CHARLIE NIC GETS IT SPOT ON FOR ONCE

PARKHEAD BOSSES HAVE SOLD HOOPS DOWN THE RIVER







Friday April 16,2010

By Gary Keown


Have your say(1)

CELTIC legend Charlie Nicholas last night accused the Parkhead board of dragging the club into its biggest footballing crisis in living memory.

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]The Express Sport columnist was part of the squad during the nightmare reigns of Lou Macari and Liam Brady in the Nineties, and saw the Hoops almost go bust before Fergus McCann stepped in to save the day.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]However, Nicholas feels complacency and a lack of direction from majority shareholder Dermot Desmond, chief executive Peter Lawwell and chairman John Reid is strangling his boyhood heroes.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Nicholas raged: “Desmond, who doesn’t even turn up for the club AGM, regards Celtic as his toy.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]“Well, the toy’s well and truly broken. We now have to ask if he is prepared to fix it.[/FONT]
[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]“We’ve seen financial crises at Celtic in the past and the club almost going bankrupt, but this is the biggest mess I’ve ever seen in footballing terms.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]“I was there when Macari was manager and that was a disaster, but Rangers were, at least, spending fortunes on world-class players back then.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]“The likes of Lawwell have let standards slip by continually going for cheap players and the team is now dying.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]“They’ve made such a pig’s ear of it all rather than building from positions of strength when they were winning titles.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]“What’s really terrifying is that there’s no one in that squad that you would say you must keep. There is no core of first-team talent and no one seems to be coming through from the youth academy.”[/FONT]
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[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Nicholas can hardly believe that Rangers – skint and unable to sign a player for two years – have been allowed to walk away with the title.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]With Ross County having dumped the Bhoys out of the Scottish Cup at the semi-final stage and punters staying away from Parkhead in their droves, he struggles to see a bright future for a club whose current squad of players has already been berated by stand-in manager Neil Lennon.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Nicholas added: “It’s not so long ago that Lawwell was getting his backslappers around him and crowing about the club only having £1million of debt.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]“We aren’t hearing much from any of them now. The next set of figures is not going to be good, and Reid’s spell as chairman has been dismal.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]“They caned me last year when I suggested this is where they would end up if they didn’t take action, but they just got carried away with themselves.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]“If they had spent the money on buying Steven Fletcher, above, from Hibs in January 2009, they would have won the league last season. They didn’t and it was just one of many costly errors of judgment.[/FONT]
[FONT=Lucida Grande, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]“There is no leadership and no inspiration from those running the club.”[/FONT]


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bang on

 

IS IT TIME FOR CELTIC TO GET THE FOR SALE SIGN OUT

Is it time Dermot and co to sell there majority in Celtic and sell to someone who actually wants to invest in the club and is not so keen to use it as a profiting organisation.

Also is it time for him to be forced out by the fans in the same sort of manner that is happening at Anfield. And do you think we would receive much interest from potential buyers.

 

I posted this earlier on in another thread mate...

Spot on, and people question why a lot of fans are becoming disillusioned with Celtic...

 

Threads merged.

 

he probably read that off here in the 1st place because i dont think the guys got an original thought, he's a tube

 

Depends on who would buy the shares would be my answer, if it was someone with a proper vision for the club then yes definitely, if however it was some foreign investor that is likely to just use us for his own purposes then no.

Added problem is with the financial markets in such disarray and possible investors assets tied up in the markets who would want to take on the club and who is liquid enough to do so?<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

It's not just as easy as saying sell up now, lots of factors need to be considered.

 

Very true, however i do think good ole Nic has a strange way of over-dramatising everything, and making things seems worse than what they really are. I believe we do have 2 or 3 quality players in that team, but they just need the right coach to come along and get it out of them.

As for the Academy, I think he's wrong on that front. Our reserves or 21s or whatever they were wouldn't have won all those titles before if we didnt have quality youngsters coming through. Look at the 19s right now!! Winning the League...again!

 

A lot of factors do need to be taken into consideration, and I personally agree with all that you say...

But Desmond is a foreign investor using the club for his own purposes at the moment... !!!

 

With all this talk of Desmond, surely everyone's heard about the Quinn Group buying into Celtic??

 

I dont think its about 19's winning leagues etc... over the past 10 - 15 years, even when I played, Celtic had the best youth team in the country, back to the early 90's with JP Dow etc...

But regardless of the 19's winning the elague, how many of them have come through... ???

 

Yes I think it is time for Desmond to sell his share. I think we can get substantial investment from another businessman who is prepared to put a lot of money into the club.

As for Lawwell, I think he has done a great job. He has made sure that our books are good, unlike at Rangers, and that we are in a good position financially. He always gets us fair prices on new signings and a good price when we do sell a player. I know he's not exactly a fans favourite, but you have to remember he can only work with the money he has been given from Desmond and the rest of the board. We moan about how little money they put in, but it's actually Lawwell who has to go out there and do something with it.

 

I do not think that new investment is needed, just MORE investment by the existing board. The money is there it is just not being spent, however if a major cash injection is not made soon, and we loose out on more CL money then we could be in the situation that the for sale sign is needed.

 

I understand that, but another good point was made by Strachan last year and Mowbray this year...this "3 under 21s in the team on a Saturday" rule is killing our game as well. Both the managers have said, and I think Smith has moaned about it too, that these players sitting on the bench on a Saturday could be getting game time at the reserves, or even being on loan to some other club.

Yes, i know we have players out on loan just now, but we still need to keep 1 or 2 decent young players at the club for a game just in case. And its because of this that they are being held back.

 

couldnt say it any better my self

 

Its time for the board to show there true * colours and sort us out were pish and its sad we love our team but do they?

sort it * out

 

Lawwell has done a good job as he has to follow orders from above. If he's told they have to cut wages etc then he has to do it. He shouldn't be blamed in the same way the board are. The only thing that worries me about Lawwell is that i think he is too involved with choosing players to be sold and whos to be bought

 

Lawwell needs to be that involved in the transfers! The best way a management team at any Club is by the Manager and CEO talking about signings, and agreeing on getting players in. The Manager needs to have reasons as to why he wants a certain player, and take them to the CEO. The CEO might come up with a suggestion about a certain player already at the Club, and they work from there. It happens at all the top Clubs. Wenger's talked about it, so has Mourinho, Ferguson, Benitez etc etc

 

yes i know but i haven't been convinced that the manager has wanted to get rid of certain players and lawwell has acted on his own opinion

 

Yeah but the problem is this board will not give any decent investment if they havent up to now they our not going to. We need bigger players ( financially )who our willing to dig deep and not ascared to lose a few quid.

Think we should force these guys out and see what comes our way you could be surpised at the amount of people willing to invest.