Peter Lawwell's lies

I'm sure the business had made allowances for the turnover in the management staff this summer though, right? Very rarely does a complete change in management result in things running as smoothly as they did previously.

It happened when Strachan took over, and it also happened when Lennon took over. We lost the Champions League windfall but we bounced back and turned it around in the following years.

Deila will take time to implement his coaching style, and more importantly it'll take time for him to move on the players he doesn't want, and to bring in suitable replacements.

This is a transitional year without doubt. I'll judge him on his work next season most likely.

This is where Lawwell's shrewd financial acumen comes into play though, right? Those years when we did make the Champions League but didn't blow all of the cash means we can continue this year pretty much business as usual. Deila will still have the same budget to spend his year and next summer as he would have been given even if we had qualified for the Champions League.

From a business standpoint none of that will even be a factor if/when the Rangers get promotion to the SPFL. That'll be the game changer.

Season tickets will rocket, attendances, sponsorship & advertising revenue will all rise.

I know that's not what people want to hear, but it's the truth I'm afraid.

At present we're the equivalent of Barcelona without an Atletico & Real Madrid to compete with.

We always had it tough playing in Scotland, but it's even worse now without the attraction of the "old firm" games. That was our main selling point to the television companies and advertisers.

No one is tuning in outwith our own support base to watch us hammer Dundee United, or to see us field an understrength team against Inverness in front of 8,000 people.

It isn't attractive, and no one cares. The league is a one horse race. It's over before it begins.

The circumstances that we operate in aren't conducive to attracting investors, sponsors or interest in our game, and it appears that we're simply treading water whilst waiting on the auld enemy to come back and play with us.

As I said, like it or not, that all changes the day that Rangers gain promotion to the SPFL.

 

Who were the number 1 & 2 targets?

 

Ask yourself, Is the £11.5million we spent last season enough?? Yes it was, it's more than what some of the lowest teams newly promoted teams in EPL get to spend.

Now ask yourself this, do we now need another £11.5 million to spend. Yes we do.

We can't afford to waste this £10 million, because then we would need another £10mil and another £10mil.

Lets take a look at Deila.

He's replace Forster with Gordon.
He's gotten Berget and Tonev in on loan - my guess is they'd be permanent if Villa and Cardiff wanted to sell them but I doubt they did.
If he's gets Scepovic in he will probably replace Hooper something Lennon failed to with the money he spent of Pukki, Balde and Griffiths.

But now Deila has to get rid of Derk,Pukki,Balde and Griffths as well because they are so under-par it's unbelievable. Then you add in Stokes, Kayal, Mulgrew and maybe even Emilio if he's doesn't buck his ideas up. Lennon has left us Knee deep in it.

 

Exactly.

Lennon wanted Finnbogason after Hooper was sold, but clearly our board didn't think it would be financially feasible to spend that much money on one player.

Look where we are now, as a result; embarrassed yet again after being knocked out of the CL twice in the space of a few weeks and left with a team full of players that Lennon didn't even want at the club, never mind Deila. Yet some people still think Ronny is to blame in all of this.

 

Exactly they have faults but getting branded thieves is just moronic and the figures getting quoted, I read something along the lines of "Pete/board has made x amount of millions" disappear , * joke.

Look as I said report your suspicions then. I will await to hear that this has happened

 

Folk still on here defending this clown. From criminalising our fans to bare faced lies, the guy is a complete *.

And anyone bringing up the 90's etc. What the * has the 90's got to do with the here and now ? Aye we as a club have had * times but it doesn't mean we should just accept mediocrity due to it being worse at some point in our history.

 

Do you actually believe we were in with a real chance of signing Finnbogason?

It's not just a case of us matching the selling clubs asking price and that's that. The players agent was working all manner of avenues to secure him the best deal he could, and as soon as some EPL, German and Spanish clubs showed some interest we were never in the running.

 

No clue who his first 3 targets were but they sure weren't Pukki or Balde i will tell you that. Balde a man who i am surprised has actually become a professional footballer and Pukki who warmed the bench for Shalke and couldn't get many games when their first striker got injured.

The standard of players we have brought to the club who are 'experienced' players have been options who are too far down the list.

 

Whether or not his agent would have wanted him to come here is irrelevant to the point that I'm trying to make.

Lennon was repeatedly denied the funds to secure his top targets and was subsequently left to scrape the bottom of the barrel and sign his second, third and fourth choices, which has now resulted in us having a squad full of duds that Deila clearly doesn't think are good enough for Celtic (Pukki and Balde for starters).

If our current manager thought that Pukki was decent, he would have at least made the bench last night. Pukki has been a total waste of money, as have Balde and Boerrigter. They have contributed hardly anything to the team between them since they signed last year.

 

Much though I agree with you on most things in this thread, Dháibhí, if that OFOG blog has its figures right and we really have made a profit in player trading of £30 million since Lenny became manager, I think that makes Lenny the least backed manager in our history by a considerable distance.

 

The thing is though, we didn't need much investment to get into the Champions League really in my opinion. One or two players, a striker being the most obvious one, would have more than likely seen us into the Group Stages. We have blundered massively by trying to spend as little as possible, or in the case of this transfer window, not a single penny on a transfer fee for a player. The board have tried to pull the wool over the fans eyes by bringing in a few players, all on loan. It might fool some people, but let's be honest about it, it's not how we should be going about our business is it. Not in my opinion anyway, as we could end up having to build a whole new squad again next year, as none of the players on loan have to come here.

I'm in no way criticising Deila, quite the opposite in fact. I feel sorry for him in all honesty. I haven't once judged him on his work here, not in a negative way that's for sure.

 

Lads its not rocket science ... we sell wanyama for 12.5 million .... we buy 3 million pound replacement and buy finnbogason for 5/6 million giving us 3 million profit. We sell ki for 6 million we buy a technically gifted replacement for 4 million giving us 2 million profit.

We sell forster for 10 mill we get gordan for free so we spend 5 million to strengthen weak areas of team or young player eg gauld. We sell hooper for 5.5 mill because we hav finbogasson bangin in goals we could try an get a target man up front for 3/4 million.

We get champ league money of 15 million .... there you * go board total profit ... 28 million to run the club an thats only with one year of champo league money. This keeps everyone happy as the board replaces our top players with respectable amounts of money spent on quality players whilst running the club with plenty of profit as well.

Am I the only one that thinks this is the way the club should be run?

 

It isn't irrelevant though. How much do you think we should have bid for him? Fulham had a bid of £7.5 million turned down, didn't they?

The point I'm making is that we could have bid £10 million for him and still not got him. He's a player who was operating in a bracket that sees decent EPL, German and Spanish sides sniffing around, wasn't he?

The majority of player who are rated in that bracket are drawing interest from clubs who can offer a better deal than we can, most likely financially, and most definitely in where they'll be plying their trade.

Virtually no one wants to play in Scotland. It's a simple fact. England, Spain, Germany, France & Italy are always going to be more attractive destinations.

The same thing happened with Marko Arnautovic, didn't it?

We bid £3.4 million for him, the offer was accepted by the selling club, but the player wasn't interested, stating that he had no interest playing in Scotland.

He moved to Stoke City for £2 million, more than £1 million less than we offered for him.

 

That all sounds fantastic, and I'm sure it works in Football Manager, but there's something you've not taken into account.

What if Finnbogason isn't interested in playing in Scotland?

We had a bid of over £3 million accepted by Werder Bremen for striker Marko Arnautovic, and he basically told us to * off, moving to Stoke City instead.

 

This is a good question. We can only go on what the club tells us as regards what kind of player we get. Are we as unattractive a team to sign for as we are lead to believe. Are we really in for Stefan Scepovicor is this a ruse to amke us believe we willing to spend money but the better players reject us. The huns by signing Klos, deBoer prove that even the best players will go to Scotland if enticed.

 

This is all conjecture from both of us, because the current board would never have given Lennon anything close to £10m to spend on one player and therein lies the problem.

We are supposedly one of the biggest clubs in the world and it's well known that we have been raking the cash in from player sales and UCL money over the past few years, and that's before you mention gate receipts, season tickets, merchandise money, etc. We also apparently got a fair bit of cash for renting Celtic Park out for the Commonwealth opening ceremony.

It isn't unrealistic to suggest that we could spend £8m on a quality striker if his goals were going to get us into the group stages and earn us £20m, a £12m profit right away.

When MON was here (before the Lawwell days), he was able to spend £6m on three different players and the result of that was a European final, a domestic treble, several other domestic trophies and many great European nights.

Finnbogason isn't the only example of what I'm talking about, just the most recent and prominent one. Did the same not happen with Steven Fletcher a few years ago?

 

* it, I think Pete needs to just ask the target what they want as wages and just pay it and to * with any kind of plan.

 

Yes and that ended well.