18 Nov 2015 09:49:50
It's all just speculation at the moment but if we sell bitton is this part of Desmond's great plan to make us a champion league team, what a joke we are.
18 Nov 2015 10:56:02
This is very funny, media speculate about the possibility of a Celtic player leaving, and we have a Celtic fan commenting. Biton has said money isn't everything and that he and the wife are happy in Scotland . I believe Biton before I believe the MSSM.
18 Nov 2015 11:41:57
Not haveing a pop here old bhoy, but it was all speculation that started the hooper. Wanyamma. Ki. Foster. Van d. Our great jock himself was one if not the one that got the press to start the speculation so he could read the feedback, but I have no doubt if a bid comes in for bitton over 6 million Desmond will sell, and it will be the same trick from our board that we are after a super star or two, same propagander bulls##t. Desmond second richest man in the UK worth over 1 1/2 billion personal fortune, and is taking a wage and selling any one that might bring in a few shillings, the club is a piggy bank for the Irish, but Desmond saying he is building for Celtic to be a champions league team is a insight how stupid he really thinks we are. Past your minds back to the Lennon years we were a cl team, its time for a big change at Celtic as I speculate it will only get worse under these parasites.
18 Nov 2015 13:05:33
Whether or not people like or agree with our transfer policy, the truth of the matter is every single one of our players have a price tag.
If a club is willing to meet our valuation then the player will be sold, assuming of course the player is willing to move.
However, one would presume that our valuation of Biton is around the 10M+ mark, based on his ability and the length of contract he has remaining.
As much as I like Biton I think it makes sense to sell if someone is willing to pay 10M for him. The reason I say that is that we can easily get a replacement and have a good chunk of change left. I know football manager is just a game but the principle is the same and in FM I would sell and bring in 2-3 up and comming youngsters, who I would then develop into the next future stars and sell for a similar price. Once I felt I had an excellent team assembled I would stop selling and try and keep them together for 2-3 years while I tried to have a crack at Europe.
18 Nov 2015 13:26:27
Every good player we have will be sold at some point and replaced with $hite. wouldn't be surprised if board are drumming up interest and using media to their advantage.
18 Nov 2015 13:51:28
Every club could be classed as a 'selling club' to a certain extent as we have seen every player has a price; however we have developed this alarming trend in recent years, where we sell our better players and replace them with bargain basement and even dud players.
Making profits every year that the manager (at the time ) sees very little of to build a successful side.
Most clubs who have a multi-millionaire at the head of the table actually see some cash used to benefit the team, but DD seems to use Celtic as some sort of tax dodge?
There are some very rich and famous Celtic fans out there who I'm sure would do a much better job.
{Ed007's Note - And yet fans scream that we 'need' CL for the money - how much of the CL money over recent years has been invested into the team, in fact when have CFC ever built from a position of strength, remember when Fletcher was leaving Hibs?}
18 Nov 2015 14:22:37
I am probably one of the people you speak of Ed, in that I am one of those people who would like us to have the Champions league money. I suppose I live in the vain hope that the powers that be would actually use that money to try and improve us, sadly they don't seem interested.
Like Jungle Jim, I wish some of our rich fans would come forward and try to do something about it, but I suspect the people in charge will not want to risk their nice little earners, so probably wouldn't sell their shares anyway.
{Ed007's Note - I'd love to see some serious investment in the team but it's not going to happen, that's why I've came to the stage that I don't care if we are in the CL or EL. The fascination with the EPL and CL is strangling our club, where will we be when the Euro Super League comes in, standing on the outside looking in.
Fans keep comparing us to teams that are light years ahead of us both on and off the park and then get raging when the reality hits home, our board gamble every year on CL qualification on a shoestring budget e.g. Craig Gordon's first competitive matches in 3 years were our CL qualifiers or why wasn't Simunovic signed earlier this summer to let him and VVD play in the qualifiers this year etc etc I could go on, when was the last time we strengthened our team for European qualifiers?
If the club can't be arsed taking the CL serious I don't see why I should on the odd occasion they scrape through and spend a fortune on tickets etc to sit amongst some of the worst elements of the CFC support - the football snobs and the customers who turn out for all the big matches but look down their nose at the Europa League as if it's beneath them to support the team in a lesser competition.}
18 Nov 2015 14:24:25
I've stopped caring about how much we get for a player. From a fans point of view we may as well sell Bitton for 3m. Because that's our cap for signings. Backwards. Sack the board.
{Ed007's Note - There's no arguing with that, Jim.}
18 Nov 2015 14:38:26
The English bhoy again not having a pop, but the transfers you listed all started and continued by players themselves and their agents insisting that they wanted to move. Can you not remember Ki, Victor, Foster, Virgil all saying they wanted away.
There isn't much point keeping an unhappy player indefinitely . It would be remiss of Celtic not to sell an unhappy want away for as much as possible . The club should be grateful that Desmond answered F Mc Cann request for investment by telling McCann he should be looking for more . If Dermot Desmond loaned Celtic millions to buy players would we be any better off owing him money and more expensive players under performing .
Dn30, to say all all good players will be sold and replaced with sh. te, is a bit alarming and not true in the past.
18 Nov 2015 15:12:50
Would love for us to build our team around Bitton but the sad truth is this Board of ours put him on an extended contract to ensure they have a bargaining tool when it comes to arranging a fee. Bitton will be gone in the summer regardless of him wanting to stay. We are run by people with no ambition.
18 Nov 2015 15:18:46
Old bhoy The only thing alarming is you thinking we have not bought sh#te have you watch this garbage lately, with fans like yourself old bhoy willing to accept the way Celtic is being run its no wonder the boards policy is take them to the cleaners even with the new shirts being at 15 pound more in Celtic store online than in sports direct, they the board has had the cheek to ask us to buy as the money will go towards the team its a about pulling heart strings, it might still work on you old bhoy but my heart will allways be Celtic but I'm not putting one more penny into celtic apart from my tickets, even food inside its a scam for rich so called Celtic men to get richer , I hope that we the Celtic support do boycott Hampden in the semis if sevco isn't punished, as this would show the Celtic board that we the fans have the power, yet I have no doubt Lawell and co would make out as it was them that set it in motion its all a game of politics and money is all ther interested in not celtic.
18 Nov 2015 16:31:54
It's hard to accept but, unlike years ago when we could attract big name players and actually keep the majority of them together, we are a mere stepping stone for the EPL.
Scotland is a football backwater and even the CL is no longer a 'carrot' - as we are not in it long enough (if at all) .
It's a sad fact that we are one big fish in a wee puddle and we seem to be either getting smaller or the puddle is getting murkier?
To emphasise this we just have to look at the European Championships to see we were the only one of our neighbours who failed to qualify - bad luck or not.
As I said its so hard to take because the immediate future does not look any better, while one of the biggest stadia in the UK struggles to be filled with what's on display (either in hoops or calibre of opponent) every other week.
18 Nov 2015 17:30:09
Every club is a selling club, it's simply down to the figures. I'm sure if Barcelona sold Messi for a billion quid and bought Pogba, Aguero and Lewandowski for a 300k each they would be delighted! Our problem is the planning and as we all know we replace our best players with another project meaning we are back to where we were 2/3 years previously. When the Champions League qualifiers come round we have no experience except Scott Brown, well and Commons and Mulgrew who Could be either in a bad mood, fat or injured! I don't blame Desmond, he leaves it to Lawwell, and was there with Fergus and Brian Dempsey when it was about to go tits up. We all know how much he's worth but Fergus McCann never just gave us free money either and we all love him now. We know we have to be responsible but Lawwell and Park aren't making the most of the money we do have. They are obsessed with the future, - there is never a happy medium with us, the money we might be making via projects is being lost twofold when we go out of Europe early.
18 Nov 2015 19:21:27
Ed fans not going to matches is the same in all competitions, look at the crowd figures for league cup matches, or Scottish cup matches, at least in the early stages, they then turn out for the Semi finals and finals. It may not be right, but it'll never change.
I don't think it's snobbery to want to be in the Champions league, I want us to win every competition we enter and when I am at the matches I am unaware what competition we are in, I just want to win the match, whoever the opponents, or whatever competition.
I don't see anything wrong though in wanting our club to go as far as they can, I want us to be able to sign a higher calibre of player than the likes of Cifti, Boyata etc, in my view if we don't buy better than this, then it won't be too long before we are no longer the best team in Scotland.
I know that the money involved in the Champions league is obscene, but I can't honestly see any other avenue to raise finances that would enable us to buy a better standard of player than what we are getting at the moment.
We will never win the Champions league, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use the competition to benefit us in other ways.
I will support Celtic come what may, but I don't think it's snobbery to want us to do better.
{Ed007's Note - If we were playing Fenerbahce in the CL Celtic Park would have been busting at the seams and there would have been endless pictures on social media as people quench their need to show how good a supporter they are by being there - and yet there wasn't even 42,000 at the EL match against them.
If it's not snobbery what is it?}
18 Nov 2015 20:21:50
I accept what you say about fans going to Certain matches and not others, I call them glory hunters. Sadly it's the way of society these days. Look at the recent Rugby World cup, or the London Olympics 3 years ago, the stadiums were filled with people who had never been to a sporting event before, or probably since, but they only go as it is a major event, so I suppose it is a form of snobbery.
{Ed007's Note - Those are one-off probably once in a lifetime experiences though, how many times are people going to see the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games etc, we're talking a team people actively and loudly claim to support, we've all seen the #celticfamily pish these clown peddle on social media.
Would the competition we are playing in make matches against Ajax and Fenerbahce worse games to watch or would the players not have been the same players, what difference does it make to the football whether it's in the CL or the EL?
Is drawing away to Ajax and drawing at home to Fenerbahce who spent millions during the summer any less good results because it was in the EL rather than the CL and imo we were unlucky to draw with both of them.
For me we are in a EL group of teams that should be in the CL, the same happened after the Sion fiasco when we were drawn Atletico Madrid, Rennes and Udinese and we won only one game and drew 3.
It's a good job this snobbery seems to have only crept into the support in recent years, can you imagine how many would turn up if we got to the final of the EL and we embarrassed ourselves by not selling out our allocation - aye right!
The snobs and glory hunters would be back out in force and spinning stories about how they had been to every round, home and away and DESERVED a ticket.}
18 Nov 2015 21:04:48
The English bhoy claims his heart is in the right place and no one can argue with that . However every club including Celtic needs fans with their wallet in the right place . It could be true that our Board is expensive and maybe wasting money but the one thing we need is our ability to increase our turn over and decrease our expenditure on non football items, as we need to have more money to spend on wages and players purchases .
The English bhoy is entitled to his cynical views on Celtic merchandising but if we were all like Hun the club we love would even struggle more .
18 Nov 2015 21:31:10
Ed it's the quality on the pitch. The team are as poor as I have seen. That's the main reason there is only 42,000 there.
{Ed007's Note - You think a 2-2 draw with Fenerbahce was a poor result? So people knew it was going to be a boring 2-2 draw with a team who have players like van Persie, Nani and Meireles, a team that had won all six of their previous Europa League group stage away fixtures - five of them 1-0.
In a game where our captain was man of the match, we had more possession, more shots on goal and the only reason we didn't get all three points is down to individual errors.
What an absolutely shocking result from a poor team, I'd sack the manager!}
18 Nov 2015 21:48:52
Well when you think about it The Rangers are getting 40,000 plus at every home game, and they are going to have to rely upon loans to get them to the end of the season (fotgeting about court cases et al ) , the only guilty parties in all of this, before you start blaming DD and Lawwell, are the players obscene wages and the agents (pimps) share.
{Ed007's Note - If you're wanting to drag them into it leave me out of it, they're irrelevant. Do you compare everything in your life with what TRIFC fans do?}
18 Nov 2015 22:04:20
No, didn't mean it like that Ed, just using TRIFC, as an example of what is wrong with British football, could'nt realy say Scottish football, cause is only realy them and us that epitomises the obscene excess of this unfair society of two bentleys in the garage on one hand and food banks on the other.
{Ed007's Note - The whole package is rotten, ticket prices, replica kits & merchandise prices, the cost and standard of food at the stadium, everything is geared towards getting as much money as possible out of fans for the minimum outlay. And people want us in the CL so that the ticket prices can get pushed up and yet we still see no investment in the team.}
18 Nov 2015 22:15:55
Your right old bhoy I have got cynical views when it comes to the Celtic top table because they are motivated purley by self interest, and I do believe they are distrustful, I'm sick of watching the drival on the pitch thers no heart and the drive to get more money out of the fans with nothing given back is running very thin, we as fans might deserve more, but Celtic as a club does not deserve to be treated the way it is if the men at the top is not willing to invest its time they take ther 30 pieces of silver and fu## off, I love Celtic and am sick of watching our great club living in the shadows of clubs because ther board has a bit of balls to believe in them.
18 Nov 2015 22:21:15
You may be right Ed about supporters, watching games in different competitions, but it still doesn't really alter the fact that as a club were cannot really progress as far being in the Europa league as were could in the Champions league, the difference in money between the two competitions surely means were have to try and get there, I don't particularly like the money side of it, but if we just give up on it, where is our club going.
I would rather be at matches with glory hunters, rather than see the decline, which has led to some of the awful signings we have made in recent years.
If there is another way of achieving it, then fair enough, but I can't see what other way there is.
{Ed007's Note - But the point is we won't spend the money on the team, we haven't in the past and I don't see that changing any time soon. Yes, supporters see us as a CL team but can you say the same thing about the board? They certainly don't act like it.
Kieran Tierney was in second year at high school when people started saying we needed someone to push Izzy at LB, a physical CF - we got hit with Ciftci. Everyone from the board to the punters in the stand knew we would need 2 CBs in the summer and they failed again.
People are saying we should be beating teams like Molde because they're 6th or 7th in the Norwegian League, we're buying players from Dundee Utd and the second division in Scotland, how would Dundee Utd fare in the Norwegian League.}
18 Nov 2015 23:11:20
What would happen if they were getting a basic wage equivalent to the minimum wage, and they were getting bonuses related to wins, goals scored, individual performances, that if they performed like superstars they would get superstars wages,
Do you think they would play better?
{Ed007's Note - I don't blame the players, would you turn down crazy money for doing your job. If you think players are getting paid too much what do you think about Peter Lawwell being the highest paid employee at the club taking into consideration, for what it's worth, that I have never heard of that before at any other club.}
18 Nov 2015 23:37:42
Thats not the point I was trying to make, if you think you are getting X amounts just to be on the pitch every week, where is you're incentive, some people have a work ethic and work all the time, some people will work hard when the wolfs at the door and some people will sit back and let other people to the rowig till the boat starts to sink before they offer to help, some people will just get into the life boat first, as for crazy money, I don't know, you can't buy happiness, if a player is happy in a situation and he gets offered crazy money to chsange it, its up to him, as for Bitton, I would'nt worry too much about him, Christie and Allan are the future Ithink.
19 Nov 2015 11:10:49
If players aren't motivated getting 15k a week to play a game of football for a huge club then god help them. The motivation should come from within.
19 Nov 2015 17:53:32
Same same old moaning . If people who know nothing and have no experience of managing a successful Scottish Premiership team can moan constantly about Deila's ability or lack of ability, it can be no surprise that people who have no experience of been on the board of a top Scottish Premier League time continuously moan and complain about what the Celtic Board does and doesn't do . Instead of just moaning it would be great if the begrudges could make positive contributions as to how the board could operate and what it could do to make more funds available for first team players without putting the club at risk .
19 Nov 2015 18:58:23
Well one thing They could do OldBhoy is for every project they buy they could buy a bit of experience, players who have done it in big games and can handle a bit of pressure. It's all well and good selling Van Dijk for £12 million but we've just lost double that going out the Champions League. We also bought his replacement with a few hours of the transfer window left. The squad is too big also, - instead of all the squad players at 8/10k per week I'd prefer less on 20/25k. Lawwell gets away with murder because he's a Celtic fan from the West of Scotland, if it was someone else earning the same money we would be wanting him out. I'm not saying he's completely useless but he's not qualified to be doing what he's doing, he should have had better people in running the youth academy years ago, also he isn't even honest/man enough to tell us what John Park and himself do! The 2 of them act more like football agents than anything else!
19 Nov 2015 21:54:51
That's some classic chris02 right there.
19 Nov 2015 22:02:04
Aindoh Although we may wish that Allan and Christie are the future, we cannot be sure, neither have played a whole game for Celtic yet, and until we have at least a couple of season of both playing very well for us it is far too early to even think .
I just cannot understand the scepticism re Bitton, I read him signing his new contract that he will be with us to at least summer 2015 . If Bitton continues to improve having him until summer 2015 would seem to me that we did all right with him .
19 Nov 2015 23:47:02
That my point Jimtim, if you are gettinG £15000 a week for playing good, bad or indifferent, where's your motivation, wheres tour incentive?, it would be interesting to find out how continental or maybe scandinavian teams set out their wage stucture.
{Ed007's Note - This is a couple of years out of date but a good read nonetheless:
http://goo.gl/b5pefV
20 Nov 2015 00:18:40
Thanks Ed, have just scanned it, will read it tomorrow, when not so tired, but seems interesting.
{Ed007's Note - (yes)
20 Nov 2015 11:53:07
I think people are reluctant to realise we are not a CL team. We have not been a CL for 3 seasons since last season under Lennon due to the policy in place where PL thinks he can replace players like Wanyama, Hooper and Wilson with dross at cut price rates, recommended by JP.
Yes we participated in group stages 3 seasons ago but it was clearly evident our performance were of a EL standard team. I don't blame any manager for that, but untill changes are made at club i don't expect any significant progress under any manager.
20 Nov 2015 17:19:14
Delphic, I am not sure where you get the £12 m you say we lose by not making the Champions League . I imagine all the players and the management and coaching staff earn decent bonuses for reaching C. L. and for every point earned .
Although the club may well get £15 m + out of Europe, I would hope bonuses would use up most of it .
Virgil said he needed C L and I think he meant the money from it as well as challenge.