Not Actually that Crucial a Summer as of August 2023...beginning to now think everything isnt fine!

10 days is reasonable. If he thinks he'll have a great offer by September 1st, then he can take the risk of settling for something mediocre (no European football or at best Conference). We move on. There are many players that can be gotten for money between £10M and 15M.

I find weather to be a strange argument when people willingly go to places with lethal climates to play football. Though, I'm sure there are good players who don't want to suffer a heart attack in Saudi heat.

 

Alright mate.

Hit a nerve with your chronic patter.

 

But we might miss out on a number one target by being arrogant and putting an arbitrary number on the time they have to make a decision.

Taking your own theory and using it against you, we issue an ultimatum, they refuse and they end up at a smaller team. Without the ultimatum we would have probably signed them.

I think we need to be patient.

That's not to say we shouldn't be sounding out our number 2 or 3 in our list for a certain position so we are ready to move.

 

It's an outcome that also hurts them. I don't think very demanding players with huge egos are going to be welcome here anyway. The club must show self-respect. Any number is arbitrary, but in 10 days anyone can do his research, talk to his agent, get a tour of Lennoxtown if he wants...

Pampering players would make us a bigger laughing stock, particularly if they take someone else's offer anyway. And taking the choice number 2 or 3 isn't always bad. O'Riley was choice no. 2. TBF, McGree rejected us straight away. And if I were a negotiator, I'd be clear: rejection isn't an issue if someone doesn't feel great about coming here. We can take a no.

 

He was class but I think Johnson is a better defender.

 

Juranovic was brilliant at some things, but also limited in other ways. Most fans agreed on that while he was here. His first touch, ability to keep the ball in tight spaces and pace were unreal, but his crossing was dire and his positioning left a lot to be desired.

I prefer Johnstone.

Anyway, get some * bodies in the door!

 

This window has been so hard to judge but my initial feeling is disappointment.

Hatate only cost us £1m and was unknown to the whole support, he’s now our biggest asset.

It gives me hope that Holm, Tilio, Yun etc could be gems that will follow a similar trajectory.

But I’d say for every gem we have found, we’ve signed some muck too.

Definitely thought this window was going to be about strengthening the XI for Champions League campaign. Could be proven wrong but I don’t think we have signed anyone yet that displaces a starter from last year.

Still a month to do business but again it’s disappointing that we’ve not done our major business earlier to get players settled before first game of the season.

 

It's a childish and arrogant way to treat players, would just be cutting our nose off to spite our face and quickly earn us a reputation for being difficult to deal with, absolutely daft way to go about our business.

If we dealt with teams/players like that we wouldn't have signed half our key players the last few years, they weren't all done within ten days, there's nothing reasonable about setting that kind of arbitrary deadline on negotiations.

 

But we all agree that our best players, such as Hatate you just mentioned, could probably leave for our record transfer fee.

So how can we confidently predict his hypothetical replacement will be better without spending similar money?

 

It’s not about replacing Hatate though.

I’ve simply said for every Hatate we’ve signed, we’ve signed a Musonda.

Jota was 6.5m and he did go for our record transfer fee. We should be spending about 5/6m on his replacement.

We’ve spent 6m on 2x LB’s who aren’t good enough for Europe.

All for signing projects but it needs to be supplemented with more experienced signings, especially in key areas like LB and LW

 

And I'm sure we will. Which is my whole point. Players like CCV and Jota never came here until late in the window and there would have been a reason for that.

 

The argument of some fans that signing players early is good is valid. The faster they get in, the faster they can get used to the teammates. That's why these deadlines are necessary.

 

Getting players in early for the sake of it means nothing if they're not up to it, Bernabei was one of our earliest signings that we spent decent money on and he's flopped completely, and as it's been pointed out by plenty of people the likes of Jota, CCV and others were late window and huge players for us, you'd have us missing out on them for the sake of putting a dealine/ultimatum on the table, it's absolutely not necessary.

 

If we're negotiating all this time with people who can't make their mind up, we're way too patient. This way, everyone can fool around with us.

Fenerbahce have apparently given an ultimatum to Livaković to make his mind up. So, it's not like clubs don't do that.

 

I think to an extent Ange was right when he said he wasn’t going to try and convince anyone to come to Celtic. They should want to come without being talked in to it.

 

Oh * aye. No disputing that.

However though, nobody could confidently predict how well Kyogo would settle, Jota coming from Benficas b team etc. They weren't exactly household names mate.

No reason the Korean lads and big Rocky won't be immediate sensations.

 

An initial effort should be made to present the club and all the advantages of coming here. But no more than that. Answering questions the players has is one thing, but nobody is that good to let him think for months where he wants to be. Even one month is too much.

 

I think a bit of the fear comes from we convinced ourselves Ange was responsible for all our signings. Now he's gone the worry is we are back to cheap punts. It's really no different to picking up Kyogo or Hatate though.

I do think we've made some significant strides in scouting and analysis.

 

Bet Victor's super computer have us going into the split in top spot. Gives us a 90% chance of it and the huns 10% chance of leading the league after 33 games.

Has us 10 points clear going into the split.

So the bookies don't think next season will be close then.

Mon the super computer.