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

Well, we spent relative peanuts on them three... but yes, if they want to stay long term that's fantastic.

In Kyogo we found somebody who did, GG would have if he got regular starts, so I can't blame him for going, Juranovic unfortunately wasn't wanting to stay long term.

If we can find players that fit that criteria, who want to stay long term (even if it means paying a more money for them) I think it would really help us go to that next level.

 

If we managed to get Tete and the Man Utd goalkeeper in on a LTB for a year, I think the whole perspective of the window would change.

2 positions we needed to look at upgraded on and some real quality brought in, especially Tete. Only watched the highlights of Kovar from Sparta last year and he looks perfect but it is a youtube video.

GK, LB, B2B CM, RW.... I think we are done then and have the ability to make a real dent in Europe.

 

Not sure I agree on the first point, as an example, In the last 5 seasons we've brought in about £110 million from player sales, while benfica have brought in £750 million, and it certainly seems they've progressed beyond us

Im not sure many are saying spending £8 million Is unrealistic, we were regularly spending £4-£7 million on players during our 4 years without champions league football. While Last season we had champions league football and bought two £6 million players

However a quick look at our end of year financials show Our 4 seasons of no champions league saw us make a loss of about £30 million that was plugged by profits from player trading

So While Champions league football will mean we don't need to profit from player trading, I'd still be wary of us spending a quarter of our champions league prize money on one player with little resale value

 

Sign guys like these two and I'll be happy

 

Huge difference with Benfica is that the large majority of their young talent within their squad are homegrown and brought through their brilliant youth system. Guys like Antonio Silva, Florentino Luis, Goncalo Ramos being textbook examples. Their youth system is far, far superior to ours and they regularly bring through their youth prospects.

Benfica also aren't afraid to pay bigger money for replacement players; Bah for €8m, Aursnes for €13m, Tengstedt for €7m, Otamendi for €15m, Rafa for €16m, Schjeldrup for €9m etc.

I don't think we can fairly compare Celtic to Benfica, they aren't remotely in the same league financially. But what we can see is that they;

A.) Regularly bring through their youth, so they have a conveyor belt of talent to step up when they sell someone.

B.) Aren't afraid to spend bigger money when they need to replace a key player they've lost.

 

The thing that really sticks out for me is the difference in quality between players being produced in Portugal, Belgium, Holland, even Scandinavia and here. Regardless of nationality as you can or could in the past sign foreign players very young but there are so few who actually even get close here.

Yeah you can point to examples of Doak and Morrison being poached and many more but those other nations literally have half a team of good players coming through season after season. They aren’t all good enough to make it at their clubs but they will play top division football throughout Europe at varying levels.

A lot of ours are lucky if they make it down the leagues in Scotland or league 1 or 2 in England.

It isn’t even just exclusive to Scotland to some extent it happens at a lot of clubs in England too where guys thought off highly get nowhere near first teams. There has probably only really been a shift in the last few years to seeing more home grown top players emerging.

 

Certainly a huge factor, yes.

Also - we can't make the financial demands for our players (regardless of how good they are) that teams like Benfica can. If Jota had still been playing for them when Al-Ittihad signed him, he'd have gone for £35m+

 

We never tried. Why wasn't there a statement, when the Saudi bid came, that we want £35M?

 

I was in the everyone relax camp but I'm now shifting over to the panicking camp.

Really need to add quality ASAP.

 

Rodgers did say there wouldn't be any movement until after the Ross County game, so I'd suspect this week to be quiet outside the occasional rumour.

 

Why has no player ever gone for that price in our league?

We can''t keep a player against their will, it's a lose-lose for everyone. Sadly there is very much a ceiling on how much a player will go for, from our league -- regardless of how talented they are.

Jota clearly wanted the move, Celtic obviously deemed it a fair price and know it's of no benefit to reject it and have an unhappy player at the club.

Most of all, it fits firmly within the club model which I've said before, is good for maintaining a healthy financial balance, maintaining domestic dominance.... but it'll never get us further in Europe.

Perhaps we could demand higher fees if we did progress in Europe and our players could showcase a level of talent that could see the team progress in the Champions League.

 

Hopefully a few lined up to sign on. Definitely a GK and LB. Two priorities imo.

 

I do get what you are saying but on the flip side if we did demand 35 mill and they walked away what's saying another Saudi club wouldn't have came in and said okay well we'll give you 30. No doubt he wanted to go absolutely no doubt but by the same token I'd say we could have hung on for an extra week or two to see what could have happened in terms of fee.

But having mentioned all of the above there's probably a good reason why the money men at the club are where they are and I'm on an internet forum putting my 50ps worth in lol

 

I'd have risked an unhappy Jota. It's a Saudi club, not Barcelona. Selling Jota was a mistake we'd now have to fix by signing a player worth roughly double the money we paid Benfica. Jota was a crucial player.

 

Absolutely, which is precisely my point.

The money men at the club have a model they work around, they obviously deemed that fee too good to turn down. Personally I think he's worth more than that, but this club is build around staying in it's good financial position and not really on improvement, which might sound harsh, but I think it's very much true.

It's maintenance, not improvement.

I'm not against it, I just think it's a bit silly to have all this talk about European progression, but stay in this same loop we've been in for years and years.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you, I think he's worth more than he went for.

But when the club model is to be happy with a bit of profit and then buy the next relatively cheap, young talent and hope to do the same again - where's the improvement ever going to come from?

 

Hard to disagree with any of that tbh. Just hope they have a decent plan in place because European progression is really where we need to be now.

 

100%

We're lucky that in recent years that Rangers have made no real progression. This year they've went all out and spent a decent sum of money and I think will undoubtedly be a strong side in than last year.

We can only stay in the same spot for so long before we eventually pay for it.

 

Leipzig, a toy club with no history or anything are refusing to budge on their valuation of Gvardiol. They've dug in, and Man City don't have him yet. We're too soft when it comes to selling players. Way too soft.

 

I agree, we are very quick to accept offers on our players, but Leipzig having no real history means nothing in that situation, the finances does.

The Bundesliga TV Rights money is roughly £943,798,882 yearly, the SPFL is £30m per season. The gulf in finances means Leipzig have the luxury of holding out for huge prices, we, unfortunately, do not.

We're a massive club, but financially we are tiny compared to top European sides - we have less financial power than most mid-table Bundesliga sides.