05 Aug 2025 17:00:24
I know everyone is frustrated by the transfer business so far but we have all followed Celtic long enough to know that this is exactly how our club works.
Yes we spent big on Engels and Idah last summer but that was late in the window again and we were all a bit more relaxed as we went straight into the CL.
We all know that our club will wait to see what competition we will be competing in and I'm betting a few of our targets will be also, I still believe that the current squad is good enough to win against any team in Scotland and to get through out playoff in the CL which is probably the easiest draw we could get.
I bet anything that after the playoffs we will bring in at least 3 quality signings and still believe we will break our transfer record again.
On the Rodgers contract, yes he is a great manager and was the best we could have hoped for at the time but managers come and go, I think it was Strachan that mentioned that the life span of a Celtic manager should be 3-4 years.
I personally think we need a DOF to keep the stability when a manager leaves but don't believe our board are forward thinking enough to hire one.
05 Aug 2025 17:32:00
Jon boy . A good post however re Director of Football.
I would normally think a D of. Is a very practical and useful role at football clubs as long as he remains at the club for a medium to long term . Unfortunately I suspect a successful D o F at Celtic would be poached by wealthier clubs especially from E P L .
In that scenario, the usefulness of that role would be greatly reduced as a D O F who Isn’t in position for 5/ 6 or longer he can’t bring any continuity to role for Celtic . We continuously lose players and managers who are doing a good job, so I fear same would happen with good D o F.
Celtic haven’t had much success in the past with D O F . I remember employing one of our and Liverpool’s greatest ever footballer, who was also an excellent manager at L’pool and Blackburn Rovers yet he was a terrible bad D o F for us.
05 Aug 2025 18:06:41
Spending big on Engels and Idah has not really set the heather on fire and young Bernardo is also yet to establish himself.
Part of me wonders if that has any bearing on our hesitancy even though Kyogo and Khun have left and Jota will miss several months and with only KT at LB, we are crying out for quality in key positions.
05 Aug 2025 19:03:31
Fair enough post JB71.
If you are right in your analysis then this is no way to run a PLC football club.
This approach has held us back big time… yes that’s not withstanding winning 13 out of 14 titles. Who else cold have won them. A dysfunctional Rangers or a team with 10% of our budget?
We should be way ahead but as you correctly point out we don’t have a DoF and haven’t had a settled and structured scouting system for sometime. I do acknowledge we have signed a number of good players over the years. Although the jury is out on our big spend last year…. only one of our big signings started on Sunday and he was less than average.
I’ve lost count of the number of CL campaigns we have started without a left back (Calmac even played there) , CH or other key positions and getting knocked out by very beatable teams.
Also, I don’t concur that we have enough just now to qualify for CL or win the league. Our team is considerably down on last year and we don’t have enough goals in the team to be confident of either competition.
Sure we have lots in the bank…. But that’s what happens when you sell players and don’t replace them.
We have a majority shareholder with no official role in the business arranging for managers to be signed and at at least a couple of players over the years.
The question to be asked is why we don’t have a DoF or proper scouting set up….? ⬆️ f you want to replace the manager every 3 or 4 years it is unfathomable that you don’t have one. Do you just start again with every new manager.
IMHO Our best signings for a long time was under Ange …. did he do most of the leg work himself?
05 Aug 2025 19:16:05
I agree we need players in to replace Kuhn and Kyogo, however we shouldn’t forget that most Celtic fans thought Kyogo wasn’t effective and his scoring rate had dropped dramatically since BR became our Manager . Similarly Kuhn may have had a brilliant spell Sept ‘24 until Jan’25 but from that until the end of season his form was very poor .
Although we want quality signings, it certainly wouldn’t be difficult to replace these players with players of the standard they were for 4/ 5 mths before they left us .