Major shake up needed

Would we miss any of the midfielders or attackers apart from Scott Brown ?

 

Kris Commons, supposed to be our main creative outlet in the centre of the pitch with Celtic.

Champions League proper - 864 minutes played, 12 apps, 10 starts, 1 goal, 0 assists.

Europa League proper - 92 minutes played, 4 apps, 1 start, 0 goals, assists.

The guy is not good enough, and never will be, for top level European football. He's now also 30 years of age therefore will not learn anything new. He's past being able to apart his game.

 

The worrying thing is, that if we were playing the game again tomorrow, is there anyone else we could actually play as the creative attacking midfielder ? We need to buy a class act for there for next season.

 

There's the problem. The few players we have that can perform in Europe arent creative players.

 

The worrying thing is that he is the best we have.

I do like commons but he's out of his depth at CL level.

 

I think its more about the fans can see the team has gone backwards from last season.
Making the last 16 to bottom of group with one goal from open play and losing two goals per game is not going in the right direction.

 

Can we afford a 4 or 5 million pound striker. Yes

Would we pay that amount for a player. No

The handwringers can tell us we can't afford it all they want but the fact is we spunked 4 million on Pukki and Balde when we should of signed a direct replacement for Hooper. Someone who can actually put the ball in the net, instead we spent 4 or 5 million on two strikers that are incapable of getting goals. We go into the champions league games with no strikers and keep them on the bench.

 

In a nutshell. We spent 8 million in total this year. That money could have been put towards quality replacements for wanyama and hooper.

 

The more I think about our activity in the summer window there, the more I become depressed.

Just what were the board thinking of? I've seen posts now saying that we spent between £8m-£10m in the summer and at least £4m of that has been wasted on Pukki and Balde, neither of whom look like they're ever going to be good enough for CL level anyway.

It begs the question; why the * did they not just spend that £4m on a good, proven striker? Lawwell has done some good things for this club since taking over, such as keeping us financially secure, but he's also really put us up * creek without a paddle at times.

 

Let's be honest, last season we massively overachieved in Europe, this year everyone knew about us and didn't underestimate us.

I think we have to accept that it's incredibly difficult to compete against teams who are in the champions league every year and competing to win it most years.

We don't have the youth infrastructure, finances or quality to compete with even the likes of Ajax at the moment.

Ajax is a model we should be trying to follow, a philosophy throughout every level at the club and promoting youth and producing players from within. I am also nearly of the opinion that staying in the SPL is absolutely pointless for the club, we're a massive club and it's hugely frustrating having to witness what we've witnessed in Europe this year.

 

Totally agree. When your playing up front for Celtic you need to be capable of getting 20 goals a season, anything else isn't good enough. At SPL level with the amount of chances we create i don't think that's too much to ask.

Not saying they aren't decent players, just not the type we should of went for.

We seem to have a habit of signing strikers with poor goal scoring records.

 

breaking at speed should be used in the CL but it is difficult to do this at home domestically as most teams put loads of men behind the ball both home and away when they play us

we lack creativity / penetration and are very lightweight in the striking dept. IF , yes the big IF, Lenny and the board are serious about building a squad for the future then lets get it started NOW while there is no strong challenge.

get fearless kids on the park ... Dundee UTD seem able to find them every season. We have decent players at Celtic but this passing it around without actually achieving anything does my nut in .......... we are not good enough at passing to copy barca so hopefully Boerrigter signing was a look at a new style. Forrest on his day is good, Lustig , Mathews and Izzy can all get forward at a decent pace so it should not be too hard to figure out who is slowing down our breaking forward.

I like stokes and his game , but the others i can't say i have seen enough to inspire me. Balde should have been on the minute the second goal went in...

we do have a young team so i will give it time to see if there is improvement but we really need a coach for the strikers/ midfield attackers .... McGrain teaching our striker, cmon... i love Mcgrain but surely we should have a forward coaching them.

if we don't use this season as a platform to develop from then i will be pretty gutted

 

The question is who made that decision the board or lennon.
I would not have signed so many players like you say but signed maybe two but better quality.
Is Lennon in charge of signings or not,he has stated in the past he knows the budget.
I dont see the point in spending 10 million and only half the signings get game time.

 

Lennon is a great guy, I like him a lot, he's a great motivator, Celtic through and through, but I really question his understanding of the game and his ability to adapt to changes. He's just not a tactician, he's someone who can work the players up to go out and do their best but from the moment they step on the field, that's it, it's like they have to figure out for themselves what to do. How long are we going to have to watch this ineffective attacking build up, where someone from the middle picks out a winger who then tries to outrun the opposite player and send in a cross. The crosses yesterday were again horrible, if they even got past the defender and they kept on trying and trying and trying without any success whatsoever.

Commons is slow, he's a good SPL player, nothing more. Sammy is totally out of form yet Lennon not only keeps him on the field but plays him as the sole strikes, which we all know he's * even when in way better form than currently. If you want to do something in Europe, you sure as * won't achieve it by playing Samaras and Commons up front. We've got Balde sitting on the bench game after game, what the * is there to lose if you're totally impotent up front, give the boy a try, it can't get any worse then it is currently.

At the moment we only have good defence and the irony is that it was our best part of the team that let the team down yesterday. If our defence holds and one of the midfielders or forwards has a good day, then we can hope for a positive result. But when the defence lapses as it did yesterday, there is no way in * we can get back in the game with this midfield and attack. Mulgrew is apparently a given, no matter what. He'll be on the field if he has to put on the gloves. Forrest runs down the flank as a headless chicken with no end result except for once in every 10 or 15 games and even that only in the SPL. Stokes is a support striker, Samaras is NOT a striker, Pukki hasn't shown anything yet, Watt is out on loan with his own problems. Commons is a Championship quality player with a good shot and Kayal is the shadow of the Kayal from the first season. Ledley was injured and is just returning, besides I'm not sure if he's going to sign a contract extension which could be one of the reasons he's not playing more.

There has to be a change in the signing policy as well. I know Celtic is a club that survives by buying cheap and selling for a nice profit. But we can't just have 10 "projects" playing for the first team, we can't just have 22-year old promising players who are waiting to become good enough to leave for the EPL. We also need RESULTS. There has to be a balance between experienced players, promising players from our own youth setup and promising players from abroad who've been brought in with the vision to sell on in a few years for a higher sum but who ALSO have to do their job on the pitch. We can't merely be an incubator for the English mid-table teams. Because this is not how you achieve success on the pitch, and no success means no European football and no European football means no money and without that we can just become another SPL team who can count themselves lucky if the get through the first two European qualifying rounds in mid July against some Latvian or Icelandic teams.

Yes, I'm * off as *. Yesterday I turned off the game after we conceded the third goal because I just couldn't stand another 90 minutes of this same clueless crap we had to endure against Ajax in Amsterdam. No ideas, no real passion, not enough quality. I know I'm a drama queen and overly pessimistic but that's just how I see things at the moment.

 

The problem has always been Neil Lennon got the managers gig totally out the blue because at the time as per he was the cheapest option, lawwell no doubt told him he was a massive gamble and with neil lennon desperate for the chance he was an automatic yes man to the bonus king.

He has proved himself over the last 3 years but i still think when it comes to signing players Lawwell and Park choose who we are going to buy, Lennon may have a list of targets he wants but if they dont fall into Lawwells price range they are crossed off.

At the end of the day Lenny is nothing more than a team coach, Lawwell is the manager and Park seems to be the director of football, Its maybe time Lawwell knew exactly how the supporters feel about his skint flint ways of running the club, having a business plan is one thing letting the team stagnant to the point its the most boring football wise since the macari days is criminal

 

I agree with this. There are too many * accountants on this forum. You can't just spend what you bring in. Celtic are a huge club with huge running costs. If we didn't get into the CL we would be doing well to break even or make a small profit. We have even made losses in previous seasons. I am confident we are living within our means though.

 

the football is dire we are terrible to watch managers fault,sat against aberdeen every set piece in to box defence all over the place did he learn from it no the same happens last nite,sammy,ledley,kayal etc are not doing it.so wot do we do i feel we need a change in manager who can get us playing football that we enjoy,cos none of us are enjoying this

 

I think we need big changes and proven quality in the summer,certainly in midfield and up front..

 

big prob with team is a lack of creativity in the midfield.

 

Agree with everything. However what CEO would we put in place that is as good financially and cares for the club? Are there any true Celtic businessmen out there?

Lennon is a young manager cutting his teeth at Celtic. He has done well thus far but I feel as if he is lost sometimes - I wish he was able to learn from an experienced manager.

We need to spend smart. Its hard, however within the constraints of our finances. However, we can afford £5 million on a decent striker, from foreign markets. Other clubs, with lesser finances do it. Everyone and their granny knew that Pukki and Balde were not out and out goalscorers but hid it in the form of 'raw talent' comments.