Pound for Pound!

There have been many debates on here recently regarding new signings, Strachan's new rotation policy and in the aftermath of the Villareal result, individuals performances. Lots of very good (and some bad) points were made and if truth be told, life on here would be very staid and boring if we all agreed!

Anyway, getting to the point of this thread. My own take on why we didn't spend a lot of money in the close season and why most of our signing targets fall into the bracket of "free - 2 mill tops" is partly down to the fact we now have a very large squad with an ever increasing wage bill. As I write this I don't have access to the exact figures but I seem to remember only a couple of years ago our wage bill being in excess of £9million more than the Huns. The reason I mention the Huns is that there is no other team in Scotland we can use as a comparison both in financial and playing terms.

We are shackled by the fact that since Gordon Strachan became manager the amount of staff we employ has rise, both on the playing side and also support staff. Bonuses also have to be taken into consideration and when all salaries and bonuses are factored in, we in effect are paying almost 40% more per year than our city rivals. All well and good I hear you saying, after all we're very successful both on and off the park and can afford to have a large squad, pay them and still be profitable and to a certain extent that's correct but that then becomes a hindrance when the transfer window opens and we are left scraping around looking for bargains because we are already too bloated both with bodies and with salaries. There are far too many people on the payroll (and I am focusing on the players) who are surplus to requirements and as a result, indirectly hampering our ability to go into the transfer market and pay the money needed for quality replacements to fill the gaps we can all see in our squad. Do we really need 4 right backs? Why is Bobo allowed to still draw a salary when it would have been easier for all concerned to simply pay him compensation to leave? While I DO in the main support our manager I have to question why we have such a large squad who, even with his rotation policy, will obviously NOT feature in first 11 football as they are either not good enough to do a job, or they are simply victims of having too many bodies for the same position.

Every business has to be sustainable and we are lucky in that we have Peter Lawell who has manouvered the Celtic ship into very calm waters in a financial sense, but the old adage of speculating to accumulate has a viable ring to it. Let's look at the Huns for a moment. Their early exit from Europe, coupled with sales of Hutton and Cuellar left a lot of people looking at them and comparing them with a team in freefall and on their way to relegation. I said on here at the time they were going to be dangerous and they proved so far that they are and will be a serious threat to the title this year. The money they made from the aforementioned sales of players was re-invested into the playing side and was done so very quickly, while our board employed a "let's do enough" policy to keep our noses in front of them. Fair enough, the Huns outsource a lot of their off field work and therefore their accounts don't show their true wage bill, but the fact remains our wage bill is significantly higher than theirs and therefore that allowed them far greater flexibility to go into the market and spend the money on the players they wanted to sign and meet the salary expectations of said players. Apart from one of course!

So the question remains......

Are we negotiating ourselves out of the transfer market simply because we hold onto far too many players who should be moved on to free up funds?

And more importantly....

Pound for pound......is our squad significantly better than theirs to the tune of $9million+ per year?

My own thoughts are that, without naming individual players.....we could quite easily move at least 10 bodies off the playing staff and start looking at quality signing targets for the January window, especially in the RB, LB and holding roles.

That's my tuppence anyway.....thoughts???

 

good post,cany really say about the 9 mill
what i would say is we have a better squad of players but need more out of them. i am a wgs fan (do have the occassional moan) but i think smith does get more out of mediocre players. also wgs isnt to blame for playerswages im certain lawell deals with that . the balde situation would be down to lawell and mon but some of our signings in our large squad leaves a lot to be desired.
virgo for one

 

Boruc has been consistantly good nakamura 1 in 6 games he is ok and rarley when on the big stage cant think of any other players signed that in a few years time will be given a second thought so all in all a complete lack of class in the team .

 

To be honest i'm not intrested in what ranger do or spend,for me its celtic thats important.we have signed many players in wgs time at celtic some * good and some * bad, the way we look for player has changed since mon took over as manager he got good money to spend and at first he spent well,hartson/sutton ect ect...but i think half way through his time in charge the clubs spending policy changed and moved into what we have today.If you look at mon spending in his last two years in charge you can see we was no longer buying the hartsons and suttons of this world because they had gotten to expensive.As the wages in the epl got higher we started to buy less and less from the epl.People on here are always moaning spend spend spend but that is the road to ruin for celtic,imo celtic will keep buying young and cheap each year and hope we keep finding a few gems borac/samaras/crosas....and dont forget these guys are only early 20's so celtic has time to add more young good players to the squad because will a little luck these players will be around for a while and will give us time to build a good team,of course as you buy cheap and young you also get the not so good or bad but thats the risk you have to take.Every player is a gamble...celtic employ some 500 people and i bet wgs wasnt the one to offer them there job or contrac that happens higher up the ladder.Wgs will have a wish list and gives that list to PL and he does the players contracs the wadges ect ect.
Do we have 4 goal keepers....no and thats because we found our gem at first attempt....but we aint been so luck in other areas of the team and it will take us time to put that right.
Pound for pound i think we are doing great,we might not win the spl as easly this year but thats down to rangers spending 10million....how long will it take them to pay that off....?

 

According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers 2008 financial review of the SPL, our wage bill was £36.4 million in 2007. The other mob paid out £24.3 million. So yeah, you were right. There's a difference of about £10.1 million between the two wage bills.

You can download the full report from here:

PricewaterhouseCoopers

 

Thanks for that link blackeyedbhoy, nice one

 

No bother. It's quite interesting. Makes a change from readin' about football.

 

People, USE PARAGRAPHS or we will infract you for bad english. Nothing worse that read long posts that dont have paragraphs.

You havent read the facts and yet you have made an detailed assumption on our finances and put whatever blame possible at Strachan's door.

Your assumptions are wrong and very wrong and this thread is just another attempt to bash Strachan for no good reason. What is your agenda eh, if you spend as much time typing you post as researching your facts, you would have answered your own questions.

Since Strachan has come in, the cost of players wages to turnover has improved dramatically.

• 54.7% (2003)
• 58.7% (2004)
• 60.2% (2005) (End of the MON era)
• 56.6% (2006) (No SC or UCL football, almost 24 players left from the MON era)
• 48.4% (2007)

They are the exact figures from the books of Celtic PLC

Alot of our financial success can be attributed to Strachan as much as Lawwell so describing it as we are "shackled" with Strachan is just out and out bashing based on inaccurate information.

Akso, paying off Balde wont save the club any money, so why loose a backup player?
Ratio of Total Labour Costs to Turnover

 

I agree dempsey lol.

I just woke up and couldnt be bothered readin that, even though it looks an interestin post

 

i read it and it took a while but some interesting points there

i agree we need to get rid of several players and this will cut our wage bill dramatically

 

Thins is as with every club you buy " a player " and they are all a gamble and as with all gambles some dont work the way you hope / expect . I would like to see us at the very least get a few of the fringe players like donatti etc who arent going to be first picks out on loan get them in the shop window or get the confidence back so they can do it for us . If you look at tommy g for example he had the track record and should have been a storming success but wasnt and naka was an unknown but has done well for us for all his failings . The main problem is because moneys so tight in this country we expect a player of the 2 mill mark to come in and be a star in general where as in england you have 7 million pound squad players so we are up against it in a lot of ways . we are all entitled to our opinions and every opinons is valid in its own way and we would all do things differently if we wher in charge . Bottom line is the end of each season is the time to judge as ive heard a lot of talk about paddy mcourt or mizuno not making it or w/e but they havent had a chance yet and although it maybe looks right now as if they wont they need time and a chance and maybe this time next year they will be first team regulars.

 

Lets not be under any illusion here, Bobo is holding the Club to ransom! Every effort has been made to meet his demands for a pay-off, the club hs bent over backwards to accomodate him, but everytime his demands have been met, he brings up a new ridiculous condition....

Lets not canonise Lawell, he's not without fault. He sanctioned Bobo's paydeal under MON, and he was the driving force behind the signing of Graveson. Two of the signings that have limited our transfer activities over the past couple of windows.

Agreed, the huns have some particularly creative accounting which involves leasing players from companies (owned by Davie Tin Legs) to RFC. We are a PLC and have a responsibility to make sure that we meet Stock Exchange rules.
Therefore, as you pointed out it cant be used as a valid comparison, the 9million gap in wage bills is totally irrelevant.

Sounds easy when you say it quickly! The reality is we are struggling to get rid of these players.

 

Ok bear, finally read it. And it is a great post, i have to agree with you there.

There is a fair bit of deadwood in the first-team that could do with being moved on. There are youth/reserve players that could take the place of some of the subs.

For example, why cant Sheridan take the place of Killen?
Why cant Simon Ferry sit on the bench instead of Donati?
Out of the 4 RBs, Doumbe and Hinkel probably earn more. Are they that much better than Caddis and Wilson?
Balde is the type of mistake we cant make again. £30,000 a week for a reserve is unacceptable.

My point is instead of buying players who aren't going to IMPROVE our first-team, we should bring through youngsters. When we brought in Killen, we all knew he wouldnt be in the team, he would be back-up. But his arrival has kept Cillian Sheridan in the reserves, when he could have had a reasonable taste for first-team action.

If we dont spend money on back-ups, we leave ourselves with more money to buy first-team players.

 

The tone of your reply is quite aggressive which I feel is totally unwarranted. Again, read the post and realise that it is NOT in any way shape or form an attempt to bash Strachan. While I admit I'm not 100% sold on him as a manager, he is OUR manager and since I spat the dummy out with him last season I've since supported him in almost every game. In saying that, I reserve the right as a supporter to be critical of his tenure, his tactics and any other aspect of his handling of the team. This is a forum after all or is free speech on it's way to being curtailed?

 

No argument whatsoever with that mate. The point I'm making is that are we now in a situation where we have so many bodies at the club that we're hampered going into the transfer market. I know the ratio of wages to players has gone down from the MON years but it had to as it wasn't sustainable but that doesn't mean to say we are in a position to go and get the players we need to fill needed positions.

Strachan will never publicly criticise Lawell or any other member of the board but I think I'm right in saying he did mention he couldn't get his first choice signings over the summer. The question then is why?

 

Haven't figured out this "multi quote things so you'll have to make do with green :icon_mrgreen:

I'm sure he is holding the club to ransom but the situation has been allowed to fester now for more than a year. Far too long and sends the wrong message to others. Something should have been done to end his contract.

Yes mate I know the sun doesn't shine out his rear end but his track record in the main is one of great success.

Noted but they're our nearest competitors in terms of quality so I used them as an example. If we had to get down to nuts and bolts there is no other club we could be compared to in Scotland and I'd hate to compare us to an EPL side!

Every player has a price mate, so we then have to ask if the asking prices are not too high, or are there other factors which are hindering moving the players on. If they're surplus to requirements they should be moved off the wage bill asap to allow the manager more leeway in the transfer window.

Rosario, you're obviously wiser (and also better looking) than me, so what gives with the multi quote thingy...explain how I work it :bbpd:

 

Again, no argument with the above Hammer, but getting back to my original point, are WE too bloated on the playing staff?

 

The answer is we cant afford first choice players, or they dont want to play in out League.
Strachan and Lawell are both employees of a company who have to answer to shareholders, and have a responsibility of not placing the PLC into debt.
Like it or not, this is the reality of our stituation.
Robbie Keane?, Pavlychenko ? Its time some people took a huge reality check.....unearthing gems and taking chances is the best we can hope for.

****PM on its way re multi-quoting******