK when Ntcham solely struggled to pull the strings. Similarly Athens last 20 mins.
‘Youssouf Mulumbu was a player who begged the question, ‘How did he end up at Kilmarnock?’ last season. The player looks the genuine article, and at 31, is younger than others who have arrived late in their career and excelled, but it remains to be seen if he can deliver for Celtic’.
But you just said Compper was 32 when he signed? Age is a bad thing when you know it’s a concern but not when you don’t know?
The most telling comment –
‘By any measure, this was not a good transfer window. Last season we were schooled in the Champions League, not just by PSG, but by Anderlecht, at home. Granted, we outplayed Anderlecht in Belgium, but when the Belgians replaced their manager, they looked streets ahead’.
So… a change of manager can change a team of Champions League also rans into a team who can school us? Your frustrations are showing here Paul. After all why shell out millions on a managers salary and his staff who
Can’t set a team up to park the bus in the Champions league and moans about not getting players that are too expensive or not rated by Peter Lawwell and his advisors?
Why would Brendan Rodgers trust Lawwell to sell his players that are performing to take an eternity to purchase replacements – if they get them at all?
‘Only Ntcham and Edouard were added to Sunday’s team by Brendan Rodgers. In short, it is not only the last two windows we need to analyse critically, the squad stopped improving after Scott Sinclair arrived in 2016’.
So you don’t rate Ntcham and Edouard who arrived in 2017 but you want to sell players to buy lower priced ones? I would argue strongly that Ntcham and Edouard improved the squad in 2017.
‘My expectations are the wage bill will be eye-watering hits a new peak when we see the accounts, I don’t think we can safely overhaul the structure and, say, offer the £50k/week levels now standard in England, but there is money for transfer fees, as the accounts will also show’.
My expectation is that the Turnover will be eye watering and wages to be within the wages to turnover threshold we have maintained in previous years. The fact is we can’t sell players at the right time and buy replacements at the right time. I agree that selling for example Dembele would have made sense in June as long as we bought a replacement at lower cost and on lower wages. If Moussas wages were as high as reported we have wiped 4% of the wage bill. Lets also assume that bonuses will be well down given no Champions League qualification. We also lost the salaries of Musonda, Armstrong, Roberts, Sviatchenko from June 18 onwards. We must know the salary projection for the whole year now to June 19? We must have a projection for turnover now too? Europa + Dembele + Armstrong + Sviatchenko + increased sponsorship deals? It’s not a comparison of what you could have had it’s a direct division of projected wage to projected turnover we look at. I would hazard a guess that there is some slack in projected wages that would still see us achieve the dub 60% figure for this full year coming…? The income for this coming year would look similar to the previous 17/18 year perhaps with in 5 to 10 million?
So if the total wage bill this year is £63m we would need to have turned over at least £105m. You are not telling me the new deals for existing players and the salaries for new would take us above the 17/18 figure with no Champions League? If so why is there so much dead wood from the Lennon and Ronny era hanging around taking a salary?
As you say transfer fees are not the problem. Wages apparently are. I suppose it will take a year to find out what the figure I am looking for is. I hope by then we don’t have extra accounting entries for paying off the management contracts.
DD & Bobby, that’s me back from the Pavilion. It was brilliant! I was going off my head like an eejit during the sing song bits much to my sisters consternation. They are very reserved. Never been to a football match. but they enjoyed it. Wish I had went to it with football pals, but hey ho.
SPidey 101
You make a lot of telling points without resorting to any personal criticism.
However……
“He also, by some accounts, identified Schar as a replacement for Boyata, but we were too slow, he had a good World Cup, and Newcastle threw silly wages at him. ”
How do you know that we were in any way culpable, i.e. too slow?
Could it not be that Schar wanted to be patient and see what other offers there were and was not willing to jump at the first offer? Why is that alternative factored out?
‘My expectations are the wage bill will be eye-watering hits a new peak when we see the accounts, I don’t think we can safely overhaul the structure and, say, offer the £50k/week levels now standard in England.’
Does anyone actually know what the first team wage bill is? And are we getting value for that with the 30-odd players on the books or we would get better value with fewer but more highly paid players?
I’m not sure anyone really thinks we can compete with wages in England (very few clubs in Europe can) or even that we should. However, we probably could do better with our spending and could push the envelope a bit, especially if we moved some of the transfer fee money into the wage budget…
Setting free the bears
Thanks – I wanted to avoid pointing fingers. I don’t think anyone comes out of the summer all that well…
You are of course right, it could have been Schar wanted to wait – and it probably was. In which case, knowing the English window closed early and Boyata wanted away (and probably to England) we should have said thanks for your time and moved on to the next target (assuming we had one).
Either way, we weren’t fully prepared leading to us asking about McKenna (who I wouldn’t mind as a future “core” player) and signing Benkovic on loan for 6 months to a year on deadline day. Which means we face the prospect of losing him and Boyata in the same window, be that January or Summer…
SFTB
Kev Kultist? Seriously?
The quality of your posts has been on the wane for a while now (although, to be fair to you, it has to be tough to come up with fresh ways to defend the same nonsense by P67 and the Board), but that was possibly your poorest effort yet.
if you wish to continue in your role as CQN’s Raj Shah to P67’s Sarah Huckabee Sanders, you will simply have to try harder.
MIT
Not as good as Brennies, eh?? Ach well- self declared satisfaction is good enough for many.
You can try all day long to portray your own posts, and those of posters who agree with you, as the opinions of independently-minded, rational individualists who are not swayed by group think.
And you can wish away all contrary views as sheep like, cultist, Moonie-istic imitation and repetition of a Dominant Leader from whose positions you cannot deviate.
And you can put those two halves together.
You may have a wholly rounded, self-fulfilling, undisprovable position.
But, it will still be a childish interpretation of reality.
Might as well simplify it to “Yiz are awe sheep, except me and such as me”.
Brennies, indeed!
Catch a Grip!
Goodnight CQN
I’ve often wondered if AEK Athens had a big pile of complacent £60/70 million CL money from the previous two 2 years nocking about they’re balance sheet, before they played “Mr Chocolate’s” Scottish pub team skelpers ?
The Scottish game is corrupt to it’s Masonic/Orange core.
And yet, Celtic supporters can’t invest enough into it, £50:00 now for Old Firm tickets…..they seen yeez coming.
So, bearing all of that in mind, remind me, who’s fault is it when you get cheated ?
Ftsfa, and any Celtic player that plays for Scotland is a traitor.
Any Celtic supporter who wants Scotland to win, deserves to be cheated.
When Ireland is united, Scotland will open its gates to the, Ulster/Scots overspill from the six counties.
The U/S overspill will be comforted by a west of Scotland media campaign, blaming the loss of the land of U/S overspill, on the evil Irish. In that climate, how long will it take for the first – “Send the Tim’s home!” – campaign to get off the ground ?
Paranoid, my nickers CSC
(the above, said in a, Dirty Harry voice ;)
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Kev
How long have you been posting on CQN?
I was accused today of being one of your disciples. But, I have been on CQN, since the first month it started. If I was on here first, I think that would make you my acolyte.
If you can confirm , next time, I can straighten these guys out. Okay?
?
SFTB @ 11:20
I’ve not been on the blog since deadline day when I hoped the leader was true. Something inside me though (so strong) sensed this wasn’t over the line… Anyway… I digress.
Having had a quick skim over page one earlier and a quick read of the Las page tonight, once again our man in the know…. The PL puppet ? is being criticised… And you… Who is also a PL puppet ? is putting forward, yet again.. In your inimitable way… A different thought process… Jeez.. I’m glad I never debated with you, never mind try to argue.
You are sense personified in type. Having met you… It’s easy to see where that comes from.
The part of your post that prompted me to type was the ‘brennies’ part…. You are 100% accurate.
Regardless of opinion… Be careful of what you type… The person yuu feel you’re digging at is someone’s brother, sister, husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter… Need I go on!
Have some respect – the Celtic way
Standing up for P67
Standing up for the man who introduced the standing up…
HAIL HAIL ? ? ☘
How do you DEFINE a Celtic supporter?
How do YOU define a Celtic supporter?
How do you define a CELTIC supporter?
HOW do you define a Celtic supporter?
How do you define a Celtic SUPPORTER?
Good semantics man
I would define a supporter as someone who goes to the games ( finances dictating ) and offers encouragement to the team which is maybe different from a fan who perhaps hopes the team does well but doesn’t attend matches….then of course you get people who haven’t been to Celtic park for years but regard themselves as pious uber fans….IMHO of course.
That Celtic statement on McGregor,in full.
“Ouch! Gonna stoap that? My arse is still sore from the last time!!!”
Good morning all, pleasant fresh, slightly autumnal morning, in the Chillederns…
Thought this thread may have brought out a bigger and more feverent response, it seems we’ve gone for quality rather than quantity – some very good posts making some very salient points.
These include but were certainly not limited to…
Sin Sity Bhoy @ 7:57 pm, Spidey101 @ 11:24 pm & 12:06 am, Mullet and Co @11:37 pm,
They have covered very articulately what are my thoughts… one thing I will say though…
From what I can see Brendan Rodgers had no choice but to speak out, we had the most important match of the Season coming up and his preparations should have been fully focussed on the AEK game. However as it came to the close of the English transfer window things were coming to ahead.
It was clear that McGinn was probably heading for Aston Villa, while the Celtic Executives that should have been, belatedly trying to get this deal over the line were more interested in selling our best Centre Half (while clearly not making any effort to replace him) and bringing in a young Australian development player on loan.
It was very clear then that the Celtic Executive were working to their own agenda in this transfer window making token efforts to implement the plans of the from the football operations manager.
No wonder he was raging… some may call BR’s actions in making this situation public unprofessional, The fact is he was getting steam rollered… he’s not a man for that.
Let’s look at what we recently had to say about Arzani…
”Chris Davies: “He still has a way to go to get up to speed, but he has a two-year loan and we are going to support his development.
“His main priority is to build up his condition, he’s had half a development team game.
“The style we have is fast-paced and intense, so players have to be at that level.”
Why on earth was Brendan Rodgers having to reply to questions on this on the eve of our most important game (especially as he seemed to little about the deal or the lad) – why were Celtic resources working on this deal when there were far more important transfer issues at hand. It is a key indicator that our transfer strategy was dysfunctional.
Brendan Rodgers and his team were trying to provide excellence for the Football Club…
The Celtic Executive were acting like Titanium Metals looking at the widgets…
Some say we are a well run organisation, well when we by comparing ourselves to Scottish basket cases or bloated spendthrift English club that may be true. The fact is there are any number of well run Clubs in Europe, whose football side is supported much better than ours.
The Dembele fiasco being a case in point – Lyon were about to lose one (of their three) free scoring centre forwards to Real Madrid, this was always a possibility. When it became clear that Real were going to pull the trigger on the Mariano deal, Lyon sprinted out of the blocks, they knew how much they wanted to spend on transfer fees and wages they had a clear idea of plan A (a young Frenchman playing in Scotland) and plan B (a Brazilian playing in his home country). They rapidly, actively and aggressively pursued these plans and got their preferred striker.
This is proper risk management and not the parsimonious risk averse stratagies that we have in place and are continually costing Celtic in both performance and money.
We now are left with only two Centre Forwards and one is not a specialist in our favoured one up front formations – Crazy.
I’m very glad the Brendan has indicated that a review will take place, I’m less anamoured by the fact that the Celtic Executive has treated this crisis in the manner it deals with so many other issues…
…S I L E N C E!!
Oft Oooot….
Hail Hail
On iron bird heading to Albufiera for a ‘golf ‘ weekend….
Good morning all from the Govanhill magic band.
Good morning from an overcast Garngad
Bada bing enjoy the Gowf
Bring on the Buddies
HH
D. :)
I do find it strange that Chris Davies says the club is upset by the decision not to cite Mgregor the beast and yet say our players could have been injured. All the more reason to ask for clarification and call out the cheats, but nope he says that’s the end of the matter.
Very strange
D. :)
Things you don’t hear every day:
yeeees the Nations League is starting ???
HH
D. :)
morning bhoys from a dreich Cheshire,missing the footie already.hh.
MIT re:-
“Kev
How long have you been posting on CQN?
I was accused today of being one of your disciples. But, I have been on CQN, since the first month it started. If I was on here first, I think that would make you my acolyte.
If you can confirm , next time, I can straighten these guys out. Okay?”
I think I can save KevJ some work as he has 49 tasks on his hand just now.
1) You were not accused of being a KevJ acolyte but you were asked to see that this accusation is as silly as calling people acolytes of Paul 67 because they are not convinced by all of your points.
2) As you were not charged with this offence there is no need to call KevJ to the witness stand.
3) Just as well, since your line of questioning starts with the view that you can’t be an acolyte of someone you preceded in a timeline. Someone should tell that to John The Baptist and the other prophets. Or Anton Drexler with Adolf (save your breath: it is not a direct comparison- just a precedent analogy). Or Sean Fallon with Jock Stein (again not a direct comparison).
Older people can be followers of younger people. Arrivistes can take over a political party.
An acolyte is a follower: you can discover someone along the way that you wish to follow. Are all the twitter feeds you follow run by people older than you?
4) To conclude my closing argument- you were not accused, as you stated, but, instead, you were the one accusing others of being acolytes- a charge you avoided in adopting a passive: aggressive stance on the matter.
I find that type of selection and framing to be deeply unconvincing, almost expectation management, indeed.
Case Dismissed.
Aff oot noo ( oops this acolyte business is catching)
LarssonSe7en
Thanks for the support.
You were right in drawing attention to the fact that personalising the criticism is hurtful and, in some cases, rude.
By all means, attack the arguments expounded but save us from the simplistic scapegoating.
Definitely aff oot noo
MiT @1:09 on SFTB:
” The quality of your posts has been on the wane for a while now ”
Could you give even a tiny bit of evidence to support that statement?
JJ
PS I know it is middle of the night in Toronto so I won`t expect a speedy reply :-)
SFTB
I typed that before seeing your 8:32 post.
JJ
As BSR might say:
Who would win in a Court fight between SFTB and MiT ?
Who would win in a Court fight between SFTB and MiT ?
SFTB by an unanimous jury verdict.
Facts v opinions.
Fact free opinion being the stock in trade of the multi posting mineshafters.
Eurochamps67