Spending in January

I don`t see any players aside from your man from Iceland being added to the squad. My biggest concern is what we are going to lose in the summer.

What does it say to potential new signings and the guys we are looking to sign extended deals?

We made it into the Champions League by the skin of our teeth and as enthralling as it was; one major trump card we have over other teams is exposure in the Champions League. If we lose that, then we have nothing much else to attract a decent standard. At this level our boards plan smacks of a lack of progress and it appears we have have settled for this niche of being "participants" and not "competitors."

I`m not asking that we splurge £40 million on one player but show a bit more ambition to back the players here at the moment and the manager. We`re often told at AGM`s about how important the Champions League is to the club, but it`s more financial than in terms of putting up a side capable of competing.

 

What? You called Neil Lennon a coward when he's clearly not. Not in life and not in football.

It is not up to Neil Lennon whether the club buys a player for £5-6million. Neil Lennon hands the board a list of players that he would like to sign and the board decide which ones they can afford then take care of the transfer fee/contract negotiations. Neil Lennon can say he wants a £6million striker till he's blue in the face, if the board aren't willing to spend the money then he won't be getting the striker he wants.

 

I think you are wrong with that,but that is your opinion and I respect it.

 

The thing that * me off is that the board seem to think if they spend 6mil plus on a striker that it will be a massive 6mil gamble! If you sign a proven striker throw him in champions league games and scores there's a good chance his value will increase to 10mil.

If however he was to flop at Celtic but a known goalscorer and of good age he should pretty much hold his value maybe drop to 3/4mil at worst.

It's a small gamble worth taking,certainly considering the profits of +20mil in early February next year that we are likely to publish.

 

What part do you disagree with?

 

Signing any player is a gamble. 600k or 6 million, it is a risk and doesn't guarantee success.

But what I will say is that there is no point selling our best players and building up a small fortune if you aren't willing to take the risk in investing in the team and manager (who imo really deserves it). Next seasons CL campaign starts now. Get a player or two in Jan, try get them bled in and ready for the qualifiers. Don't wait to see if we get there.

I feel for some of the players who came here thinking that we'd be tackling the CL. Shame about the group but we've been disappointing in certain areas.

Let's just see if we can do this season unbeaten!!!!!

COYBIG

 

Part with players and contracts.Let's say he(Lennon) can spend 7 mil €.I think it would be better for him to sugest the board one or two players with wages for players of that calliber rather then spending it on 5-6 average players(IMO average is too good for players we bought).In financial way it is all the same,but there is that part of risk I was talking about earlier.If Neil has vision of how the team should be playing and he thinks that just this xy player could be key player in his tactics,that could bring new dimension-I think he could convince the board easily.The best example I have in mind is Ferguson an C.R.He barely persuaded board to spend 15 mil € on 17-year old-but the rest is history.

 

It is.

For Gary Hooper to go from being a £2.5m player to a £5m player he had to score a barrel load of goals domestically, perform in Europe against elite teams and help us get to the last 16 of the CL.

I think we would need a genuine classy striker if we were hoping to slap a £10m price tag on them. You would be talking about a player coming in and scoring 30+ goals a season domestically, racking up the player of the year awards and doing the business in Europe. That's a very big ask for a £6m player in today market.

 

Some people here genuinely believe that just by buying a player above a certain threshold price (which always seems to be £5-6m), guarantees success.

I think there's usually a pretty marginal benefit in spending more. Our best signings, with the exception of the O'neill years have all typically been guys coming in for a couple of million at most without a big reputation. Larsson, Moravcick, Boruc, Wanyama, Petrov.............you could name dozens of players in the same boat.

 

Your argument would stand up if we were just talking about transfer fees. For example if we had a transfer budget of £10million and decided to spend it on 2 players at £5million each instead of 5 players at £2million each.

There is another factor you don't seem to be taking into consideration however - players wages. A £6million player will be looking for much higher wages than a £2million player. Let's say the cap Celtic have for player wages is £30,000 per week per player, what happens if the £6million striker Neil Lennon wants is demanding £40,000 a week? The board won't go for it. The deal will be dead. No matter how much Neil Lennon wants that particular player.

The present board have set their limits on spending and it appears they are totally unwilling to deviate from those limits. They're the ones who won't push the boat out that wee bit further to get the extra bit of quality we need for our Champions League campaigns. It is them you should direct your frustrations at, not Neil Lennon.

 

Hooper was only a £5m player because of his contract situation. Only 6 months or so before his move we received bids of £7m plus. If he had a longer contract we would have got arguably £10m or more for him.

 

Not a chance we would've got £10m for him unless he stepped up his game drastically.

With 18 months to go I'm sure the highest offer was £7m, and let's not forget that 20% went to Norwich. Again though, it demonstrates how difficult it is to make good money on a player. He had to go from playing in the championship to the Champions League for us to see decent profit.

We in effect made a £1.5m profit for that transition, from championship to CL.

 

I don't see any value in paying over the odds in January which is typically what happens if you want someone decent. We should have spent properly in the summer, we might as well wait to next summer to spend.

 

We got £12.5m for a midfielder with less experience. Difference was he had a longer contract. Not comparing them as players obviously, but the length of their deal has a massive bearing.

 

Having another year on his contact wouldn't have added 50% to his transfer value though. I think the difference between having 18 months and 30 months remaining on your contract would be minimal.

Transfer fees are largely based on reputation and Wanyama's was huge at the time he left, not just for the Barca goal but his performances in the CL that year were really, really special. Even Skysports were doing half hour shows entirely about Victor Wanyama. :smiley-laughing002:

 

im hoping if we do sign players in Jan they are the right ones an no rush decisions cause i believe that's what happened in the summer

 

Why do we even bother investing in youth when they hardly ever get a chance ? When that old club Sevco went bust it was the perfect chance to blood some youth like McGeoch, Watt, Atajic etc.. Yet none of them have even had a decent run in the team to see if they are good enough at this level, In a league where we are huge favourites to win surely there is more opportunitys to play these lads. The only way to find out if they will do well is to give them a run in the team, Look at the Dundee United boys there all cutting it well at this level im pretty sure the Celtic lads could too if given the chance.

 

Anyone who thinks splashing the cash is the option is a glory-hunter.

We have one aim and it's to make the group stages...we've achieved that twice in a row.

 

People actually believe we are going to splash the cash in January :smiley-laughing002: :smiley-laughing002:

 

Just gloryhunting - even if we came 2nd or 3rd we were never going to spend money.