Not Actually that Crucial a Summer as of August 2023...beginning to now think everything isnt fine!

When is the next AGM . Hopefully someone will ask them why the * they didn't strengthen the team or will it will be the usual hand picked questions from a hand picked audience. See if anyone still sticks up for this board then they must be as gullible as hun fans

 

Was thinking this the day. Seems a massive gap between genuine fan input and the board.

 

There are plenty of fans that stick up for this board. An unhealthy high percentage seem to be on this forum compared to other outlets.

 

Too early to judge the signings we did make. Maybe it will turn out to be a good window or maybe it won't as far as they go. For example, just because Lagerbielke right now at 23 is clearly not as good as Starfelt is in his prime doesn't mean that he won't be better than Starfelt in a year or two. Only time can answer that. I also have a weird feeling (perhaps wrongly) that he might be the kind who will choose to stick around for more than a 2-year cycle if he turns out to be good enough. Equally, it wasn't realistic to think we could just go out and sign someone of the same quality as Jota was for us last year.

What can't be denied is the signings we didn't make. We didn't get a LB or a goalkeeper and we had the money to do so. That's what makes it a bad window for me.

 

Don't think he said that, mate.

IMO, the analytics big clubs have these days, everyone knows about everybody. But there's always an element of risk in an appointment like that. Mark Lawwell had the inside knowledge to tell us that, no, Ange was the real deal.
I can imagine that horseshoe might have had something similar in mind.

 

We finished last season with another treble. We lost Ange and Jota but BR coming back in signalled some intent. It seemed we had indeed decided not so much to go for it but to take thar little bit more risk. Push the boat out for a few real decent signings to help push us on.

Last night we entered the CL with not one player who improved our starting eleven. Two of our new signings were sent off and Palma who was essentially our big signing looked way off the pace. We made nine signings in the summer. So far it looks to have not been very fruitful although it is early days.

It near made me sick to listen to Lawell spouting his utter * that we need to stockpile cash for when we don't qualify for the CL. So we don't improve the team to the required standard in case we don't qualify for the CL- then we don't qualify for the CL because the team is not at the required standard. I hate the Board. No actually they disgust me. As for that moustachioed crook who we all know about in Ireland the sooner he fcuks off the better.

 

I'm pretty sure he meant that mate. I'll quote him if you want.

I'm done arguing this * mate. Some people like him are happy with the board and the Lawwells and the way we have preformed in Europe for the last 20 years and our "recruitment policy". I'm at the other end of the spectrum where I think it's an absolute disgrace.

Good night... love and kisses to all except the Lawwells, DD and you * on the board. Xoxo

Back the team...* the board

 

November.

Biggest question which needs to be asked but won't is lawwell comments in his chairmen statements that I highlighted and @Foley1888 has further picked apart, stockpiling cash incase we don't qualify, needs to ge asked why the club feel it's a pre requiste to run at a profit each year and also why he highlighted what we spent since 2021 but choose to ignore the fact we Brought in £75m so essentially running at a trading profit on players!

 

We’ve signed a whole bunch of players from them either on loan or permanently:
Frimpong, Boyata, Samaras, Paddy Roberts, Guiedtti, Denayer, Arzani, Ntcham, Maeda, Iwata, and Tilio.

 

Hopefully someone will be given the opportunity to fire off those important questions

 

Salzburg just beat Benfica in Lisbon. Yes, they are backed by Red Bull but we have a higher wage bill.

Look at the teams they are signing their players from who played tonight.

LASK, ASEC Mimosas, Lokomotiva Zagreb, Rakow Częstochowa, Nordsjaelland, TSC Backa Topola.

All the big hitters.

Yet you’ve got people on here that are adamant that quality up and coming players don’t want to come and play for Celtic because of the weather or some other *.

There’s countless examples of similarly sized or smaller clubs in non mainstream leagues who make us look * in our recruitment and transfer ‘strategy’.

Too many people in our support happy just to plod along as long as we are slightly better than a * Hun team.

 

I remember analysing this ages ago it is very seldom that we don’t run at a profit on player trading within a season. The COVID season we didn’t start out doing but ended up balancing the books by selling Frimpong and Klimala in early 2021.

Because we signed CCV and Jota on permanents and Bernabei before June 30th 2022 we had a surplus then but before that we were in profit during the season. Having sold Jota before the end of 30th of June 2023 we made a profit last year.

You would probably be looking at Rodgers first season 16/17 for the last time we had a net spend before that. Then it’s possibly Mowberry or maybe one of the early Lennon seasons but we did sell McGeady and Boruc to fund his rebuild that brought a lot of players to the club.

 

Right let's go through that list and see how much we've benefited from the scraps from the City groups table.

Samaras. . Signed before city group took over.
Frimpong.. exceptional business
Paddy Roberrs.. Great loan
Denayer.. great one season loan
Guiedetti.. shitebag
Boyata.. for the money good signing.
Arzani.. waste of time
Ntcham.. shitebag
Iwata.. no impact so far and an Ange signing
Tilio.. no appearances due to injury
Maeda.. Ange signing

So in ten or so years of this so called link with City group and Lawwell jnr and ourselves by my reckoning we have made 2 decent season long loans and 2 very good signings one of which we made money from. It hardly screams its been massively beneficial to Celtic.

How much have the Lawwells and Co made from Celtic?

We can argue all day long about Lawwell jnrs involvement in the Ange appointment. From what we have been told by his Daddy is that Junior recommended him 3 years before the deal happened. So * all really

For me Lawwell jnr is just another finger from his daddy's hand that grips this club. In that time we've joined the rest of the Scottish clubs in embarrassing ourselves in Europe with results and performances. Sevco have out performed us in Europe since they were shat into existence 10 years ago, criminal.

People harp on about our domestic dominance. With our financial advantage and size we should be and I'm 100% positive we would of done this regardless of the Lawwells and this so called City group connection.

So to summarise our City group connection.. there is none its complete bollix

 

I don’t care what anyone says, there was an unwelcome return to old form this summer in our transfer business.

I increasingly think nothing actually changed over the last two years except that Ange himself, as a force of nature, temporarily forced short term change - but there was always a plan to return to Lawwellism as soon as he was gone.

One of the key identifiers of Lawwellism is the lack of squad preparedness. This is the real reason we are always humbled in Europe.

There’s a separate debate about how much we spend on individual players, wages etc. but we constantly go into tournaments with an unprepared squad. Other clubs simply don’t do this - at least not with the regularity and arrogance that we do.

As I’ve said many times, this summer was the most disappointing because we all thought we had finally moved on from this amateurish Lawwellism approach. We had qualification secured, months to prepare, cash in the bank and then more cash in the bank.

We still ended up signing extremely achievable players late in the window. We still failed to secure positions we all knew we needed (LB, GK, DM).

I know it will somehow offend people that I’m calling it Lawwellism. I’m sorry but it’s a distinct and clearly defined approach to club management that started when Peter Lawwell took over as CEO, and it’s still blatantly in practice today under his Chairmanship. Whether it’s all down to one man or not isn’t relevant. The label follows the leader.

It needs to stop. It’s needless, dated and careless mismanagement. We got a glimpse of how things should be run and it was * working. Shame on us if we just meekly accept this return to old form.

 

The only way we change this situation is a 1994 protest to get a change at the top as nothing going to change with Desmond and lawwell at the helm they accept mediocrity when it comes to Europe for this club .
We have been buying 2 million pound players now for years this isn't going to cut it in the top European tournament and we have no excuse to go to the next level but the board just want to make up the numbers and get skelped in this tournament.
The fans are ambitious and want to see Celtic giving these teams a game but buying young projects at 2 million at a time won't do and to make it even more frustrating we have the money to bring in 4 or 5 players of quality to give the team a chance.
* the board

 

Bang on. Christ, some of us in here were suggesting players from these teams over summer. How our recruitment team continues to ignore the markets the best clubs at our level are exploiting is beyond me.

One flash in the pan with Ange using his knowledge of Japan does not count.

 

Well, they can't be that amazing, given that they're just 1 place ahead of Rangers in the 5-year club coefficients*. They are 30th and 31st respectively and they even have the same total coefficient points over that period. It's also not the case that Rangers' coefficient is all down to that one season, with Rangers outperforming Salzburg in 3 of the last 4 seasons.

https://www.uefa.com/nationalassociations/uefarankings/club/#/yr/2024

We shouldn't read too much into a one-off game, especially given that hardly any of us know the circumstances. I mean, an outsider will look at that Feyenoord result and think they are comfortbaly ahead of us; but we know that we have a lot of players out and are still in transition (Rogers has yet to even be able to play our strongest team!) and that even then we gifted them the win with 3 bad mistakes (two from young players making their CL debuts).

Still, although I think your example of RB Salzburg beating Benfica exaggerates the problem we have, I do agree that the table does show that we've punched below our weight way down in 52nd. Worryingly, the clubs below us are all either giants of the game like FC Cluj or haven't competed in Europe some seasons like Real Betis and Galatasary.


* Yes, they're miles ahead in the 10-year coefficient; but to be fair to the Huns, it's obvious why their 10-year coefficient sucks

 

There's a lot of talk about being happy to be a little better than the Huns. Domestically, sure; in Europe, if only.
If we even matched the Huns, let alone did a little better, we'd be more than 20 places higher in the coefficient rankings.
I think the Huns have the kind of mixed record you'd expect from a club their size. The question is why we don't.

 

This transfer window we just out spent the huns. We are doing enough to just stay above the huns and dominate domestically. There is absolutely no ambition or regard to compete in Europe. That's your lot bhoys and Ghirls, we will do enough to stay ahead of the huns..but not too much just incase it gets boring. Get used to it.

Our "transfer policy" is to make money..nothing more nothing less.

I love this club and supported Celtic from as early as I can remember. Even when the huns were winning their 9inarow I was still more optimistic about our future than I am now. As a club we are going absolutely * nowhere..

 

Well said James.

I honestly don't know what it was the last two seasons.

Was it Ange coming in with the big balls and big ideas and just taking the club by the scruff of the neck?
I'm not too sure, because the board didn't like when McKay came in and done things differently. They didn't let Rodgers the first time do things his way, we saw Lennon leave first time because of the lack of ambition, we saw guys like keane tell the club "no" because of the way the board imposed on the football squad/staff.

I find it hard to believe we just let Ange waltz in and have it all his way.

So was it that lawwell had stepped away and wasn't taking an active role at the club, allowing Nicholson and Co. to get on with doing things a bit more modern and forward thinking?

Seems more the case, because the moment lawwell stepped back in to the building, everything slowed down and the manager who was talking about how "surprised" we would be at how long he is here, was quickly off after having big chats with lawwell himself.

We all know Ange takes no * and with the media showed it well. He wouldn't take the * off lawwell either in my opinion. It showed as within weeks of rumours of what the summer would look like after their meeting, he was linked to spurs and the eventually gone.

The summer panned out that none of what was rumoured was true.

Folk will still defend the *, but it's clear as day, he's the cancer to the club moving forward.

Sent from my M2012K11AG using Tapatalk