Peter Lawell ,Your View.

We've not had loads of players on those amounts for a couple of years now (Balde apart) because our wage budget is nowhere near as high as it used to be. Caldwell isn't happy he's not on £19k per week which he said would be around the same as others in the squad.

I agree we need to invest in the squad and I'd hope we buy 2 players in January that really improve the squad, but I think apart from last January the board have provided the money - unfortunately over the past 10 years we've had our fair share of failures in the transfer market.

 

Thats my whole point you have one manager who can get a diamond for less than a million and one who can get a lump of glass for double that,Lawell doesn't sign the checks himself thats down to others and the point about scounting is a great one and again thats down to the manager to put that in place not the chief exe

 

That's my point you see, we were reducing debt with this high wage budget, so surely we should take a step forward adn go for some quality and ensure domination for a spell, rather than paying muppets like Caldwell their demands. There is no qeustion we need to strengthen, but all targets must be carefully thought out. I would be happy not signing anyone rather than spending 3million on a panic buy who turns out to be the next Raphaél but I'm sure there will be plenty of people who would have somethign to say dshould we not strengthen.

 

Lawell, if he was acting in the interests of the playing side of the club, would be trying his damndest to secure funds for the manager to sign players. It would also be his responsibility to arrange funding for scouting trips. the fact he is doing neither goes to show he cares more about the non-playing sides and is happy to flog merchandise rather than acheiving results on the park.

 

As for not funding scouting trips, i remember Mowbray saying a few weeks ago that every one of his staff was away watching targets.He can love flogging all the merchandise he wants but if we are not succesful on the park then hes not going to sell much, which brings me back to my origional post,its a juggling act to get it right on and off the park and i think hes doing okay.Enjoyed the banter but im off to ma pit.

 

I think he is basically OK my only slight criticsism of his leadership is I think more money should have been made available when he had to find a replacement for Strachan but otherwise excellent and he is dead right ref paying too much for players

 

Dermot's the organ grinder and Lawwell is his over-paid monkey

 

Thats it in a nut shell.

 

People criticising Lawwell need to get real.

His job is to keep the club financially stable and he's doing it. If you want the club to spend more money then it's the men above Lawwell you should be having a go at. Do people not grasp this? Or do they just not want to grasp it

 

I think you will find that Peter Lawwell is the one that needs to get real. If he thinks he can continually take the absolute * out of the support then he is not just a rat, he is a deluded rat.

 

How exactly is he taking the * out of the support?

 

The constant lies he tells us about big new signings coming in ? Where are these signings !?
The lack of ambition in which he shows.
The fact that he obviously cares more about the balance sheet than the team sheet.
The fact in which he tries to shove the "product" down our throat and that he uses all that "faithful through and through" pish to try and sell the product. He tries to make us fell guilty about not spending our money on the club.

 

You cant blame him for the manager buying * , He is only looking after the finances , Its up to the manager and players to do the talking on the pitch .

 

Unless I was sleeping we signed 3 first team players in the summer.

How does he lack ambition?

I don't think he cares more about the balance sheet than the team sheet at all. I'm sure he'd love to be handing our manager big transfer budgets but the fact is we can't afford to be doing it.

If people feel guilty about not spending money on the club then that is their own personal problem. Celtic, like any other business, are trying to maximise their income by getting fans to spend their money on Celtic. You don't have to if you don't want to at the end of the day.

 

We needed a striker and a centre half. He has also promised us signings before yet failed to deliver. Actually when we signed Zheng, he promised us another one was on it's way. Where is he ?

We have already been over this - the policy of trying to finish in front of the huns by a baw hair is not showing ambition.

Well I think he does as do thousands of others. More money can be spent than we do currently.

He makes them feel guilty through all these * marketing campaigns aimed at flogging season tickets and any other pish merchandise. The board have also completely neglected the working class fans imo and are more interested in getting suits through the gates...after all they spend more money. They should be trying their best to accomodate the working class and not these * middle class suits. He treats it as a business rather than a football club. This is not what Celtic football club is about.

 

Perhaps they were working on a deal for another player but couldn't get it finalised. That's pure speculation of course.

How do you know more money can be spent than we do currently? It seems to me that they are spending as much as they can without things getting to a point where the debt spirals up to an inhibiting level again.

Now the bold bit is interesting. I agree with the sentiment behind what you've said but how would you suggest they go about doing this?

 

I think he's done an excellent job at stabilising our finances when the majority of football clubs are in very dangerous positions, you just have to look at our neighbours across the city.

As for not giving us our big signings, we paid over £3m for Fortune in the summer which is a substantial fee for a club in Scotland these days, it's not down to Lawell that he isnt performing.

 

Lawwell gave TM money to spend in the summer, we needed to improve several areas of the team, I believe TM made a mistake in not getting a goalscoring centre forward in but no-one could predict just how bad Caldwell would become. It's not Lawwell's fault TM didn't spend the money on the positions many wanted.

Who's to say we didn't try but were turned down, or were unwilling to meet their wages demands (like Belamy wanting over 60k a week)

His job is to ensure the financial stability of the club, it's the management and players job to do the best they can on the pitch, I don't think either the players or manager have done the best they can just now.

Every single club and business in the world tries to get people to spend their money, it's up to the fans whether they do so or not. I'd be willing to bet that previous boards were even more concerned with getting money than the current one, after all where did all the money go when official attendances were 30,000 but everyone could see there was at least double there?

It's not a new thing to get money off from fans, it's been going on for decades.

 

Perhaps they did but the cynic in me doesn't think they did and that it was just the usual lies/spin.

I believe they can as we are virtually debt free as they keep reminding us. They have done well to get to this level however it has seen some drastic downsizing and a terrible squad of players. We should have a manageable debt, obviously not an out of control debt. No one wants that.

I suggest ticket prices are lowered. No one wants to shell out £25 to watch us play Kilmarnock and the like do they ? Perhaps if they are lowered then we may see less empty seats.

Another gripe I have with the board in general is the way in which they try their hardest to discourage any potential atmosphere. That's what we are lacking at Parkheid right now and have done so for many years.

 

The line between a manageable debt and an out of control debt is very easily crossed when you are operating in a cash barren environment like Scottish Football. A few years ago the debt was around £20million and the board obviously felt it was too high and had to get it back down again.

I agree that the ticket prices to watch the likes of St. Mirren and Kilmarnock are too high and don't represent value for money. The almost inevitable consequence of bringing them down will be a reduction in the amount of money the club has and so a further reduction in the quality of the playing staff. Sad but true. I suppose they could do a trial reduction and see how it went.

The highlighted part......I couldn't agree more. It's * shocking the way stewards are treating fans who are trying to create a bit of atmosphere. I've read numerous stories on here about fans having problems with stewards. The atmosphere has gone out of Celtic Park for most matches and it's a really bad thing. We should have a singing section in the lower tier behind one of the goals and not stuck away up in the corner out of the way. What sort of signal does that send out?? If you want to sing and be noisy then * off up there out of our way? * poor. The singing section should be down close to the pitch and the board should be actively promoting it.