Pennypinching in the summer.

I was just watching back a clip someone posted earlier about Viduka and It all came flooding back what great players we had back then, Viduka, Larsson, Moravcik even Berkovic on his day all in the same team. Not to even mention Martin O Neills team which was even better. Then I think about the creative talent we have now and see just how poor we are in that respect. Now I know the quality of the Scottish League has plummeted since those days but surely we should be expecting better of a team who with the zombies gone should now be champions league regulars. Now i know we cant be going out and spending money we dont have and I dont want to see tens of millions fluttered away but I think the transfer strategy of last summer was a complete joke. If we werent involved in europe at all with all the cash that goes with it we should still expect to be far and away the best team in the country purely because of our support and ticket sales. But last season we made 20 odd million from Europe and then go and flog off arguably our three best players for another 20 million plus Ki for 6 million before that. Now if they wanted away then that couldnt be helped but surely we should have been serious about replacing them. Once again we showed a complete lack of ambition and to let Hooper go without replacing him with someone who can score goals was absolutely criminal. Everyone was crying out for Finbogasson whos scoring record was phenomenal at the time and anyone could see he fitted the bill but as usual we wouldnt spend the money on him and look at him now, and with the season hes having hes surely now out of our reach. This pennypinching has been going on for years, Fletcher, McCarthy, Jordan Rhodes etc etc. The sole aim of the club seems to be purely to make as much of a profit as possible and coast along winning the league for the next few years. I never thought I would say this but I'm almost looking forward to the zombies getting back up to give certain individuals a good kick up the backside.

 

What summer are you talking about, that one just passed?

 

Yeah this summer passed.

 

This summer just passed we spent more moneybthan we have in the one window since Martin O'Neill's days in charge.

 

Not this * again.

 

You would expect that though, given that it's the most we've probably ever taken in.

I know what your saying though as it was a big outlay for us. In saying that I don't think anyone can still deny we were left short up top.

 

You mean the summerwhere we signed;

Virgil van Dijk - $2.5m
Teemu Pukki $2m+
Derk Boeriggter $2m
Nir Biton $700,000

and not to mention the signing of Balde for $1.8m just before the summer?


we spent plenty of money compared some.

 

Facts are that no matter how much money we make, or how much of an increase in turnover we have, we are not going to spend any sort of decent money on a player. We have a ceiling and after this summer it is obvious to everyone that the club will not raise it. Either in fees or wages.

We are a bargain basement club with a big stadium and bigger fanbase. Last seasons CL run will soon become the halcyon days. In fact, this season may as well. We just have to accept that under the current stewardship, it will remain this way.

 

I see what you mean but we took in far more than that from selling Wanyama alone. I'm not sure but I would hazard a guess that we made more last season than any other in our history. This policy that we would far rather buy 4 inferior players for 2 million each hoping to hit it lucky rather than two higher quality ones for 4 miilion each to improve the first team really annoys me. Nobody can say we moved forward in the last window.

 

:smiley-laughing002:

Must also be time for the bi-annual "would you prefer CL qualification from group stages over Europa final" thread as well surely....

 

We spent around 10 million but we brought in circa 20M. Meaning we ran on a budget surplus, in addition to the money made from the champions league. It was a let-down no two ways about it.

 

There is no such policy :smiley-laughing002::smiley-laughing002:

There is clearly money to spent at Celtic - we did try with offers for Finboggasson (reportedly reaching almost $5m) - we wont be held to ransom though by clubs - especially when they know what money we received in transfer fees, CL money etc.

 

And in any case, we are not all about signing the most expensive players we can aford, it's about signing the RIGHT ones.

If pukki had been firing in a decent amount of goals, and Boeriggter playing reguarly threads like this (no offence) would ot exist.

There's no guarantee a $6m signing will play better than a Bosman.

 

We definitely spent money, however sometimes I do think the board get either too greedy or too optimistic.

I understand they would like to pay £1.8 million and sell on for £10m but sometimes that doesn't work. Sometimes you do have to shell out the £4m-£5m on good players, before selling them for £10m.

Its a risky business anyway, im glad I'm not in charge.

 

People need to remember only two years ago our profit was 1.5 million before tax and we could very easy slip back to that for the next 1/2/3/4/5 years.
We have to put some aside for those years,just two years of good profit does not mean we can go crazy.
10 million in a window is not penny pinching that is more that all of Scottish football added together.

 

* sake, the ONLYtop flight team to spend any cash on a player this season was Hibernian ($200,000 on James Collins).

 

I understand this and Im not looking for us to go and blow everything but the way we are going to slip back into barely making ends meet is by rather than building and improving the team neglecting the playing side of things and going out of the qualifiers. Something we were a * hair away from this year.

 

"The sole aim of the club seems to be purely to make as much of a profit as possible and coast along winning the league for the next few years."

And you have a problem with that?
This is our highest single spending season in nearly 10 years and we're not even in January...

 

I agree. People seem to have the attitude that spending is bad or else "you end up like them". As if you cannot aim to better your squad without risk going bust.

This season we clearly had the objective of selling off our top talent, and sneaking into the champions league proper spending as little as possible. And we cannot complain too much because we did it by squeezing past Elfsborg and Karagandy. But a team can only sell off their best players and replace them on the cheap a couple of times, before they start to decline. And if we are to have any ambition on ever improving on where we are currently at then we need to reinvest in our team properly.

I guess the big question is whether we are happy hoping to maintain our current level for the future (sneaking into the group stages of the champions league, winning the league, and maybe a trophy on the side), or if we seek to step up from our current level and really push for the last 16 consistently in Europe.

Our net spend is around negative £10m and because of it we have a weaker team than last season. If we repeat the trick again this season then we will have an even weaker team next season.

I am not saying we should launch an assult on winning the champions league. But we cut qualifying very very close this season by penny pinching. As I say, if we do it again, I really doubt we will qualify next season.

 

Van Dijk, nobody is really gonna argue that he doesn't look like a £10million player. We penny pinch him, we make more profit. I was actually right up for going a bit more crazy with the penny pinching, but there is an element of risk involved, that's just the way it is.

In the long term, you would like to think the new guys will improve.