Paulo Bernardo

Absolutely delighted if we get this tied up. His potential is huge.

 

Same mate. I was one of a few who said just get it done even at £6m because even though he's not the sort who draws your attention with flamboyance like a Jota, his overall game plus versatility and attitude are all top notch for a player his age.

Think he can develop into a really top midfielder.

 

This and i think one of the most impressive parts of his game is that he is physical. Like both him and jota really surprised me at how well they adapted to the physicality of the spl, specially coming from like a nice technical school like Benfica

 

£3.5 million get this tied up reckon he will kick on next season.

 

Might seem crazy, but I like him just as much as I liked Jota. Obviously Jota's technique was outstanding while Bernardo is more tidy than outstanding; but Bernardo is the more intelligent player IMHO (in terms of footballing intelligence, I obviously have no idea about their general intelligence). That's about right for their positions IMO. Personally I want someone extravagantly gifted on the wing and someone tidy and intelligent in that kind of central midfield role.*

He's only 22. I honestly can't remember seeing a Celtic player of his age with that level of awareness. He reminds me a lot of Broony in that respect in that his head is in perpetual motion.

* Edit: Not that Jota wasn't intelligent, of course, he wasn't bad himself in that respect and had excellent vision.

 

If he is O'Rileys replacement, we are in trouble.

This is a good deal at £3.5m because he's going to shore up the squad position that he left, but he will be far more comfortable than he was last season and he knows what is required to be a Celtic player. That year loan does him well and stands him in good stead to make progress moving into the new season.

Personally, we need another midfielder to replace O'Riley and, even though money isn't an option, I would like to see us sign an experienced player in and around the same age to replace him, which usually costs money. Plenty of players we could look at in that position and some would cost a decent amount and some may cost us next to nothing.

 

Likewise.

IF O'Reilly leaves, he then needs replaced. Bernardo isn't his replacement. Nor should we he looking/hoping he steps up then someone steps up to replace Bernardo.

That's a complete lack of ambition and not backing the manager. If O'Reilly goes, we need to go and spend money (whatever that value may be, small or large) on someone ready made to step in.
If it's a 30 year old who's done his time, on a free, so be it.
If it's a 22 year old that's got 3 years experience in the Dutch/swiss/Belgium/Swedish league that's gonna cost use 8m, so be it.

So long as he's ready to go and the need for bedding in is minimal at best.

Sent from my M2012K11AG using Tapatalk

 

I've said multiple times before that we should be trying to sign Albert Gronbaek from Bodo. He in the natural replacement for O'Riley. Wrong thread for it so I won't go on but he's the absolute perfect replacement.

 

i think we still have plenty of quality in midfield ,dont nessissarily think we would be in trouble in fact id be amazed if we actually signed the type of player you are suggesting,not that what you are saying is wrong but that there is nothing in the past 20 years of transfers that would indicate thats what will happen. think you have to look at the similarities of bernardo and oriley when he first signed rather than the oriley of right now

 

Like who though?

We can all sit here and say that Bernardo has the potential to go on and be a huge player for us but he has to show that consistently and the only thing he was consistent at last season was being inconsistent, ironically enough.

Hatate is very much injury prone and needs to knuckle down in terms of his fitness. His performances at the back end of last season were clearly not good enough, although he made a telling difference when he came back, initially.

McGregor clearly plays the deeper position very well and he looked absolutely fine when moved further forward for Iwata.

Iwata has blown hot and cold but looks decent enough to come in and deputise in certain games. I don't think we can completely rely on him though.

Who else are we turning too? Kelly and Holm will need loaned out, in my opinion. They need game time. Lawal, the jury is still out.

We need another central midfielder. Probably a couple, to be honest.

 

my guess would be bernardo straight in for oriley and will just devolop that consistancy being a starter + more games also think iwata has been criminally undervalued ,he has been great .has kelly signed a new deal yet ? also think holm looked good before being bombed out .dont get me wrong if there was a chance to bring in someone better than bernardo/iwata we should ,unless yer man cooper has his eye on some future superstar from south america i cant see us spending what it would take to better than whats here already here

 

£3.5 million?

That's excellent in today's market. I was worried that Benfica would pull out the deal, if we went too low, and harmed the chance of future loans like him and Jota.

 

Iwata is fine as a squad player and can contribute in games, domestically. I have no real problem with that. He's not the quality we want though, let's be honest.

Bernardo coming in for O'Riley would be a massive red flag for me. The midfield 3 should be McGregor, Hatate and another, like a Gronbaek or something. Then players like Bernardo and Iwata can fill in when they need to. Holm and Kelly definitely need to be playing regular games and they need a loan. You start playing Bernardo instead of O'Riley and you go backwards instead of forwards on the pitch.

 

That's who I'd go for, gonna be big money as they paid a fair whack for him.

 

I don't think he's being brought in as O'Riley's repalcement, nor do I think he'll be the only midfielder we're bringing in.

I don't think Rodgers rates either Hatate or Holm, wouldn't be shocked if we're left with McGregor, Bernardo and Iwata as our midfield next year, we need another 2 players on top of Bernardo if the above all leave.

Maybe that CDM from Serie A (Pickel) and another box to box CM to replace O'Riley, then another CM to replace Hatate if he leaves. Loan Holm out.

 

That’s spot on. His base level, and him playing within himself and not being noticeable is a pressing machine, intercepts like *, never loses the ball and is very, very safe.

Then there’s been small patches we see him full of confidence, and he’s looked * unreal when that’s happened. He scored a scuff against Dundee I think, then five games or so he * bossed it, we won all those games, including against the Scum a must win game he scored. Then he calmed down again. He went away International U21’s, scored, came on against the Huns 2-2 set up Idah for 3-2. He done his job. Then the cup final, he came on, and made sure to * press and drive forward for Idah’s winner and he could have so easily went down and got them booked. He was going for the win rather than timid. He seems to be pushing like * for the move here, I’m desperate for him to return. I’d have paid £6m on him no issue, he has a different level in him, and his base levels a high bar. £3.5m for him apparently? What a deal.

 

I don't think Bernardo and Iwata are comparable TBH. One is a 22-year-old with bags of development left in him and the other is in his prime and isn't going to get any better than he already is. I really don't rate Iwata at all.

 

I could not agree more with everything in this post. Well said.

 

If I can go off-topic for a moment, I want to talk about Broony. I promise I'll connect it back to Bernardo at the end.

In our 2013 CL campaign I finally realised what a great player Broony was. I wasn't quite Butch* before that, but I didn't really rate him all that much. My excuse is that he was like Maeda in that his best contributions were the things that didn't happen because of him. From that point on, I was kind of in awe at how he just knew where to be. For example, I remember Kayal tracking a runner (was it maybe against Ajax??) on a counter attack and putting in an amazing slide tackle to save the day. Kayal was a good player and it was a great piece of defensive play; but I remember thinking that Broony didn't defend that way, he always seemed to just magically turn up in the right place before the attacker and calmly recycle possession.

One day, I was watching us retreat during an attack by a team in Europe (I think maybe Lazio). The attack was down their right wing IIRC and the camera angle gave a clear view of most of our defenders and midfielders at they retreated. I realised that one of our players was behaving very strangely. It was Broony. His head was spinning at a rate of about twice per second. This was before I learned what scanning was from Professor YouTube, so I didn't know what it was called; but I realised that must be a big part of the reason he always seemed to be in the right place. I have tried running along a pavement and looking round twice a second just to see what it was like and it's actually physically quite hard. I don't think I took in much. To do that and time it right between touches of the attacking player so you don't get caught out and take in and process complex information on the state of a play in that fraction of a second is mindbogglingly impressive.

So, Bernardo. I was watching the first derby and the ball was in our LW area near their box and there was one of those messy bits with the ball in the air where no one can quite get possession under control. The ball broke to Bernardo and he just calmly headed it back to a teammate (in my memory it was Taylor; but I might be wrong) who was 180 degrees behind him! This really impressed me, how did he know a teammate was there?! So I watched him for a while and saw that his scanning was outstanding (by now I knew what it was and what it was called). If you want an illustration of this, watch his first few seconds when he came on in the cup final. I'll never understand how some players can take in and process so much information from quick glances. It's not magic that he keeps possession and knows the right pass to make or the right space to drive into; it's awareness built on skills like this one.

FWIW, I've watched most of our players for this and IMO the worst scanner is Iwata.


* For younger members, he was a forum member that hated Broony and used to have an avatar of a donkey with a carrot.