Gustaf Lagerbielke

I can't speak for Murphy but I don't think that's what his argument is.

Many people during the mini crisis last week, including yourself, stated that because Rodgers signed off on players, he, and he alone, was responsible for the signings because he was the manager and he signed off on them.

The majority of us who were defending Rodgers during that mini crisis were making the point that this was bigger than Rodgers and it was board/recruitment related after the window. That started this disagreement about who is responsible for transfers. There were a couple of instances towards the end of Rodgers first stint here that he was having less say on who we were signing. Let's not forget how bad our recruitment was in his final season. Wanted McGinn, Pichichi and Schar and ended up with Mulumbu and Jeremy Toljan. Refused to accept a £10m bid for Boyata because he wasn't getting a say on who replaced him, which cost us in Athens and knocked us out of the Champions League. In the January, we signed Bayo and Shved. After signing Bayo he famously said

"I've not seen much of him but he comes here with a good pedigree of scoring goals and adds a different dimension to our attacking phase of play"

And on the Shved signing

"We've got about a million wingers and don't need another one but he's a talent and in the summer we'll probably lose wingers and he'll look to come in. It's an opportunity for the club to sign a young talented player but not one that will probably help us now."

Now, that's 5 years ago. I understand that. However, there were already things he spoke about that highlighted that he wanted to stay in the background during the summer, analyse what he had and then be more involved about what he wanted and what he needed. That's being backed by 2 different journalists that we know have information coming out from Celtic in Keith Jackson and Stephen McGowan.

 

I’m saying they are already done deals. I’m amazed you think that someone who was signed 11 days after Rodgers did wasn’t a done deal. Especially considering it was a player who would have been well known to Postecoglou, our previous manager funnily enough.

 

See the point regarding the likes of Mulumbu and Toljan. Add in Jack Hendry, Arzani, Izzy. Could stick a few more in as well. All players who were nowhere near good enough and were either on loan or cost us peanuts. Now did Rodgers agree to these players, maybe he did. Would they have been his first choice? Absolutely no chance in my opinion. He navigated us through two CL qualifying campaigns that we had tripped up on regularly before his tenure, and we rewarded him by giving him peanuts to spend on the team. On the face of it, he wanted a higher quality of player, our board refused to back him.

 

There are some things the board do get out of. He wanted Schar for £3m(release clause) and Newcastle blew us out of the water. The deal for Cristian Pichichi was done but Valencia stumped us right at the end. That's fine. It's the after effects of these deals falling through. Was the person we wanted after Pichichi, Jeremy Toljan 6 months later? Seriously? Was the person we wanted after Schar... eh... no one! We didn't sign a * CB that season. In the summer window or the January window. Absolutely strange beyond belief IMO, especially given we actually sold a competent defender in Sviatchenko that summer AND refused £10m for Boyata who had less than a year on his contract and indicated he would not be signing a new deal. It's not even good business.

Then you get to the whole McGinn fiasco... probably the most embarrassing transfer story we have had since Steven Fletcher. The utter arrogance of Peter Lawwall to refuse to pay £300k more, all to be stumped by a Championship club managed by Steve * Bruce. The embarrassment highlighted even further by how good John McGinn has become, in the most competitive league in the world. Our go to after we didn't get him? A 31 year old Youssef Mulumbu on a free transfer, from a dogged Killie... where's the business sense in that?

Again, this is highlighted even further again by the fact that we brought in nearly £30m that summer window in transfers. Dembele made us £20m and Armstrong made us £7.5m. Sviatchenko made us £1.5m. We spent £9m on Edouard, a very good investment and didn't make any cash purchase until the January, when we spent £5m on Shved and Bayo combined.

 

Did that John McGinn/300k thing ever get confirmed? Because the player himself has given a different account of why he never came:

Wouldn't want you to getting lumped in with all the other moon howlers mate.

 

Safe to say I haven't heard that account from Joh McGinn.

However, I have seen this one

A stand-off between Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell and Easter Road supremo Rod Petrie dragged on for weeks.

McGinn likened the saga to a “sitcom” and reckons the Parkhead club didn’t try hard enough to get the deal over the line.

And by the time Celtic did match Aston Villa’s £3million offer, he had already decided to move to England.


He said: “When that first offer comes in you start thinking, ‘It’s done, it’s going to happen’.

“So it was just a waiting game — the longest waiting game ever it ended up being.

“I’ve ended up back with Hibs for pre-season and it was, ironically, Neil Lennon who was Hibs manager at the time.

“They were amazing. It’s not a popular decision if you go from Hibs to Celtic. But everyone had an understanding that it was what I wanted and respected that I wouldn’t kick the door down.


“I wouldn’t want to ruin what I’d built at Hibs. I thought it had to work both ways. Initially it was not happening like that.

“We ended up getting a wee bit more guarantees that things were going to progress.

“I remember driving to a European qualifier.

“I’d been told, ‘Celtic are going to make an offer today’, and not to play in the game. That I’d be cup tied for the European games coming up for Celtic.

“So I’m waiting all day, nothing happens.

“I am going round these winding roads in the Faroe Islands, not knowing if I’m playing in the game or not. To be fair to Leeann Dempster and everyone at Hibs, they were waiting as well.


“The offer didn’t come, for whatever reason.

“I just thought, ‘You know what? I’m playing in the game. Nothing’s happened’.

“I played, scored that night and it was a good performance in a bit of a wild game.

“I was proud of myself because I thought, ‘This isn’t right, I need to play in this game’.

“I believed in myself as a player. If someone wants me they can try a bit harder to get me.”

That's two very different accounts he's given.

 

McGinn wanted to come here. We wouldn’t pay the money.

 

Sounds like there were a lot of different factors involved then, didn't know about the situation where he'd be cup tied for Europe if he played that particular day.

Obviously the assumption has always been that Lawwell * the deal, but seems obvious to me that if indeed Lawwell was trying to haggle (which is absolutely normal in any deal), in no way was it the deciding factor. Petrie being a * in dealing with us was always a thing, there's the Europe thing, there's the McGinn quotes I posted about choosing guaranteed game time....

All pointing to another case of Lawwell taking the brunt of things from people who don't know the facts.

 

It was basically another case of us * about trying to do a deal. It backfired. Lawwell takes the brunt of it, because that’s on his head. Simple.

 

Same happened with Jackie mcnamara....he was already in England when we finally wanted to offer a contract. Our board can be totally amateurish at transfers

 

Was it not down to Strachan fannying him about that he ended up driving down? Can't mind the details now but am sure it was more Strachan than Lawwell.

 

Ach either way...the point is its happened all too often here.

 

You don't know that though mate. To me McGinn wanted guaranteed game time which couldn't be given so he didn't sign, which was * all to do with Lawwell. But tbh we both don't know for sure.

 

Yeah no doubt the board make an * of it plenty, there's just too many folk eager to ignore facts that don't fit their agenda, in favour of supporting assumptions that do (not saying @Celtic_Daft1888 is one of them btw).

 

McGinn not being guaranteed game time isn’t the reason he didn’t sign.

 

Lawwall did * the deal because he didn’t pay the money.

You could say that Petrie is a * and that’s a perfectly legitimate statement. Let’s be honest, had Petrie not received the transfer fee he wanted for McGinn, you could say he was arsing us about because he didn’t want to sell us him. The reality is, we didn’t pay the money Hibs wanted and Aston Villa did.

The hypocrisy to suggest that ‘Lawwall is perfectly normal for trying to haggle in a deal’ and ‘Petrie is a * because he didn’t accept our offer’ is a mental take. What’s this? Lawwall is allowed to do what he deems necessary to get the best deal possible for his club but Petrie can’t?

For what it’s worth, I think both Petrie and Lawwall are * and there probably is multiple factors in him not moving here. The reality is, though, that this deal didn’t get concluded until mid August and we put our first bid in early July. That’s 6 weeks where we waited it out. We allowed other factors to come into play, like his issues over potential game time. (He alludes to this in the same interview you quoted)

The other part of this is who we replaced him with. Had we went and adequately replaced him with another target, this wouldn’t have been anywhere near as embarrassing as what it is now. You can’t ignore the fact that we didn’t sign another player for cash that summer.

 

The McGinn saga is tiring... he has clearly said:

“It was important to weigh up everything and not just go with my heart because I had basically made up my mind I wanted to join Celtic.

“But I also had to weigh up in my mind how strong Celtic’s midfield had been for a long time. I remember speaking to Brendan Rodgers and he said the important thing I would take from it was I would play games

But Steve Bruce said I would play every game. I was used to playing week in week out at Hibs and it was so important to me that that carried on.”

He has stated he was already set on joining prior to chatting with Rodgers and Bruce, but since Bruce had promised to play him every game... he went there.

 

If you know that for a fact mate then fair enough but I'm no so sure. The quotes Double Dutch used above would suggest he got guarantees of playing every game for Steve Bruce before signing.

 

The quotes from McGinn above also tell us that the offer didn’t come. Basically, we were * about.

 

Why does he mention the guarantees he got from Steve Bruce? The final offer maybe didn't get made when McGinn wanted it to but that doesn't mean Lawwell was * about.

Anyway it's old news and I've just realised this is the Lagerbielke thread which has * all to do with John mcginn lol.