Boli Bolingoli-Mbombo

When rangers * themselves the board stopped putting as much money in. Hence why we went for Deila as manager instead of assistant like he was supposed to be. And why transfers after that point were way less/frequent than before. Don’t think you can say Lenny was lucky with signings. we went for them and got them? Where’s the luck in that. No team bigger than us would of took the punt on Van dijk before we did, Deila said he was a terrible trainer until his last year with us. Now that’s obviously changed but the teams who are at the very top of the game aren’t gonna buy a bad trainer from gronigen. Over the last 10 years we’ve made some huge money from signings and most times we have made a bad signing it’s usually been on a free transfer. Signings under rodgers financially are what have been poor

 

When Delia came in the downsizing accelerated we almost stopped buying players for a season and loaned around 4 or 5 players in (Tonev, Guidetti, Denayer, Wassako, Berget), we brought in Gordon on a free which was already in place to replace £10m+ FF, we bought Scepovic for £2.25m which was a flop and then signed Armstrong and GMS in the January for a combined £2.25m.

To suggest Lennon was lucky to uncover players like VVD etc is being very simplistic about it. Don't get me wrong transfers were a hit and a miss but when you are scraping about in the sub £3m market most of the time you are going to pick up your fair share of duds. Wanyama who was playing part of the time as a CB and part time CDM was a great find for less than £1m, FF plucked from Newcastle's academy and helped to become established as one of the best shot stoppers on his day another, VVD is one of those anomalies where others had overlooked his talents, which Celtic helped him flourish and I agree I don't think he greatly improved going to Southampton it was more about professionalism and profile. Where he used to storm up the pitch for us and try score etc you couldn't get away with that playing in a team who are often inferior to their opponents like Southampton. Gary Hooper was a good goalscorer for us bought from Scunthorpe of all places. Joe Ledley captured on a bosman, Beram Kayal and Emilio Izaguirre if it hadn't been for injuries they both would have been big profit players but both made telling contributions on the park. So much so when Ledley, Kayal and Wanyama were at it, Brown was shunted to being a right midfielder most of the time. Kris Commons who being honest wasn't a signing I fancied as he had looked nothing special for Scotland scored almost 100 goals for £300k. Even Stokes who divided opinion for just over £1m formed a formidable partnership with Hooper. Leigh Griffiths is another who came in and has scored more than 100 goals, pretty much carried us to Ronny's second title with his scoring exploits. Mikael Lustig for free, great servant to the club, Adam Matthews for a development fee played his part for a few seasons and was outstanding at left back vs Barca then sold for profit, same for Kelvin Wilson but was a bosman made £2.5m, Charlie Mulgrew bought for a free had a slow start then turned into a CB/ CM mainstay and Tom Rogic who has gone on to score some big goals for the club and make a telling contribution. All of the above cost about £13.5m for 15 players you could throw in Bitton take it to just over £14m for 16 players who have made a telling contribution.

The ones I feel we did sign where a lack of due diligence and care was taken were Amido Balde, if anyone had gone and properly watched him and thought he had potential they needed their head looked at, Mo Bangura would fit in that category too. Derk Borreighter was evidently a sick note before we signed him but went ahead. So that was a poor £6m- £7m spent. Where as guys like Pukki and Juarez clearly had talent, Pukki lacked belief in his own ability, Juarez turned in to a bomb scare from looking like a world beater. Lassad actually looked decent for a spell like he would make a telling contribution but then faded. I know there are a fair few more Cha-Du-Ri, Ljunberg, Ibrahim Rabiu, Daryl Murphy(cost a bit but ended up being Championship top scorer a couple times after we let him go) and others I probably forgot.

Looking at the above and not even counting the likes of Majstorovic, Stefan Johansen or Ambrose who were all decent players for during there stay with the club. I would say Lenny's transfer record in his first spell is better than any of the other managers during the 10 in a row spell overall. Rodgers had a few big hits in Dembele, Ntcham, Eddy and Sinclair but plenty of duds too.

 

Rodgers never signed dembele! It was set up by Deila similar to the Ajer deal, just happened to both go through after rodgers got the job. All of the above you said tho fits with my point of what I was saying to Scott in the replies, that we were way more hit than miss on transfers under Lenny. I’d hope this would happen in his second spell under us too, uncovered some real gems.

 

I'm not so sure of we can class Dembele as a Deila signing the same way we do with Ajer. Ajer was a done deal he signed his deal while Deila was boss, there's even pictures of them posing together after he signed.
I think Dembele was identified and would have been made an offer but I'd think he probably had 3 or 4 offers at that time. I actually think the rats profile and history of developing players is what sealed the deal and made Dembele come to us. Im not so sure if he would have came under Deila

 

He was all set to come before rodgers appointment was even decided. I remember at the time it had been set up within the season before because we were able to speak to him within the season (as we weren’t another English team)

 

On topic I’m willing to write Boli off as a dud.

 

He's never a left back. Looks more of a left wing back so would be interested in seeing how he does in that position now that we play that system

 

Very strange at 4 at the back we played boli and then after changing to wing backs we played Taylor haha

 

Aye still puzzles me why Lenny played half the season with Boli in back 4 and then switched to 352 and played with the more natural left back as a wing back.

Maybe it was all a ploy and Lenny was that confident we'd win the league last year that he decided to play each in their weaker position to develop them and now we're gonna have 2 * hot left sided players who can do it all haha

 

Haha hoping so! Lenniola. I watched the Celtic tv interview with boli earlier today from the other day and he seems a good guy and great English. So hopefully it works out for him next season. If him and Taylor kick on and improve next season we could have a great left side. If they’re able to train fully together for 6 weeks before the season starts it could be the best thing for the overall squad

 

Yeah I'm hoping that the extended break and now 6 weeks preseason without champions league qualifiers to deal with will benefit the whole squad.

Guys like McGregor and brown will hopefully benefit from the rest and guys like boli, shved and elhamed have 6 weeks to get to right fitness levels and show Lenny what their capable of.

Worth rembering once he settled in after a month or so boli had came onto a bit of a game before his injury and then he was only back in the team a couple of games before the break and the emergence of Taylor. Don't think either are perfect but still feel for the style that we play, that boli is the better option of the 2

 

Yeah him, el hamed, Taylor all had spells of a few games looking promising. Hopefully they settle in more and we get basically new players. Same for soro,shved, klimala and bayo. Could all be like new signings

 

Yeah for one reason or another guys like bayo, Soro, klimala and shved have only about 10 appearances between them and only about 3 of them have been starts. Would like to think they all have the required ability to push on this season and give more competition to the squad.
I find it promising that shved chose to stay here during lockdown hopefully its allowed him to settle in and improve on his English.
Klimala looks as though hes bulked up quite a bit.
Soro looked good on YouTube videos but has same problem others have had previously in that the guy in front of him is captain and doesn't show any signs of aging.
Bayo is a bit rough round the edges but he definitely offers something different and thing that has impressed me is his ability to get into goal scoring positions. At times he's made big of an * of the finish but all strikers need to be playing regularly to get that sharpness. Griff was the same in December, once he got that regular run after January it came back. Think bayo was really unlucky to be injured at the time Morgan was playing upfront. That may have been his golden opportunity to have a run of 3 or 4 games in a row in the team.
The other 2 I'm hoping really push on in pre season is Connell and O'connor. Can't keep sign these promising youngsters and the just leave them in the reserves during their crucial development years.
Same goes for Dembele, really hope this is his break through year. Feels like we've been hearing about how good he is for years

 

I actually really thought the last few minutes each time bayo was getting before the end of the season he looked promising. Like you say he did * up a few chances but he was always in the right place to get those chances. Just needs confidence with a few goals although he did score a few anyway and was also scoring in the reserve games. Like you say, griff was rusty and * when he first came back but then pushed on. Obviously eddy and griff are first choice but bayo and klimala are good back ups.

I think Connell and Soro fit into the same category like you say with broonys position, that central midfield area is locked down by him, cal, Christie, oli, rogic. How’s anyone breaking through that.

think we made some youth signings last year just cos the option was there to. O’Connor and frimpong both for the same position, in the same window we signed el hamed and Bauer. 4 RB’s. Think O’Connor will be loaned out, same with connel

dembele has no excuse to not make an impact this year, he’s 17 and look at ansu fati at Barca playing weekly for them at the same age. So should really be pushing on.
Agree on shved too, strange he didn’t go back to Ukraine with having a young family so hopefully that’s a sign he wants to be here and make an impact!

 

I still believe in him.

 

I still don't really know what to make of him, my gut tells me we need to improve on both him and Taylor for these one-legged European qualifiers though.

 

Can’t see us paying 3M for a complete dud?

 

It's clear that he has ability, some of his touches are nice but he is erratic. His passing is too often wayward, he gets done by his man too often for my liking and doesn't use his pace often enough to go by his man at the other end.

In fact when a man stands up to him, he very often seems out of ideas.

I think he's just one of those signings that just didn't fit. When he eventually moves on I think he'll have a reasonable career.