Surprised? Well, yes. This was a no-contest early-on in Maribor last week. Even though Celtic didn’t come home with the win, the chances, balance of possession and play, were well in their favour. A defeat last night was never out of the question, but it was the nature of the defeat that was most concerning. We were second best in defence, midfield and attack.
Pre-match, Ronny told us he expected Maribor to sit in and counter-attack. They didn’t, forcing Celtic into disarray. We were fortunate to go in level at halftime; I was screaming out for a tactical change from 20 minutes in.
Kris Commons proved his value. From the moment he arrived, we had an out-ball for the first time in the night, but it was not enough.
Celtic tried to qualify for the Champions League without a target man, or a striker able to play the kind of football Ronny Deila requires to play his kind of football. Stokes, Griffiths, Pukki and Balde are not an appropriate Champions League strike force, by some distance.
We have plenty of midfielders who are happy to pass and run but no one with the composure to hold the ball. Brown, Forrest and Tonev were all missing, but none will occupy the holding roles given to Kayal and Mulgrew last night. Or to Wanyama two years ago.
The defensive collapse since last season is unfathomable. Virgil van Dijk was clearly a class above, whether in defence or attack, and Mikal Lustig was also assured – it is perhaps no coincidence that we lost the goal moments after he was replaced, but Efe Ambrose and Emilio Izaguirre have returned from the World Cup in alarmingly poor form.
This is where we are. We knew this at the end of last season, perhaps Neil Lennon did too. Ronny Deila has a significant rebuilding job on his hands.
Will we make a significant moves forward this week? This season? The Europa League isn’t the cash-cow of the premier tournament, and it carries none of the glamour, but it is a competition we need to be ready for. Perhaps more importantly, qualification planning for next season’s Champions League starts now.
[calameo code=000390171586f6fbaa2ba lang=en page=122 hidelinks=1 width=100% height=500]
1,665 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- ...
- 44
- »
Boys sorry but this needs to be posted.
http://t.co/7F1zgE1k7Z
More favours it’s disgusting but when you’ve got our board waiting on a year for a reply from the SFA on res 12 this is why rules don’t matter.
Looking at EL Pots (which are still subject to some change)
“Hardest” EL draw;
Inter
Everton
Feyenoord
“Easiest” CL draw
Twente
Tel-Aviv
Aalborg
Glamour Draw
Seville/Inter/Spurs
Sociedad/Everton
Torino
Bore Draw/Worst Travel
Kharkiv
Tiraspol
Moscow
Sad to say, all in Pots 1,3 and 4 will want us.
niallo83
11:16 on 27 August, 2014
Cillian Sheridan has scored 3 goals in 4 CL qualifiers this season!!!!
Anthony Stokes hasn’t scored in 17 European games……that’s how bad Stokes is!!
Sorry if that is a little below the belt but really can’t understand all the support Stokes gets on here…..he’s the Celtic Kris Boyd
———————————————————————-
In my opinion he gets support because of his background in Ireland.
HH
67Heaven
Look at the accounts.
I take it that you are happy, that the board refuse to invest in the team?
And…there are indeed huns on the Celtic board….isnt that obvious.
Or do you need photographs of the brown brogues and funny handshake shenanigans.
HH
Etims diary today worth a read. No filtering of the reality on there:
http://etims.net/?p=5591
Re “supposed “new striker from Celtic new now
Stefan Scepovic expects his departure from Sporting Gijon to be finalised soon but is not sure yet that his destination will be Celtic.
Sporting manager Abelardo Fernandez admitted earlier this week that he was planning for a future without the talented striker.
Reports suggested that a switch to Celtic was imminent, and Scepovic says he would relish the opportunity to join the Scottish champions.
However, the 24-year-old has other options, including PSV Eindhoven, and is convinced that he will shortly be linking up with a new cub.
“I know that Celtic want me but the Sporting board has told me that so far they didn’t receive any offer from Scotland,” the Serbian told Sport.
“But Sporting will sell me, that is for sure. They even told me not to train and play so that I could not get injured.
“Celtic? I would be happy to go there, for sure. But PSV is also big club and I must admit that there are even more options.
“I think that soon everything will be sorted out.”
I agree Mick.
just read etims.
i agree completely with the following…
Deila seems to have taken a few bad ideas from Lennon, added a few of his own and come up with a whole new level of ineptitude.
Deila isn’t up to it.
Instead of managing what they have, they have tried to turn the team into what they aren’t.
Thats not management. Thats making an arse of it.
time to go.
johann murdoch
I am calling it – the Serb won’t come now we are out of the CL.
When it wasn’t finalized I got the feeling it was a wait and see job.
This just gets better and better
My ?’s to our board.
1. A good start IMO would be to get the GB back ASAP, atmosphere at parkhead is non existent.
2. Next recommendation would be give Ronny the targets he wants.
3. Who at our club finds it acceptable not to sign players before a crucial CL tie ?
4. Do you think it’s acceptable our board wait 1 year on a reply from a corrupt governing body regarding Res12.
5. Why did T Hutton speak out on corruption & our board remained silent ?
Long time since I posted, but gutted about last night. Out of the qualifiers twice in one season – goodness me!!
I’ve been looking at tictactics recent article on money all. That shows that since Lennons first full season, we have spent around £30 million on players. During the same period, we’ve brought in around £40 million or so (McGeady – £9.5m; wanyama – £12m; hooper – £5.5m; Wilson – £3m; Forster – £10m). Now taking out sell on fees on players sold (hooper – c£2.5 m and Forster – c£2.5m) that’s a balance of £5m. We’ve also brought in money for Ledley, watt and maybe others(?). Balanced against that, we’ve loaned 8 players in that time (Forster, miku, el kaddouri, Gershon, broszech, and three reserve goalkeepers), signing on fees, pay offs for duds (bangura, etc) and agents/signing on fees and we probably have reinvested all our transfer income.
So that leaves two issues: 1) why are we buying poor quality and 2) what about champions league income?
On 1) paul67 recently wrote an article saying things had gone downhill since lustigs signing. Why is that? In my view, it’s when Lennon, Parker and mjallby we’re cut out of decision making on transfers. All our earlier successes (Ledley, commons, Wilson, lustig,foresters, mastorovich etc) were players the management team knew – from England or Sweden. Since then, it’s been a case of chasing the foreign diamond – probably because of the early success of kayal and izzy (talk of Barcelona and Man utd being interested seems laughable now) and it becoming obvious wanyama would be a payday!
Since then, Lennon relied on his old guard more or less – giving the impression he wasn’t happy with latter players brought in. In that context, parks track record is really poor – we’ve only made money on wanyama (albeit a massive profit).
So what’s the answer? Sack park? Look at England and Scandinavia as our core markets? Let the manager buy the players he wants? All of the above? Whatever the Answer we need a thorough review of our scouting!
On 2) I suspect the champions league cash has gone on debt and tarting up stadium/training ground, but I could be marital em. Given we are basically debt free, I would suggest that an investment in players of £14m or so (if that is what champions league is worth) over the next two seasons (plus any transfer income in that period) should be sustainable – qualification for next years champions league should cover that. Is £14m enough for a complete regal of team? We spent £11m last year so I am not sure! Of course, it could well be we don’t actually budget for no champions league football and we need to be in group stages every other season to cover operating costs, in which case we are dependent on sales to generate spend, and we are currently at £0 in terms of our starting point – which means we could expect vvd to be sold to cover our spend.
Either way – depressing, but where we are. Long term rebuild required – we need to focus on getting more Scott browns (in it for the long term) and only one or two players as sellable assets. Perhaps looking at smaller potential profits (hooper and Wilson esque £2-3 m profits rather than chasing the wanyamas.
KevinBhoy
11:24 on
27 August, 2014
20 minutes to go.
I know!! Let’s bring on Derk because…
Anyone..?
——————————————————————————————————————–
Mate.
That just about sums up the whole sorry mess.
Snake Plissken. If the player chooses to join another club because we are no longer in the CL that is his choice we are better off without him.H.H.
All we need after last night’s fiasco are for these supposed new signings not to materialise.
Been lurking a lot.
As like most I am disappointed in last nights result, we have to remember this was a second bite at the cherry which we didn’t take. Yes, with a bit of luck we might have won, Stefan off the line & McGregor off the Bar.
Maribor are no mugs, they gave Villareal & Totenham a run for their money!
Our level at the moment is Europa League and we have to accept that, when I read posts devaluing the tournament I am dismayed, just ask Aberdeen fans who missed out how they would feel getting reprieve and a second bite at Europa League, they’d probably receive it the same way we did when we got a second bite at CL.
On that topic sometimes teams need to build from a foundation, and Europa league could help our players without them being overawed by CL occasions against superior teams.
Even Bayern built a team from there that eventually was honed to win the CL;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/7236397.stm
Ronny has a vision, unfortunately he doesn’t have the correct personal to complete and play this vision. It is a vision of brining through good young players and complemented by experience – This will take time.
Our club may have to re-evaluate the wage structure but until then Ronny can’t take the blame, Strachan & Lennon got off to bad starts so what is different here? – Is it because he is an unknown?
One thing I do know, I would be more embarrassed about getting a humping in the CL than playing in the Europa League. We will be seeded.
I plan to see how this year develops, how the team develops and then I will make judgement, but until then I will accept where we are and look for improvement!
#HailHail
Not the managers fault this one.
The person who hired a cheap manager from a minor European league and gave him very little support for two big CL ties is where the fault lies.
Two new ‘signings’ in the staring line up, a free keeper and a Cardiff reserve, and just the keeper in the 11 that finished the game. The keeper we signed to cover for the 10m keeper we sold.
No doubt the usual suspects will claim Peter Lawwell has been great, ‘we could have went the way of rfc’ etc etc, utter bullpoop.
The man has been a disaster for Celtic FOOTBALL Club, but doing the job ask of by Desmond and chums while neglecting actual football.
There was a lot of talk of lost income last night, thats what the Lawwell years have brought us to, two of our worst European defeats in FOOTBALL (remember when it was about football?) and people are concerned about what that means financially.
The people on here who support Lawwell, his conniving and spin should be ashamed of themselves.
Too many things about last nights team selection and set up were wrong, and I can’t even be bothered to expand on it – we can all see it. How we can go from passing D.Utd off the park to trying to thread 30yrd passes is beyond me.
This is how far we have dropped.
If we met Rangers this wknd coming, home or away – would you be confident of a win???
……………and they are a totally screwed club………that’s how far we’ve fallen.
Ah…so pl had no intention of signing the serb player….made no offer.
Stringing the supporters along yet again.
What a surprise eh
Big Peter shows his contempt yet again.
Shameless.
HH
I just cannot believe how poor we were last night, shambolic as well as clueless. Some dire performances, I hate to pick people out but big Effe was a disgrace. He really does need to have word with himself.
For years now folks on here have been saying the demise of footie in Scotland is well on the way and I have taken that lightly. If my beloved Celtic do not improve the path to ruin will continue sadly.
I can take being beaten, well we’ve had loads of practice after all, but to play like we did last night is totally unacceptable.
Have the players “got the hump” because of fitness regime changes or don’t like RD’s methods. Don’t know but something needs to be done and very quickly.If we play in the same way in the SPL then I honestly can’t even see us win the league.
This current lot of players are a joke, and I’m not a happy wee bunny.
KINGLuBO
I have just painfully sat through the re run………….I will say this…….Adam Matthews either wants to leave or is sh*t scared of injury.
Johansen is a COWARD !!!!…..the worst type of player possible…….. he may have great energy levels his diet may be absolutely astonishingly good…….he may squirm at the sight of a pint…..but he is a coward………he got rid of the ball on 3 or 4 occasions to mulgrew in very dangerous areas…..twice mulgrew got caught twice he managed to get away with it……if I had been mulgrew I would have battered him to bits …….some say in football this can be deliberate to make others look foolish………not sure I would say that this time……just cowardly…………. oh and he was still running strong near the end offs….
Peter Lawwell looks after the finances. Unless anyone can prove to me that he told Lenny to sign Balde, Boerrigter and the other duds, I won’t hold him responsible for our CL failure.
Perhaps, however, we need a CEO who’ll transform our football operations. We have a squad of 40 players FFS! I wonder how many Maribor and Legia have, or even the top European teams.
At the start of this season we had 5 strikers: Stokes, Griffiths, Watt, Balde and Fridjonsson. And the club expected Denny Johnstone to stay as an understudy to that useless bunch (the young Icelander might be OK, I don’t know) and play the odd game for the “development team”?
Why buy a “project” like Balde when we have our own youngsters? Did Lawwell insist on buying him? I doubt it.
The squad should be no more than 25, with our youth team players as back-up. Play the youngsters in the League Cup. Go for quality not quantity. Youth team players who are kept on when they reach 20/21 should be loaned out. If that proves successful (McGregor) they can be kept, if not (McGeoch, Rogic, etc.) they should be moved on.
A smaller squad will free up money from the wage bill and give us a better chance of signing quality players.
You won’t get quality every time of course. So Celtic’s future depends very much on youth development. That’s the way to go.
Sydney Tim
“SFTB. Unfortunately it’s peter Lawwell that decides all matters football. So we can have great ideas but it’s all about projects and sell on value for any players , not what is happening on the park
Until that changes then nothing will change”
Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, we still have to play football on a park, whilst we await Board Changes happening or not happening. Weekly decisions have to be taken and short and long term football strategies remain a priority. They may not be THE priority or YOUR priority but they remain important. Should RD stick with his vision or should he try to evolve more slowly?
Les Miserables
A straight answer though I disagree with the form issue. I think the 6:1 win over United and the 3:0 over St. Johnstone showed that we can play his style and still be successful in Scotland. We may end up shipping ore goals than NFL’s team did but we can still win leagues and cups.
However, as yet, Ronny has no record of achievement with Celtic in Europe (Reykjavik were a very weak team compared to Legia or Maribor) and I fear that we may fail to fulfill our expectations as a Pot 2 team in qualifying from the Europa League. I am not sure RD could survive that even though it is a strong possibility. We may be favourites to make the knock out stage but we will not be a strong odds:on favourite.
The Green Man. Where did your information about the signing of the Serb player come from ? H.H.
Whilst that is the team Neil Lennon assembled they are considerably better than how they currently are and that is 100% down to the new management team.
Those players had a full weeks rest, were allowed to focus 100% on what they had to do last night for a full week and they played like they had just been introduced to each other in the tunnel. The players were afraid and nervous. You could see that with the loose passing, the narking at each other and the fear of taking a chance and moving out of your position. They are not confident in themselves and each other.
Ronny has a specific system but he lacks pragmatism as the players he has inherited are not capable of playing that system. I, and many others, said that before his first training session yet he persists. This could be the rock he perishes on.
It is easy to blame the manager however that team he put out last night was filled with international class players who once again utterly failed in a key cup tie. How many times is this going to be allowed to happen? They frankly are not good enough and should be embarrassed that a young lad like McGregor was the only played who looked like that jersey fits him. Captain Mulgrew? Backup defender, never ever in a million years is he a part of a 3 man midfield doesn’t escape the fact he couldn’t receive a pass, hold off a man then pass 3 yards. Ambrose, again, with a performance level you wouldn’t think possible from a professional. Stokes is not Celtic class, never was and never will be he does try hard though. All the rest failed in the basics of pass, move and close your man down. As for Griffiths, he can’t even get a game with that mob. It was insipid, fearful and shameful.
I don’t know where you would even start sorting this out. Top to bottom an absolute omnishambles. The decision to stockpile money, for whatever reason, whilst the team withers with the crowds, needs to be explained to shareholders. This decision is the root cause of everything. The other decision, the £18k per week wage cap, also needs to be explained as a Champions League level side will not be amassed on that salary. I am not advocating spending £50k per week for players, however if we are reducing our wage cap whilst wages are rising everywhere else, well, you can see where that will end. Anybody who believes a team with our budget cannot afford to pay a key player £35k per week is having a laugh. So are we a CL team or not? If we are the wage structure has to be reviewed. If we are not, the prices need to be reviewed. Which is it? Whatever it is it needs to be explained to the shareholders.
As for transfer policy, getting lucky on a Wanyama is not a transfer policy. They have 50% of it right. We need to try and emulate the Udinese’s of this world it is the only wage to bridge the TV money gap, however they do not sell the asset until the replacement is ready. We sell to the first bidder who meets the valuation which is so monumentally stupid for a football team that it actually defies explanation.
Celtic – For better or worse, richer or poorer, in victory or defeat, till death do us part. I suppose…
Serious question to any beancounters on here
Is it possible that Celtic have a provision for a contingent liability hidden in their balance sheet?
Jfh
Scroll back….you will see the serb players comments.
HH
Maybe RL is sufficiently inexperienced at this level that Maribor realised that when he said that he expected them to sit back and then counter he was actually telling the truth would have picked his own team and tactics to counter that and just changed what they were planning to do..?
Why tell anyone at a press conference , and therefore , the opposition what your actually thinking?
Still cannot fathom why we changed things after 20 minutes of the second half when we were , for the only time in the game up until that point , on top.
The backside fell out of it for us after that.
I wonder to what extent the players were thinking –
“WTF is going on here?”
It will be great to finally see the accounts this year. It will be interesting to see how this years Jedi mind trick is performed.
The players we have bought to replace those who have left have not been good enough.
Biton for Wanyama
Pukki for Hooper
Johansen for Ledley
Boerrigter for Samaras
We signed Virgil to improve the side but will now most likely sell him and at a couple of million less than we bought him for. Will we get lucky as with Wanyama or will it be another project or 2 million pound mistake?
Kris Commons will be sold now or in January or will go for free next year. It will be easier to replace him with Tonev, Berget or McGregor. We won’t miss his pace but we will miss his quality.
Scott Browns contract is up next year and he will be 30. Will we offer a contract at all or will he go for a pittance in January?
On the managerial front, I find myself thinking of Tony Mowbray when I hear Ronny admit we weren’t good enough. I have just demonstrated we are worse of for quality than last year or two years ago so it’s a bit harsh to expect Ronny to make a silk purse from an even worse sows ear than Neil Lennon had. However, Ronny seems to have adopted the Tony Mowbray approach which is we must play attacking football and the players we have aren’t good enough to play his way. Last night was a return to the Legia games. Same mistakes and same players making them.
It remains to be seen if we will sign any new players given last nights result.
How much more would it have cost to get Scepovic and Wakaso in before the season started? Why sign an injured or unfit player in Tonev?
Why play with Denayer away then put Ambrose back in when it is obvious he is an absolute liability?
From here on, I hope we get a good Europa league draw to test Ronny and draws decent crowd. Inter would be good and a couple of sides we might have a chance of beating,
The months to the end of January should be very interesting.
RL = RD
Hey, guys, guys, GUYS!
It’ll be OK. It always turns out OK. Even here in the land of jerky knees, it will be OK.
PL needs to sign some bloody players!!!!!
But it’ll be OK.
OK?
I see the word armageddon rearing its head again in certain quarters. Before ”’armageddon”’ the scottush champions qualified for the group stages 65% of the time including 3 years of direct entry. In the same period the scottish champions made the last 16 15% of the time. And that included all the big spending years. Since ‘armageddon’ the scottish champions have made the group stages 67% of the time and the last 16 33% of the time.
Like everyone else pretty angry at last nights performance but thems the facts and we need to be realistic and concede that we have over achieved more than we have under achieved.
Here’s a theory….although definitely not a popular one.
Teemu Pukki should have started upfront last night instead of Anthony Stokes. Pukki is not a natural goalscorer…..in fact he misses quite a lot of chances. But he has work rate and pace which gets him into good opportunities. He’s like Sammy in that while he is not prolific he is capable of scoring against quality opposition. He has scored 7 European goals (including 3 goals in the Europa League against Schalke), he has 8 international goals against countries such as Spain, Czech Republic and Turkey and he scored 8 goals in the Bundesliga.
Stokes is incapable of scoring against anything other than SPFL dross. He hasn’t scored in 17 European games (3 goals total), he hasn’t scored in 8 internationals and he scored once in 20 Premiership games for Sunderland!!! I thought he hadn’t scored against Rangers either but Ryecather showed me a link of him scoring a goal for Hibs against them.
The stats don’t lie.
Now if we had proper strikers we wouldn’t have to play either of them but Stokes should never play a European game for Celtic again!!
Estadio Nacional
11:39 on
27 August, 2014
Not the managers fault this one.
——————————————————————————————————————–
Oh yes it was.
Screwed up twice against Legia.
Learned nothing.
Strange run-on team.
No Kris Commons.32 goals last season.
No Denayer.
No Leigh Griffiths whom he described as our best striker.
First half ,Lenny would have been out of the dugout SCREAMING.
As would have wee Gordon.
Deila must carry the can.
It`s the coach`s responsibility.
Was it not said on here years ago CL income wasnt part of the annual financial plan? A bonus? While people mucked a dead club for doing the same.
Why then do we have to sell players and even more so when there is no CL income when Lawwell has us so well run?
LawwellGTFCSC
macjay1 for Neil Lennon 11:51
Aye he does have blame, the tactics and substitutes lead me to believe he may not be upto the job, a cheap option taken from the minor leagues as I said, not his fault he does not appear to be upto it.
EN
KITALBA @10:44
Could not agree any more.
100% correct.
Apathy to a football club is like rabbies in a dog..
First you get angry with the club, for making the same errors. you then find yourself let down by the club on a consistant basis.Then you lower your expectations, to where we think our club should be in order to stop feeling disappointed by the strategy our board have adopted, and the road we have went down.Then you start missing the odd game as theres other stuff I could be doing on a saturday, you then start getting used to saving money etc and not before long you realise things at the club are worse than previous years but they ask/want the same money as we were paying to watch lubo/henke/sutty/hartson..short changed.eh
You decide not to renew for first time and strangely enjoy going out and doing other things on a saturday.before long you dont bother too much any more
What odds on Sevco at Ibrox in Round 3 of League Cup.
Was not confident last night, and would not be confident of the above.
Although RD would have several more weeks to prepare…