The board

I think the article is just mining for grievances because the board is always a reliable way to get a reaction.

I think we are certainly willing to spend the Kuhn money at a minimum.

We appear to getting close to securing deals for Balikwisha, Yamada and Nazinho. That would be another 3 in the door for anything up to 9M outlay Id guess (yes its always possible the deals fall through but its clear we are in negotiations).

The fact we look to be considering to let Yang go and have Jota out for an extended period makes me think they are confident of getting further wide recruits in the door this window. If we get those 3 in over the next few days we still have a decent chunk of time to add further additions (it looks like we are still hunting for a CB and potentially another striker).

 

Good post mate.

And I agree with it. It's my thinking too.

 

While there's still a section of the fans celebrating how our board does business its never gonna change.

Just seen their about to punt another top us tomorrow. More kits than wingers soon.

Just keep nodding along and add money to the rainy day pile.

 

Agree, but we should be investing more than double the Kuhn money - at a minimum.

The board define and control our spending and ultimately ambition on the park, so why wouldn't we be frustrated when we just hoard cash - most of it from those fans.

 

I think the cash reserves are down to the years of automatic CL entry more than anything else.

The model adopted by the board has been to treat that money conservatively and to try and build a sustainable financial model that does not depend on guaranteed CL every year. This has resulted in a surplus piling up during the years we have enjoyed automatic entry.

 

Approx £124m brought in with fees and addons going by the accounts (not * transfer market) and approx £56m spent aince Rodgers came back.

Am not keen on him but * me with 3 UCL group staged in last 3 season and a playoff round only to negotiate this year and seeded then regardless of his contract imo the board should have gave him £40m to spend without question and it wouldn't even touch the sides.

They * need hunted they are the modern day Kelly's!

 

Folk are mental thinking we should go out and spend fortunes just because we have a tidy balance at the moment. The elite are too far ahead that we cannot expect to compete with them on and off the pitch and at home there’s no the competition to spend a lot. We have found someone in between that keeps us out of reach domestically as things stand and have us competing very well in CL last season. We have spent quite a bit on some players lately so we’ve definitely moved up a bracket but also still need to be smart.

 

Get that totally mate but beyond 14 players in that squad the quality is lacking badly and we need 7 players in quickly

 

We always have a profit when the transfer window closes and can't see this window being any different even though the depth of the squad is in poor shape and a couple of injuries we are in trouble unless there's a few quality signings but Rogers can remedy this by signing a extension to his contract.

 

We are a bank that plays football

 

But again that's on the board and their refusal to spend money or he forward thinking.

For a club our size and one with our business model our scouting department is nowhere near what it should be.

Its only a few years ago we appointed a recruitment agency to find us a new head of scouting and we ended up giving the job to the chairman's useless * son.

 

I will never, ever understand this thinking.

It won’t keep us out of reach domestically forever. Aberdeen beat us in the cup final. The huns beat us a couple of times last season as well. Needed penalties to beat them in the League Cup final.

All it takes is one or two really poor transfer windows for us, and good ones for the huns and it’s game on.

Do you not have any ambition at all for European football? Do you not think with another 3 or 4 quality first team additions we could move up another level in Europe and, with a bit of luck in the draw, finally win a European knockout tie for the first time in 20 years?

We are in zero danger as it stands of being in trouble financially. It’s not going to happen. We could comfortably spend £30m this summer. Even more than that, actually. We’ve already made over £20m this summer with more to leave.

 

The reserves we have now are too high - I think everyone pretty much agrees on that.

I think there is a whole host of reasons and considerations, which at this point have pretty much been done to the death over several threads now, but which are too easily disregarded when hammering the board.

Profit from player sales and CL cant be taken for granted when trying build a sustainable financial operation long term. Outside of these two revenue streams, Scotland offers very little revenue. An absolute pittance if we are talking in CL competitive terms.

Even what seems like relatively small changes in wage structure and price paid for players would deplete the cash reserves surprisingly quick without the luxury of of guaranteed CL money and a good player trading model.

You could see it at Rangers, who had a comparable wage budget to ours recently. Without a profit making player trading model and regular CL money they were pushing 20mil operating losses annually and were being propped up by director loans.

 

Its frustrating having to zig zag the forum board everyday looking for new signing rumours, or even any on the distant horizon. Maybe Yamada. But that's not enough.

Rangers have got stacks in already, and we are sleep walking into disaster with this looming Champions League qualifier.

The Celtic Board needs to get their * into gear and stop being so risk adverse and parsimonious, when they are sitting on an effin gold mine.

 

I know there are some saying that go out and spend fortunes but I think the majority just want to see us make smart signings, of ready to go first team players to bolster what is a shockingly poor squad just now.

I would take more deals like Nygren and Tierney all day, like the look of Nazinho that we are linked too. I also don’t buy the we aren’t getting players in because who we are targeting aren’t available just now, that work should be 95% if not more going into the window and plenty of other clubs are getting their targets in.

Again, I know they have commercial contracts to fulfil but this constantly putting out new pre match and pre going on the team bus gear, our American range is just so tone deaf right now. You're launching three new strips, not long taken season ticket money, not included the Newcastle game on that. It’s alright to say just don’t buy it but folk have kids who will be seeing this stuff and at them for it etc.

The cash balance generally feels like it’s happened more by accident and they have decided they liked it but as a football club that is a business sending a sum which is literally the size of a big transfer fee to the tax man each year is ridiculous.

The decision on spending what we have on Barrowfield feels out of sorts with what we are putting into the operational side of the youth and woman’s team which all feel like they are done on a shoestring. I don’t think as a football club we see any benefit from Barrowfield without investment in the operational side of either set ups to be based there.

To me it all comes back to what is the plan for Celtic as a football club? Where are we going? To me it feels like last year if we had won the Scottish Cup that is as high as it goes for us and that would be a very successful season don’t get me wrong but we basically seem to want to meander along until we hit a disaster then pick up the pieces.

 

I havent seen anyone suggest we spend 'fortunes'. We could sign three 10m players tomorrow, which is way more than almost anyone here is expecting, and still be sitting with 50m or so in the bank.

We are not asking to spend to challenge the elite. At the moment we need to spend just to tread water and hope to match what we did last season. I think we are miles off actually improving.

This season we need to qualify for the champions league and last season we had the easiest draw of all 36 teams. On top of that we are currently starting the season Kyogo and Kuhn down and Jota out until xmas compared to the start of last seasons campaign.

We never push on. Our model seems to be based on being a bit better than Rangers and qualifying for the champions league as cheaply as possible. Which has been easy when rangers have been a mess and we have enjoyed automatic qualification. But qualifying will become much tougher after this season and Rangers in just becoming 'competent' wont be far off us this season. We dont even seem to be spending for that - we are a million miles away from thinking about the 'eiltes'!

 

Not the first time the board are becoming complacent.

The shift in the way the Orcs are doing business now going for younger players and looking like living within their means with the takeover will only boost them.

They horrible * underestimated the bunnet and then look what happened, we stopped the 10, built a new ground and then kicked on from them.

We can’t afford to make the same mistake with them at all. But unfortunately I can see the powers at be doing this.

I hope I’m wrong, and we bring in real quality this window regarding what we need but we’ve seen this before regarding dragging our heels with no guarantee champions league football.

 

Spot on.

The "We cant just spend to compete with PSG and Real Madrid, you know" line feels like the biggest strawman argument when Im just worried about beginning a champions league campaign with Scales and Yang starting while having 70m quid in the bank

 

The problem is that our club is run by dinosaurs who are stuck in the past and have no forward vision. Tight arsed Tory * who treat the custodians of the club the supporters with utter contempt.

 

This.

It’s not about going to Munich and Madrid and winning games.

It’s about going to Dinamo Zagreb and outclassing them. It’s about seeing off Club Brugge at Celtic Park. It’s about not needing a 90th minute goal to scrape past a pish Young Boys team at home.

There are teams in Europe who are performing above us that we should be looking to outshine