The players are back in town training and there’s’ already a bit of “where’s the signings” chat. We are five weeks away from the season starting, nine away from the first derby game and over eleven away from the start of the Champions League campaign. Patience is not always rewarded, but it is constantly needed.
Players available this early in the window are either out of contract, unwanted by their current club, or high risk. There is a time for Celtic to engage in all of the above, but if you were in charge, is this where you would want Celtic to shop?
Clubs selling a top talent want to test the market to the fullest. With one keen buyer on the hook, that means touting the player around hoping that a bigger fish is left short late in the window and bites at a higher price. They will also want backfill lined up.
If you are in charge and you know you are going to need to wait until late in the window for top talent, would you go down your list to ‘get the players in early’? How far down would you go?
If you are in the angry blogger business; Christmas comes in the early summer. The rest of us just need to wait for the tinsel.
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THE STAR ABOVE THE CREST on 1ST JULY 2024 3:46 PM
Not sure my skin is thick enough for it but thank you :-)
Reggie marks out of ten for the season then ?
For the football outcomes.
I miss a lot of angeball for the swashbuckling.
But I also like keep ball side y side and retain it .
We can’t force the other teams to come out and play.
We might sign higher quality players but the style of football isn’t going to change.
Hopefully with less injuries to the first eleven the overall performances will be more consistent.
Left. Click.
The guy who lost his job at ibrox was that billy Williamson.
His granda had lifetime seats in the club deck.
Maybe we shouldn’t criticise or insult celtic players. Once they pull on the celtic top they deserve our 100% support.
If they are not good enough then who signed them?
The buck stops with board.
Or William Williams or billy macWilliams
Or something like that
Very good post Reggie.
Agree with your observation about trust.
IMHO, the board don’t do nearly enough to communicate their plans, their strategies, or, frankly, their love.
Disagree with general opinions widely held about the malevolent influence of Peter Lawwell.
I think his influence is overstated …
… and, in all honesty, I don’t think it is malevolent.
What is the difference from this years transfer strategy to previous years? Watch us scuttle around for loans as the window closing nears, the season tickets are sold ,training has started new signings won’t have had a pre season with us and all the injury and fitness issues that causes in the months ahead, certainly no urgency from Mr 67 hopefully he is not speaking for the Chairman, time will tell.
EFA are now set to investigate gestures Jude Bellingham allegedly made after scoring his dramatic equaliser against Slovakia on Sunday night.
A UEFA spokesperson said: ‘Ethics and Disciplinary Inspector will conduct a disciplinary investigation regarding a potential violation of the basic rules of decent conduct by the English FA player, Jude Bellingham, having allegedly occurred in the scope of this match.’
…………
UEFA MAY BAN Bellingham for the next match against Switzerland. England are already without their centre back for the match due to having Two yellow Cards against him.
MON Le SWISS !
McCOIST ALERT…
AWE NAW…
It looks as though McCoist will be commentating on France v Belgium.
Whit a ABSHOOLUTE CHUMP he is….Let me tell ye.
For what it’s worth…
I don’t think there is much wrong with our strategy of signing 19-23 year old players with some international experience. The challenge is the execution. Go to the right markets and it works very well, but go to the wrong market and it’s a problem.
A couple of things we could do better is to attract and retain better talent from our backyard. If it was me, I would look at a partnership ( investment?) in Carlisle and send players like Lawal, Yang, Kwon, Murray to play in a tough, but competitive league.
Second things is to spend more time in markets where we have had success – our success rate in Norway, Sweden EFL and Japan suggests we invest more in scouting those markets than spreading ourselves across multiple markets.
The sooner the offside rule is changed to have clear daylight between the attacker ahead of the defender the better.
SAINT STIVS on 1ST JULY 2024 3:55 PM
Reggie marks out of ten for the season then ?
======
Without giving it detailed thought I’d say
0/10 for recruitment and maybe 6/10 for the manager.
I think you have to cut the manager some slack given the dross he was handed to work with but it was certainly a long way from vintage Celtic. Margins can be fine so you have to analyse without emotion. If the foul at Ibrox on Iwata isn’t given and they go on to win that game and the league then I’m probably giving him 4/10. So maybe 5 is a more accurate reflection of the actual performances.
In terms of players? Hart, O’Reilly and CCV get pass marks. McGregor was way off his best but turned up against them. There was a blog on here a few years ago lauding Callum for the amount of games he plays. Can’t find it but the jist of it was what an iron man he was. Admirable as it is, it is not healthy for a professional athlete to play that amount of minutes. The wear and tear will shorten their career. I hope we aren’t seeing a major deterioration and he was brought down by what was around him but he needs rested more often. The problem is a complete lack of quality to replace him. I thought AJ also had a pretty good season. Outside of those 5 I think the rest of the starters were poor. Again I’ll cut Kyogo some slack due to the service.
Ask yourself what were the expectations last summer when Rodgers came in? Going for it in Europe? World class in everything we do? Utter lies from a board that appointed every key role with someone who would be invited to a Lawwell wedding. We will make mistakes of course we will but last season we didn’t even try.
Now your opinion may differ, but if I’m right then we’ve lost 1 of our 3 best players from last season, and are likely to lose at least 1 of the others. That is following on from losing arguably our best player the season before in Jota. Such is life in the SPFL. It’s replacing those players that is of course a difficult task and I’m not pretending otherwise. I think we need a minimum of 6 signings to go straight into the first team. GK, LCB, LB, CM, LW, RW and a high-level backup striker such as Idah. That is difficult to do in one window but that is the situation due to the unrivalled incompetence of the previous head of scouting.
And now the call is patience. What was your reward for patience last summer? Deadline day signings of Palma, Phillips and Bernardo. Palma does not in any way shape or form have a style of play that suits Rodgers nor Ange before him. A ludicrous recommendation from the scouting department. Philips we couldn’t get shot of quickly enough and Bernardo had a purple patch over Xmas and did next to nothing in the 2nd half of the season until a good swerving shot in the cup final. He may or may not develop but right now he’d be a squad player with potential nothing more. And this is what is left out in today’s blog, what Paul67 either deliberately does not acknowledge or doesn’t have the intelligence to do so, that if you are patient up until deadline day and your targets fall through, you’re left scrambling around for whatever is left and making hasty, costly decisions out of desperation. Deadline day is for opportunistic deals. A chance to grab a discounted diamond from a team that desperately wants them off the wage bill or held out for a big transfer fee that never materialised. Having a strategy to make key signings at that time as we do is guaranteed to blow up in your face more times than not. And that is what your host is prepping you once again to prepare for. Strap yourself in for the ride.
I have family in Carlisle. Brother went to a couple of games years ago. Said it was like a huns game. Never went back
Manager wins double and his performance is rated 6/10.
Tough gig.
Saint stivs
There would still be toenail decisions
SAINT STIVS on 1ST JULY 2024 4:57 PM
Manager wins double and his performance is rated 6/10.
Tough gig
=====
These things aren’t black and white context is required.
Were we playing expansive attacking entertaining fitba?
Did we progess in Europe?
Did he improve players?
Did he give academy players a chance?
Those sorts of things.
James Forrest
“Us “angry bloggers” have the same platform you do. You have a Hunnic sense of superiority at times which is pretty unbecoming.
Your smug attitude makes you sound like a dick.
You know the thing with “angry bloggers”? We have blogs. We can answer that charge.”
——————————————
I have looked into your blog today as I do from time to time but I don’t see the answer to the charge as yet.
All I see is an article, written before Paul’s current blog, advocating that we should look away from the Idah deal as it will take too long and may not even happen, and you suggest that we buy Miovski instead at the right price. The only thing missing from making this a fully coherent position is to state what that “right price” is. You describe your advocated position as a “no brainer” but my very moderate brain struggles to see it as devoid of any need to think about it.
For me, it begs a few questions not just- “what is the right price?”
It begs – is the choice only between these 2?
It begs- Are there better, even cheaper strikers than a North Macedonian Internationalist who has had 2 successful seasons at SPFL level but little pedigree before that?
It begs – Is he now worth so much more than the 700k that the Dons paid for him? Transfermarkt value him at £4m but Aberdeen have set a higher price and there will be a premium to be paid if he goes to a Scottish club like us.
It begs – Are SPFL successful strikers not a gamble- We have been here before with no brainers like Kevin Van Even, Michael Higdon, Regan Charles-Cook, Liam Boyce, Chris Killen & even Laurence Shankland
Paul67 has , at least, outlined the reasons why we need to wait till late for some of our signings, but never have we had to wait for all. I see no reason in your response on here – CQN- earlier. You just state that Paul is smug and, by dint of that, a dick. But why is it smug and dick-ish to have Paul’s reasoned view but your own view escapes that categorisation? You should, as you say you will, argue your case not just assert it.
The reasons I can see as advantages to early signings are:-
You have the players early enough to familiarise with the climate, surfaces and team-mates.
You have them for the pre-season friendlies where they can get to practice the manager’s tactics and build up understanding of patterns of play.
You build up match fitness before the first competitive matches.
Our American fans will not have to see a mixture of first teasers and fringers, embarrassed by an MLS or EPL club in the USA tour
These are reasons that all of us understand, even those of us who ascribe to the patient approach.
But you also have to acknowledge the deficits in the “Buy Early” approach and, after acknowledging them, account for why you need to proceed with this approach.
The deficits I can see are:-
You have to choose from that more limited pool of players for whom Celtic is the best club amongst their list of current suitors and who are desperate to commit early before Celtic move on to other targets. We could, for example have signed Liam Kelly & Connor Barron early.
You have to decide whether to pay the quoted inflated asking price Aberdeen and other Scottish clubs set when selling to SPFL “rival” clubs, in case someone else gets them before you strike.
You have to decide that better targets that you might have to wait for should be abandoned because you spent your budget on B and C list targets and have little left to compete for the more desirable A list targets, even if they do consider Celtic at the end.
If you only imagine the good side of buying early without recognising that it too has downsides, potentially, I cannot discern a reasoned mind behind the argument.
My own position is we need to get the best we can in as early as we possibly can. But that guiding principle will lead to- some coming early in the window as Celtic are a big draw for them, others coming midway through the window as other clubs drop out of the race leaving us as the best option, and some will come late in the window when clubs & players who set too high a transfer fee and wage demand, tone it down and become within our budget.
That is what has played out every year for Celtic and most clubs. Few get all their transfer business done early and few leave it too late to get anything worthwhile, though Celtic did manage that once with the Willo Flood window but you never hear anyone going on about that and how it supposedly cost us a league, do you?😀
Did he win the double while many douBted him in March.
All those others things are aspirations but I am not for giving up leagues to be competitive in Europe or indeed development of academy players.
Or indeed playing very attractive football and losing games.
As a ps. I would like to see our b team in the league cup sections
WHAT IS THE STARZ on 1ST JULY 2024 2:01 PM
Same every year ,once the season book money is in the bag Lawwell and his dastardly cronies sit back and laugh at us while smoking their big fat cigars.
It ain’t right so it ain’t
The parsimonious Lawwellites have a lot for which to answer..No European trophy since 1967 is an utter disgrace.
………………………
You’re a rascal, WITS. Made me laugh. 🤣
Reggie
Nat Phillips was 100% a Rodgers approved signing. I reckon most of the rest got approved by him as he said he was involved in all transfers. That doesn’t mean they were his first choice or even that he was very aware of the abilities of Kwon or Tilio etc; but he approved them nonetheless. It wasn’t just Idah that Brendan agreed to buy.
I would give a higher rating to a year in which we won the double. I have given ratings of 5 and 6 and even 7 to years where we won nothing such as Tommy Burns with Pierre and Cadete, so a league winning season gets a minimum 7 from me- even in the midst of a glut of them such as we have had. It was not as much fun to watch as Ange’s first season but it was much more fun than losing. Talking about being close to losing the SC final or semi-final or the Glasgow Derby games is a useless as saying we came close to beating Hearts and Killie but didn’t manage to do so. It’s “if your Auntie had testicular fortitude” territory”.
total aside.
i happened to be in greenock and the port after 5pm on saturday.
went past cappielow and it was obvious a pre-season had taken place – the ton1 qos 0.
a pre season on greenock fair saturday, with a crusie ship in and orangement on the road.
the world has gone mad ah tellye.
and something else i never thoguyht i would see in the port.
i came past louis chip shop.
a big queue, i am happy to see that, marco told me a while ago he might give it up.
in the queue though –
3 morton youths, suitably attired with club ties.
and ,,,,,,,,,,,, two orangmen in a wierd burgundy outfit, still wearing their daft hats an awe.
Talking of 4 out of 10 fitba.
Anyone watching the superstars of France & Belgium imitating England’s level?
right back to the football.
the euros are lucky to have such a talented football manager available for co-commentator.
thats fould there all day long, well maybe it isnt , but it could have been but he was offside anyway and the goalie could have saved it, absolutely
is that ac/dc
“ The board wanted me to stay “ – Haksabanovic
Did they, aye
what goalkeeper have we missed out on?
who are we interested in but they signed somewhere else ?
BIGRAILROADBLUES
I have stayed at the Royal Boston a few times. The all inclusive is fantastic value. Ma Kellys sports bar, next street up was not very welcoming for celtic fans, didn’t want to show the champions league game. Same issue last week when the Scotland game was on.
BIG JIMMY on 1ST JULY 2024 4:42 PM
McCOIST ALERT…
AWE NAW…
It looks as though McCoist will be commentating on France v Belgium.
Whit a ABSHOOLUTE CHUMP he is….Let me tell ye.
…………………………….
He really is.
BURNLEY78 on 1ST JULY 2024 12:26 PM
Agreed.
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL @ 1:43 PM,
Interesting on Mark Cooper, he’s obviously had several weeks to get his feet under the desk and we will now see what the revamped recruitment comes up with…
SCULLYBHOY
Thanks for posting the signings of Ajeti and Toney SKY reports in the last post.
I’m not trying to be clever after the event, many of us said at the time Toney was the way to go.
Really enjoy your contributions to CQN.
SFtBs @ 5:31 PM,
Your obsession of trying to blame Brendan Rodgers for last season’s clusterfalange won’t wash.
We know the responsibile parties, by January of this year the Manager had said enough is enough and the recruitment set up has changed significantly in 2024.
We were fortunate to get the points we did in the UCL and win the double with such poor recruitment. These successes were due to the Manager, Coaches, legacy players and despite the recruitment.
If, as most hope, Brendan Rodgers is in charge of recruitment imo we will see much better outcomes next season.
Hail Hail
Chairbhoy
“Your obsession of trying to blame Brendan Rodgers for last season’s clusterfalange won’t wash.”
———————-
Nice way to frame it. Takes away any responsibility to engage with it.
If you want to call Brendan a liar- that’s your prerogative but he said himself he was fully involved and took responsibility. He explicitly denied there was any tension over the signings and he did not blame Mark Lawell for them when he left the club.
Now, if you have inside info that proves Brendan was lying- I’m willing to reconsider.
I have no idea what Peter Lawwell’s preferences were as transfer buys, or Mark law well’s or even Brendan’s but these buys were the acknowledged collective responsibility of all recruiting wings- Scouting, Management and Board. Ascribing all good buys to the management and all bad buys to the Board is just fantasy. We know that Brendan has struggled in the past with recruitment- Gamboa and De Vries were 100% Brendan buys and I confidently assert, without insider knowledge- that he fancied Nat Phillips too. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t bought good players too but he is much more renowned for player development than for transfer nous.
Your evidence to the contrary?
What is the Starz on 1st July 2024 1:57 pm
Have we not suffered enough.
We want players now
Bring back Jonny Hayes
You’re wish has been granted, Johnnie is back in a coaching role at Celtic Park after doing a fine job in a similar role at Aberdeen. Hope that has made your day.
Haven’t watched a lot of the Euros except for the Scotland games but there was a collective moan when Engerland robbed the Slovaks last night.
SFtBs @ 6:22 PM,
“Your evidence to the contrary?”
The head of recruitment and head of scouting got sacked!!
Hail Hail
That johnny hayes.
Stick on for an invite to the next lawwell family wedding
Jobs for the bhoys
Forget Almore’s Cafe, or a hotel…I reckon we should build a club laundrette next to the club shop? The bedwetters could drop off their load pre-match and collect after the game. We’d be quids in. 😁
Moneymakersrus.com
HH
Another Window………… Click Bait in full flow
I have allowed myself to believe this Window will be different
Some quality will arrive
2/3 propper footballers (first team players)
So far, I have heard or read nothing that gets me excited
But it’s a long way to go until August 30
On the Goalkeeper speculation
My ambition is Kelleher – but I accept thats a leap
Dubravka from Newcastle makes sense…… for him
He is 35 and looking for an adventure (for a year or possibly 2)
Not sure that’s for us ?? who knows !!!
In reality Celtic will have a list that we have never heard of
Patience apparently !!!!!!!
67ECW
BTW…if it was so easy to get quality players in this early in the transfer window, I’m wondering why we haven’t lost O’Riley by now?
According to many on here, he’s our most sellable asset and will be offski this transfer window. So why is he still here? Why hasn’t another club just snapped him up, if it’s that easy?
Genuine question.
HH