So where did it all go wrong for Ronny Delia? First of all, it didn’t all go wrong. He won two leagues, and if you think it was impossible to lose those, just think back to a team in last season’s Championship, who enjoyed an equally superior income over their competitors, but lost the league to Hearts by the length of the M8.
It was just as possible for Aberdeen to win the league this season or last, as it was Hearts (reeling only months after going into administration) to win the Championship last season. Ronny delivered the primary requirement each season – the league title, but he failed on the second tier requirement – qualify for the Champions League.
Soon after the Legia Warsaw debacles Ronny reflected on the question about whether it was right to ask his new team to adopt his tactics, instead of waiting until he’d recruited players to fit his system.
Two years on we are still remarkably short of players to play his system. Innumerable wide midfield players have come and gone, with many still lingering in the stands. We have an enviable list of creative mids in the squad, yet none have been able to dislodge Stefan Johansen, who by his own admission is having a disappointing season.
Then there’s the striker roles. Leigh Griffiths has been a significant reason why we’ll be crowned champions again over the next few weeks, but he’s pretty much on his own. No one has been able to put pressure on him. For a while Leigh had to wait until John Guidetti and Stefan Scepovic dropped out of the picture, but you’ll struggle to recall this season’s striker arrivals, Carlton Cole and Colin Kazim-Richards, three years from now.
For these reasons, we can say recruitment is where it all went wrong for Ronny. It’s not about 4-2-3-1, half the top teams in Europe play with that formation, nor is it (the now abandoned) zonal marking system, also the dominant top-level defensive system.
We’ve simply recruited the wrong players for creative midfield and striker positions. It’s also subtler than to just say we’ve not recruited good enough players. Some who have escaped Celtic Park after arriving in the last 22 months have done pretty well elsewhere. Guidetti and Scepovic are La Liga strikers, while Jo Inge Berget also made it to the Bernabeu this season.
None of them are great, but I suspect we made them look poorer than they are. Kazim-Richards is unlikely to trouble Sergio Ramos next season, but there’s more to him that what we’ve seen, or will see. We’ve been a place careers diminish disproportionately.
On the positive side, Ronny brought the best out of Leigh Griffiths. He moved the disintegrating Emilio Izaguirre aside for 18-year-old sensation, Kieran Tierney, (the biggest winner on Sunday). And he finally resolved some of the least-organised set-piece defending known to man with the recruitment of Erik Sviatchenko (on this point, you cannot over-estimate the value of adding one good player to a team).
One thought crossed my mind several times this season: If he hadn’t spent so much money fruitlessly trying to make one system work, would he have acknowledge he was on the wrong road and changed tactics?
He backed himself into a corner so stuck with the same faltering policy at Celtic, but surely, surely, if he walks into another job soon, unhindered by that wasteful use of budget, he’d not follow the same tactical strategy which failed him?
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Let’s just be careful what we want in terms of a new manager and what our realistic expectations and quality of football desired, are.
HH
AN TEACH SOLAIS
Barca type football with Pep as manager:-)
…… about £600m should see us achieve it
TWISTS AND TURNS
That’s my wish too!!! lol. All my Christmases in one.
Even then there would be someone on here to complain about something real or imagined.
Is it to be the end (stodgy football) justifies the means or are we looking to develop flair?
Are we seeking to “grow our own” and be patient? How long would we give someone with such a policy? Eighteen months?
Or is it to be spend £££ in the hope of buying success? Decisions. HH
Morning Timland from a soon to be warm hun free mountain valley.
I have said for years that the most important person at a football club should be the manager and he should be the highest paid, from what I have read in the past and yesterday, it seems that our head scout is getting paid twice as much as our coach.
The E Tims artical yesterday said that RD was on £300K and JP is on £600K, I have read similar on KDS in the past month or so.
Now, even if it’s not true, and he is not getting twice the amount, there must be some truth in it, even at parity it’s wrong.
‘The Nowhere Men’ by Michael Calvin is an often saddening but always engaging book. Written at the time of the big move from the traditional naked eye to the opta stats based approach to player recruitment.
Sad bit is reading about scouts scouring the country for petrol money only as part of the dying traditional roots of English football.
The chapter on the then moyes managed Everton is really interesting. And reminded me of how highly he was regarded in terms of maximising resources before the Man U debacle.
With the right takent identification system (ie not the one we presently have!!!!) I could see him achieving success for us.
HH jamesgang
An teach solais
I think a good/ lower risk manager will initially cost the club as he will undoubtedly demand a bigger salary and transfer budget, but ultimately, you would hope his astuteness would pay off by more success and increasing the transfer value of the playing squad.
Undoubtedly we will always have to sell at some point to keep the bailiff away. That’s fine though if we are smart in going about our business.
CL last 16 would be a remarkable achievement in the current set up of European wealth .
Barca, Man City, Real Madrid etc are beyond our realistic ambition.
Yes we can given a great year, perhaps get the odd good result but to expect anything from those clubs regularly is indeed a pipe dream.
Last 32 however not so fanciful.
Malmo, Bate, Zagreb, Astana, Ghent, Tel Aviv are last 32 clubs with whom we certainly can compete, or should be able to given correct planning and personnel .
Those clubs listed above for example are , or should be, minnows to Celtic in the way we are minnows to Real Madrid.
Malmo play in front of 14k. Zagreb less than 6k. Ghent 20k. Tel Aviv 11k.
The problem we have now is we have slid to a level that needs investment. I’m aware it’s easy to suggest throwing money at a problem, but with potentially 50k to 60k per week at CP, I think it’s less of a risk than some would imagine.
Realism is required too of course. If you put the club into a 20% debt to income situation, that’s probably 10 to 15million pounds in our case. ( maybe less now given our turnover is falling).
If you do that and achieve CL, it becomes a very manageable figure, indeed you could go higher on a bigger income.
2 to 3 seasons every 5 or 6 in the CL and you’d easily keep the club on a level footing.
The debt thing scares people, with comparison to deadco banded about. They are an unfair comparison. Debt to income for them ? Must’ve been 60-70% plus ( and the tax liability as separate noose around their neck)
Most people take on debt. Mortgages, Cars, credit cards. It’s manageable debt you need to have. I think with our fan base, a good manager, an attractive side, we can and will be a top 32 European side again.
TnT @ 8.14
Good to read a rationale and positive assessment of where we can and should be.
HH jamesgang
Jamesgang
Morning bud.
Thanks, an opinion only of course, and one which many might disagree!
I’ll tell you who wouldn’t agree. The man who introduced me to Celtic, my uncle Jim:-)
He ran the bus to the games, so although I never had any holidays in Spain, or the up to date fashionable clothes, I was the envy of my mates as I boarded that bus every week to go to see the hoops.
Yes, ‘ big Jim’ was very much a non debt man. My father died at a young 45 years old, and big Jim kinda adopted me and my brothers thereafter.
Even when I started work, he’d ask me ” how much was that car”? Did you pay cash? If you couldn’t pay it cash you can’t afford it!
I wish I’d bloody listened :-))
Twisty
The up to date clothing but still remains I see :-))
Take care mate
TnT
I’d have done better had your Uncle Jim cut up my credit cards!
I like your simple illustration of how we can and should invest wisely and pretty moderately and then still punch our weight in Europe.
HH jamesgang
BT
Haha.
I’m going to the races in 3 weeks with PF, Chris , Eurochamps and big John. The after racing band? Bay City Rollers. What a result for me as I still have the gear:-)
Shangalang my friend.
Hope we can catch up with you and the auld fella soon. Been too long.
BOB O’ BALDY on 21ST APRIL 2016 1:43 PM
macjay1 @ 13:25, disingenuous, even for a tory. Ronny says YES! Indeed!
The Celtic signing policy as directed by Lawwell, Park, et al, from 17:00 to 19:15, or thereabouts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbjzw_jkRW0
The four word trick…, still has it applications, even today :) or :( , more to the point, in its applied sense over at Kerrydale St, or at the former Lennoxtown Hospital.
=============================================================================
You`re saying Ronny was duped ?
You think he was that naive?
If so , my reservations about him from right the beginning were totally vindicated .
” right from “
MACJAY
Never been lied to,never been taken in a smooth-talking snake-oil salesman?
Why should you be surprised Ronny was duped by PL schmooze? Plenty on here have been.
Morning all.
Haven’t read back but I believe the rags are in overdrive attacking our manager today. Why do we let them have any access to Celtic? They HATE us. They don’t even try to hide it anymore.
TnT
Hopefully some time when weather picks up and we can get out for a few
KTF
Twisty
Some good and well considered posts from you these past 2 mornings.
Not that your previous posts weren’t! :-)
BGFC 11:36
Ronnie tried his hardest for Celtic – I don’t believe everyone else involved could say the same. If they had, we would not have reached the position we are in now.
———–
Spot on. Although I think you can exclude young Kieran from that.
Twists n Turns
Over the past few years when I have argued that the “spend to accumulate” argument was unsound- most gamblers lose and the bank wins- unless you are in a fixed game where inside info gives you an edge, the response I got from the speculatists was- “We don’t need a huge sum spent- Just the one £5m on one good centre forward would do.” or “We are not talking huge sums here- just a couple of million.”
I was always unconvinvced and felt that the speculatists would want several mulligans if their first punt did not achieve what they were meant to in transforming 10 other lesser players into a much more winning team.
Now, in the aftermath of the Sevco disaster, you are back to talking of £20 million plus being “needed”.
Needed, even though you recognise it brings us nowhere near the glass ceiling of the clubs that actually dominate Euro competition- it just might get us back to being a Tier 4 CL club again, albeit not every year.
Why needed? You speculate that it will bring back 60k crowds – will it? To witness other SPFL dross? We already draw superior crowds to some tier 4 CL clubs and to most EPL clubs too, yet we remain swamped by the spending power of some clubs that are either in richer leagues or more competitive leagues.
You are advocating envisaged spending on a wishful thinking basis. “Go on!- take a punt! You only live once!”
Well people tried it- not just the Rangers example that we groan at- but Gretna in Scotland. Even the disparate examples of Romanov at Hearts and John Boyle’s “reduce prices and they will come” initiative at Motherwell, both led directly to administration for their clubs.
There are lots of examples of speculative practice in Scottish football. There is a lack of evidence of accumulated success as a result. The last example we could point to was David Murray’s Rangers and that was built on a lie.
Now, I think we can and should do better as a club but while we remain an underfunded club in an impoverished league we better look to something more solid than accumulated debt to furnish our ambitions. Too many of us in Western Europe have looked to borrow money from our children’s future to pay for us deserving better now.
I think we deserve what we can achieve by ourselves- no more and no less. Not what can be bought for us by a Sugar Daddy or by accumulated debt and Wonga economics.
Aff into work now.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on 22ND APRIL 2016 8:41 AM
Never been lied to,never been taken in a smooth-talking snake-oil salesman?
Why should you be surprised Ronny was duped by PL schmooze? Plenty on here have been.
===============================================================
Lied to. Yes.
Never taken in.
My Glaswegian 6th sense always stood me in good stead.
Bobby.
Do you think Ronny lying when he speaks about players signed during his tenure?
I have a higher opinion of him than that.
SFTB.
Imo, a whole lot of truth in that post. Too much for too many Celtic supporters, I fancy.
MACJAY
I’d be surprised if his answer was 100% truthful. I’d also be surprised if a 100% truthful reply to many of the questions posed didn’t breach the confidentiality contingent of his original contract.
I’d love to see a press conference where the answer to most questions was-I’m sorry,that information is confidential.
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 22ND APRIL 2016 8:53 AM
The problem over the last few years is not the lack of money spent but the amount of money wasted
Colin Kazim Richards Carlton Cole Tyler Blackett Nadir Ciftci Saidy Janko Michael Duffy Holmert Fridjonnson Teemu Puki Derk Borringter Steven Mouyokolo Amido Balde Viktor Noring Rami Gershon Lassad Nouioi Rabui Ibrahim Andre Blackman Mo Bhangura Freddie Ljumberg Oliver Kapo in the last 6 years.
To be honest I’m just concentrating on us winning the league, not into the speculation on who or who is not getting the job, that will look after its self and who ever it is will get my backing as a Celtic supporter.
But my god the red tops are having a ball on our goings on, I guess we can be the squirrel that distracts the goings on over by.
I’d love Ronny to fire a parting shot across the bow of the SMSM before he parts, but unlike them the guy has to much class and it’s not going to happen, me? I don’t give a Donald Duck.
To the lurking SMSM and Huns GIRFUYs .
Job done Ronny, all the best to you and your family, thanks for KT, LG, Tom Rogic, Nir Bitton, and big Erik, Hail Hail.
PARKHEADCUMSALFORD on 22ND APRIL 2016 8:42 AM
Morning all.
Haven’t read back but I believe the rags are in overdrive attacking our manager today. Why do we let them have any access to Celtic? They HATE us. They don’t even try to hide it anymore.
Because the Celtic Board lack the balls to stand up to them.
SFTB
I think we deserve what we can achieve by ourselves- no more and no less. Not what can be bought for us by a Sugar Daddy or by accumulated debt and Wonga economics.
It would be achieved by ourselves. It’s our money! If your belief is that the current strategy is the best use of spending OUR money, then the slide which we are on at present will continue. The last 3 seasons have been responsible for putting us in this position. So, the decent thing for this board to do would be either:
1. Employ some business sense and get us back to where we were
2. Resign and leave it to folks who can.
The mediocrity enveloping us at present is overpowering. Eventually it’ll finish us a competitive force in even the lowest level of European football. We deserve better than we are currently being served up. No one will ever convince me differently.
MACJAY1 FOR NEIL LENNON on 22ND APRIL 2016 8:56 AM
‘Do you think Ronny lying when he speaks about players signed during his tenure?’
###
What, specifically, did he say?
Is what he said open to more than one interpretation, depending on the bias of the listener?
It is quite easy to mislead without actually lying, as you know, what with your sixth sense and everything.
Anyway,Brendan Rodgers…
http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Brendan-Rodgers-makes-amazing-gesture-donating/story-29153170-detail/story.html
…. and if this is the level we should be content with, why are they getting rid of the manager?
It suggests they are aware the vast majority of the people who matter, are pretty much fed up with the dross they are being served up.
Are they going to change strategy now or stick with the present?
If it’s the latter, then save us all the time and money by keeping Ronnie on.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on 22ND APRIL 2016 9:06 AM
MACJAY
I`m as cynical as you are , Bobby.
However , I do think that ,in this case , Ronny was speaking the truth.
As he was when he said some players would be glad to see the back of him .
I think he`s speaking the truth unadulterated by the terms of his ” departure.”
QUONNO on 22ND APRIL 2016 9:09 AM
You don’t need to stand up to them. You just treat them with disdain. Ignore them. They need Celtic more than Celtic need them. Provide the barest minimum to them to fulfill whatever contractual or regulatory obligations there may be and communicate with the fans direct online or, for the dinosaurs, via The Celtic View.
SFTB. Specialists?
What’s that?
If it’s about sensible and sustainable investment to make the team better and more successful is that speculisst. That’s what businesses do. They invest to prosper.
Over the last few years we were speculatively buying so called prospects not with the goal of the team getting better nor to improve our football results. The goal was the make money. The big question is what is the purpose of Celtic making money? What is our goal.
Moneyball and all that absolute guff was the embodiment of this.
For our existing resources we have massively under achieved. And that’s because of the speculative approach by the board.
None of this is ronnys fault but Ronny was simply a victim in this and part of the lack of care and focus on football results. Note the words Ronny is saying to us. He agreed with every signing but notable he didn’t say they were his signings.
The boards so called business strategy has also been supplemented by their engagement in corruption. Again all for the love of money.
The very concerning thing is that bankier told us a few weeks ago that our strategy is unchanged. It’s clearly not working but it’s unchanged.
That is redolent of the arrogance, complacency and laziness of the board allied with their own personal self interest.
Paul is avoiding all of this. He knows it’s true. But they are just hoping you will all just blindly follow a new manager.
The manager is only part of the issue. The boardroom is the real problem.
TWISTSNTURNS
Ah,but this time it will be different. Won’t it?
Jam tomorrow,to go with our jelly and ice-cream,you really have to buy into this NOW before some chancer snaps up your season ticket!
ERNIE LYNCH on 22ND APRIL 2016 9:10 AM
“What, specifically, did he say?’
————————————————————————
You`re a big boy ,Ernie .
Read it for yourself.
Aye,Ernie.
If only we were all blessed with your cognitive powers of interpretation.
:-)
SFTB
I wrote a similar article the other day and totally agree with you, but I was told I post s…, and accused of having a relationship with PL, hopefully this does not turn into a Minaj a trois, let’s see how the day goes.:(
BMCUW
And not a peerage or heated driveway to be seen.
RefreshingCSC
HH jamesgang
A Nikki Minaj a trois?
Wow Tony. I’m impressed on this occasion!
HH jamesgang