Peter Lawwell's lies

It was being used as an example ... people getting caught up on certain players. You cant tell me there isnt strikers around the world worth 5/6 million playin outside of the top top leagues that wouldnt want to play for us

 

I have no doubt we are really in for Stefan Scepovicor, the same as I'm certain we did all we could to get Finnbogason and Marko Arnautovic.

The resale value on Finnbogason would have made any deal worthwhile, but when the player has more lucrative and enticing offers on the table there's not a lot we can really do.

On occasion we'll see a player who has different values, such as wanting to win trophies, play with a club that has a prestigious name and so on, but for the most part a player will choose the bigger league, the bigger contract and not be too concerned with who he's playing for.

 

Finnbogason is now at Real Sociedad by the way, a side who had a hard time dealing with Aberdeen over two legs this season in the Europa qualifiers.

They are hardly world beaters and not a bigger club than Celtic by any means.

 

It did go well them players made alot of money. Thanks for pointing out the obvious.

 

Aye the players made a lot of money and made a good impact in Europe.
Sometimes the obvious needs to be pointed out, don't you think.

 

Just on finnbogasson ... do you not believe he would have been sold already if a club made a good offer for him. Id say if a decent club wanted him they would get him which obviously hasnt happened. Heerenveen would have accepted 6 million in my opinion.

 

Lawwell the Snake Oil salesman

 

Erm... He is at Sociedad now.

 

That isn't the point he was making, he is saying that it isn't true that players will not come to Scotland, but that they will only come if the package is right. Do you think all the Brazilians at Zenit and Shakhtar Donetsk want to be in Eastern Europe or are they there for the cash?

We were never in the hunt for Finbogasson at £10m he didn't go for that until this year, we were in for him when his value was lower and he should have been attainable. I seem to remember penny pinching for Baba Diawara when we got Bangura, and Olivier Giroud (who turned out alright) as well as even Stephen Fletcher in 2009 (which Lawwell should have got his jotters for)

 

It is time for us to accept that the only players worth a * that will come to us are players that have only two choices...stay where you are or come to celtic.

Once any other club comes sniffing it is over for us.
Some players will not come here no matter the wages.

 

We are a huge club, but all of that means diddly * most of the time when the player we're chasing doesn't fancy disappearing into a footballing backwater for a chunk of his career.

Not unrealistic, but unlikely.

As I mentioned, a player who commands a fee of £5 million and above is usually being courted by a handful of clubs who don't play in a footballing backwater.

Why do you think Marko Arnautovic turned us down in favour of Stoke City? It's not because he recognised Stoke as one of Europe's best, it's because of where they play, the money they have and more importantly the platform they would provide him on a regular basis.

Why do you think Artjoms Rudnevs immediate response to our initial inquiry to Hamburg was "nope, not interested"?

No discussion, no contract offer, nothing. He dismissed us as soon as we even showed an interest.

We're competing at a real disadvantage, which is why we aren't getting those £5 million rated players for the most part.

 

My point was,so do we just offer the kind of money they want then.

We all know if a player is offered enough money he will play virtually anywhere. The level of player we want is the problem, the next step will attract other clubs who can afford to throw more money at a player than we can. When it's all boiled down that is the bottom line,money on offer.

Although some players would not want to come to play in this league full stop.
I do agree with Fletcher we should have got him.

 

I don't think that's necessarily Celtic's problem then; that's simply down to players these days being unambitious and only looking to make a quick buck before they retire.

If they had any ambition at all, they would come to Celtic where they are virtually guaranteed at least one trophy a season and European football of some sort. There is no passion left in the game now.

The days of Paul McStay and players of his kind are long gone, because money talks and the majority of players now just go to the club that will pay them the highest salary, even if they never win anything in their entire career.

 

The problem though is the way some get on in here there are players on 5-10k per week and players on 50k per week and nothing in between. We might lose out on some or even most players we go for to bigger and better leagues but not every player goes to England Italy or Spain, there are good players out there who would play for us and using the same excuse every single time we don't sign anyone is not acceptable.

It appears we haven't even made a bid for this Serbian guy after being led to believe that he was as good as signed - that isn't due to wage demands that is our board being snake *.

If all we can afford is dross then why bother even funding a scouting team, we could just buy up the best in Scotland.

The bottom line is we as a club do not have the ambition to push ourselves on to the next level. We are scared to buy a ticket for fear of bit winning the raffle, and it's pathetic.

 

Of course it's our problem. It means we face real difficulty signing the players that we need, doesn't it?

If we're seeing our targets dismiss us in favour of the likes of Stoke City we really need to look at a different way of bringing players in.

 

It's not our problem that the likes of Stoke City and Wigan Athletic are being paid millions in Sky money every season even though they are diddy clubs with no history to speak of. There is nothing we can do about that.

However, as I said, if the players themselves had any real ambition, they would choose trophies and European football over a bigger wage packet. Obviously not many players have that ambition if they are willing to choose * clubs like Stoke over a footballing giant such as ourselves, regardless of the financial differences.

 

No, it's not our fault or our doing that the likes of Stoke can outbid us, but it is our problem.

We need to find a way to deal with it, we either evolve and adapt or we suffer the results.

In my opinion we have to be concentrating on our youth system. Instead of spending £1 million on Leigh Griffiths we should have been putting together * hot financial packages for the best youth team coaches and scouts in the game. That's who we should be attracting in my opinion.

 

We should be adding a psychologist to the scouting department, to determine the personalities of potential targets. Those that show to be less driven by money, might be ready to stay long-term at Celtic.

 

It's very hard to 'evolve' and 'adapt' when we're stuck in Scotland with zero competition to speak of and the only games that we actually need to sign players for are Champions League qualifiers.

We will never get into the English leagues, it just won't happen. I also highly doubt that a 'British Premiership' will ever materialize. Therefore, our true potential as a club will never be fully realized, at least not in our lifetime.

 

I mean evolve and adapt as far as bringing in players. We still have to be competitive on the field, and provide something for the consumer to buy into.

But yeah, you're right. We'll always be stagnating in Scotland.