Ambition!!!

If our beloved club do not show it now then we are * outside our domestic scene and even then we could be bruised and much more.

Does Celtic FC really want to improve to make our amazing fanbase shine the true green and white it should do???

Like it or not, hate it as much as you want but by far our greatest rivals have won solid knock out ties in Europe in recent times. And do not give me that * about the Champions League, think 67, 72, 83. Think about it.

 

We don't have any, the board are happy as long as they get our season ticket and shirt sales money.

This will never change unless the fan's create an actual movement like the 90s but too many happy clappers are satisfied with domestic dominance and even that looks shaky next season.

 

We’ve broke our record transfer fee twice this season.

We have the largest wage layout in our history.

We are paying the manager the biggest wage we have ever gave a manager.

We have had a good CL showing, knocked out by a truly elite club in Bayern, and we weren’t outclassed in doing it we gave a good * showing of it.

We are on course for another Treble.

We don’t have the excuse of the board this season, and if they weren’t doing what they have in the Europa League, and we can’t brush over that we’re comparing Europa to CL. And if they haven’t outclassed us now for 3 games, a penalty win or not in those games, the accusation isn’t there.


In the past, and far too many times it has been, and is almost a reflex for us to point fingers at them by this point. This season though? Nah, blaming the board because they have been punching above their weight and have cracked Europe consistently, and are * embarrassing us and if we approached playing them right, that shouldn’t be a thing with the difference in quality. Blaming the board for that, it’s a cop out for the team and manager. We’ve shown ambition this year.

 

To be fair they have spent kind of big money lately and showed much more ambition than usual.

 

The board have definitely demonstrated some ambition with their backing of Rodgers.

Would be good to see them demonstrate some competency and address the overall football structure and youth development issues. Dr Football doesn't appear to be having much effect.

Also, a bit of TLC of Parkhead and a vision for it going forward wouldn't go awry.

 

Think we’ve had a think about the youth development and it’s not worth the focus.

The very best of them like Doak are going to be poached off the elite clubs, even the ones showing slightly above average promise will like Bayern with Morrison.


And we know that with the demands we put on the club, youngsters will never get the time to develop here, it comes hand in hand with inconsistency. If we promote a youth player to not sign an established player to fill gaps in the squad we will be near lynching the board about penny pinching. We can try and go down the route of guaranteeing quality in some depth, like we are trying to do next year as the best example, with Schlupp trying to be brought in permanently, and he would be second choice having secured Tierney.

Both of them twice the player than our first choice going into this season in Taylor.

See if we knocked back the chance of either trying to get Schlupp with how he’s been so far, or Tierney on a free. Because we want to develop Frame instead. We’d go ballistic.

See if we have Bernardo for example bursting his * to cement a place in the first team, and when we do good rather than bringing him in as the sub, and he’s a guy who is able to cement himself as first team, if he manages to play to what he is capable of and that keeps the guy infront of him on his toes making sure he doesn’t.

Do we then leave him not playing, for an 18 year old we think might be able to be developed?

We scream about needing to do it. But we demand we do it without changing our approach and no leeway, while investing in the team buying established guys with a strong squad. We won’t focus on that, we won’t get away with it and we’ve been successful doing what we do.

But we should be better at it even acknowledging that for me. When guys get that chance through circumstances they are forced into an option for management, and do well, then they should be handed further opportunities. Where’s Frame been since Feyernood where he impressed? Does anyone believe for a second we’ll see much of Bonar after his debut?

 

It’s very hard to tell what our ambition is, as there is no communication about the direction of the club via any of the routes you would expect.

The annual report is a backwards look with very little, often pessimistic, view of the world which isn’t a surprise given we have an accountant and lawyer running the club.

We never hear from anyone at the club bar the manager and a select group of players. They aren’t going to talk long term vision, the players won’t have a clue and the manager is out the door at the end of next season likely.

I have mentioned before putting out interviews with the CEO; Tisdale; O’Dea; Head of the Academy, would all give some insights into what they are up to and what their role is. However, we do the absolute minimum so there is no understanding what these people are tasked with doing.

We have spent a bit more per player in the summer but we brought in record levels of sales this year and still have a positive transfer balance for the year.

So for any positive ambition in the summer, we have January there where we sold our main striker without a replacement whilst still in Europe and 2 domestic trophies to try win.

 

Will be a rebuild in the summer.
Maeda, Kuhn , Hatate likely all away. Certainly 2 of those 3 .

Another LB (Schlupp ideally )
Another quality CB
2 x CM (Defensive and creative)
RW
LW
ST

Problem will be the board won't allow the wage bill to swell enough to add real quality in all those positions. So will be one or two of quality and made up with lower wage projects and older players. We need to hope we can get another full and productive season out of Mcgregor aswell because if you take him and Hatate out the midfield is in big trouble.

 

A wee bit more ambition versus * all ambition is an improvement but nowhere near maximising our potential.
Need to step it up this season player wise and get our elite manager on a new deal - all with the context of new cash incoming across the city too.

Get it done Dermot / Peter - or risk losing it all.

 

I think a lack of ambition is definitely a longstanding problem and sometimes it translates to what's on the pitch.

Like this year it felt we were content to cruise into the playoff spot in Europe when we had the opportunity to finish far higher and get a more favourable draw. And that was a team attitude, not just the board. But it trickles down.

I'm sick of excuses about the state of the league and budgets. We've been beat in Europe by teams far shitier than us far too many times for that to fly.

At least they've put some good outlay into our signings this year. Unfortunately, a lackadasical attitude to scouting means we probably squandered a fair chunk of that.

If we want to transform our fortunes, it starts behind the scenes. We can't have a club run by Desmond's mates' sons any longer. This isn't a * sandwich bar, we need to update the structure of the club to lay the foundations for that next level.

 

Someone should show our board and DD the definition of ambition in a dictionary. * dinosaurs. Needremoved or bought out asap.only happy if we stay ahead of the huns.HH

 

See the cruise into playoff places etc, and it’s the feel from Zagreb this opinion if I’m thinking along the right lines? Correct me if I’m reading into that wrong.

But it’s been a sticking point that game, and it’s a rare, rare time we’ve went awY from home in the CL and earned a point, and progressed through to the next phase as well.


i thought much the same of we could have got the win and three points, and a missed opportunity. We were better.

But I also think what we done there shows us maturing in the CL. I have seen us far too many times, especially away, go for the win because we are the better team and feel we can go for the throat and because of that, we’ve overreached and ended up conceding 2/3 or just being narrowly beat off the ‘underdog’, who are just slightly below our quality. Usually when we’ve done that, it’s when we’ve forgot just because we are better when we’ve been cautious, they aren’t the level of our domestic opponents when we decide that we should go for it, and are confident that we are better.

That game in Zagreb, we kept it cautious and took the point and weren’t overextending and being safe. And up front lacked quality to take advantage of the meagre chances we would work up to them with the approach.

But usually, we would be like that up until 80 minutes, and be baffled aboit being beat 2/3 nil.

And we did get through, when it’s not a thing we should usually expect to, we done better than a lot of teams with much better resources and higher expectations there. But that builds up experience in that competition, and it’s been a steady progress to adjust to playing brave and trusting our ability on the ball at that level, but also acknowledging that we can’t trust or even try to outplay some opponents that way.

The Dortmund game, I thought we’d chucked out any progress at adapting to that level in the style we want to play. And the reaction after that, we doubled down on cautious but brave.


I’m delighted with ‘cruising’ to the next stage of the CL. And expect it to be built upon.

 

This is mental to me man. Since McCann laid the foundations for us to be self sustainable, after we nearly went out of business altogether - minutes away from that - and we booed him flying the league flag stopping their ten, because Moonbeams was ticking their future and laying the foundation for them being failures over the next quarter of a century now.

And we have stuck to what McCann started, that Desmond has overseen since. And we have had the most consistently successful period in our history. Topped only by Stein and the Lions, which is a one off occurrence in football what they done.

And that goes very much without any acknowledgment, because at periods, they have absolutely been over cautious, and done enough to have success but not enough to make the best version that we could be when we had a platform to do so.

But we have grown commercially and as a revenue stream for the brand even when we’ve been frustrated at the cautious no risk nature.

And I’be raged about that through the years on this site, but that’s been within the confines of what we had available without overextending and threatening us being self sustaining. That is from Desmond, making sure that’s what we are. We are exceptionally good at that.

And maybe this is me being the same sort of cautious, but any change of majority shareholder or outright owner, most examples of a takeover for teams, it’s not an Abromovich or City’s owners.

Usually it’s Vladimir Romanov, Mike Ashley, Vincent Tan, the Glazers and 99% percent of other big money egos, that get bored when it’s apparent football is a bottomless moneypit when approached that way. Or they get too much abuse by asset stripping a historic club and molesting their history.

I’d like us to be more bold, within the confines of what we choose to operate like, and we absolutely can and I’ll criticise that we go far too far the opposite way when we’ve made us one kf the most profitable well run clubs in the world, stockpiled that profit. We must be on bank statement terms the wealthiest team in the world, it’s weird.

But I’d rather that. And the success we’ve enjoyed year upon year, and getting frustrated at not taking the chance to gamble on kicking up another level, something we steadily have done more since Lawwell left btw, than change who controls us

 

It's not just the Zagreb game, we could have taken more points from other games as well. We overperformed in the first few games then it felt like the foot came off the gas.

The things is, we had a great draw, really favourable. Even in its watered down form, you'll never get many draws like that. And we seemed to be content just to get through to the playoff rounds rather than maximising where we finished in the table.

We're not thinking of it as a missed opportunity because we made the 'knockouts'. In reality, we made it to the new playoff round, not RO16. It's equivalent to finishing third place in the previous format. I felt with the draw we got, we should have been pushing for a much higher placing.

And here's the thing, I understand you're saying you expect it to be built upon. I'm not convinced we will. What I don't want is to have the attitude of 'scraped the playoffs, good enough' every year. And that's where I suspect we'll end up because that's the attitude we exude.

 

What other games? I think Atalanta us going for it would have murdered us, and honestly BR being able to set up in the way he did there, gave me so much faith in him. Didn’t think he could set us up as do or die defenders, clean sheet or die.


Dortmund destroyed us, I’m not arrogant enough to say that we should have went there and won

Slovan, RBL we outclassed, Young Boys we tensely made sure of. That’s Brugge and Zagreb.


And Brugge, we underestimated totally, got a point from. And we could have won it if players took the chances we made, and it’s the players that need to take that chance when it’s a game at that level that we won’t create much.

If it’s Munich and our approach with them, that’s just pish that.

Brugge and Zagreb are the likely ones, Villa away I don’t think can be described that way.

Am I accurate with that? So the two frustrating CL games there, we had 2 points from.

And usually, we’ve always ended up losing those games, having went for it because we were outplaying them when it’s the careful play. And we lose.

It’s progress that. We build on that stuff again.

We’re a bit mental as fans at times man, we usually never make the next stage and get labelled naive. Then we do, and get accused of accepting’cruising’ to it

 

We have shown plenty of ambition.

We just need to be more ruthless and aggressive in certain games.

Let's not forget we are by and far the dominant force in Scottish football this side of the century, with more success en route come the end of the season.

What I will say, is that I'm now raising an eyebrow at the thought that the board absolutely want a strong Rangers to compete - which from a financial standpoint makes sense whilst we're having to compete in Scottish fitba.

From a fan's perspective, or at least my own.....we should be digging their grave and sending those zombie possessed sons of satan straight back to the fiery depths of * from whence they came!!

 

This year, breaking our transfer record twice, having brought in the 90% odds or so of who Rodgers wanted judging by what we know.

This year, it’s the only year in a long time I don’t question the ambition shown from what we are trying to do within the blueprint of the managers plans

And it’s now small margins, where to improve. But one of those small margins, is a major important thing for us to make sure of, we have made sure all round there isn’t a chance of a ‘strong Rangers’ threatening us for silverware by and large. Through recruitment, the manager we have paid good money for, but our dominance and their issues they have consistently had, we turn up like it’s * give right we’ll win. But in reality, they have consistency issues, they can crumble, but they aren’t utter * like most pretend they are.

And particularly they aren’t against teams that have more quality than they do, that they don’t need to try and outplay. They can stop what they do on the ball, outfight, work for and go for the throat when they’re rattled by direct play. And that’s been a pattern for years now, and largely our fans and by the looks of it lately our team, think it’s luck. And almost offended that they dare to stop us showing what we can do.

Tell you what it that reminds me off, Them in 98, when we stopped the ten. They thought they were just going to cruise the season, and played like that.

We aren’t at that stage, but we do it against them

 

50/50 from me regarding ambition.

We needed more in the January window and never got it. Time and time again we have reactive and not proactive so maybe the better word would be proactive instead.

 

What does ambition look like if its not winning a 13th league title in 14 years whilst giving a good fist of the champions league and potentially winning a 6th treble in 9 seasons?

We've also spent more money than previous seasons. We've spent over 30 million on 4 players in Engels, Idah, Jota and Trusty.

The only thing I agree with being said is we could be more ambitious with our footballing structure and probably how we invest in the stadium.

Otherwise these threads are just reactionary to Rangers managing to get the better of us the past 2 games.

People think we should be decades ahead of them but whether we like it or not playing in Scotland gives us a bit of a glass ceiling that's hard to push through. Invariably the idea of playing in Scotland either isn't enough to convince players in the first place, or forces players to jump at opportunities in more lucrative leagues. We can't hold on to our best players for years like the European elite can, we're in a constant state of flux because we're always having to replace someone and often that's not as smooth as you'd like it to be.

We can't start pointing fingers at everyone and wanting a rebuild everytime the huns beat us.

It's like we've forgotten how a rivalry works.

 

It must have been difficult being ambitious before this campaign in Europe. With very little to no success in those competitions, could we have justified high cost players on higher wages with very few positive results in return. This season we have shown we are capable rubbing shoulders with much stronger teams. So now we warrant further backing in our squad to take us to the next level. We should push on for more rewards and even greater achievements. It has taken us a while to reach this point both financially and squad strength wise. Steady, continuous investment in the squad, without sacrificing domestic honours as other teams fight for the scraps, I'd take that... Regular Champions League monies should lead to better players which should yield more success. A continuous cycle, if played correctly, would be extremely beneficial. Domestically we will be forever held back by lack of funding to our League, poor TV contracts compared to other leagues and against weaker oppositions.
Yes, mistakes were made in the transfer market earlier. Yes further mistakes could happen again but on a whole we do more right than wrong. So are we ambitious? I said YES, but we also have to have a firm grip on finances and reality.

Repeating further Trebles and having Champion League Nights every season, won't leave me complaining too much.

Complacency would be our biggest downfall now.