Copenhagen’s Euro Run Shows What’s Possible For A More Ambitious Celtic.

Last night, Copenhagen took on Manchester City in the Champions League. The home side lost 3-1, but they put up a hell of a fight and put on one hell of a show. They got there by getting out of a group that included Manchester United. I watched their games in that group and I was mightily impressed. They aren’t a great team, but they are effective.

Copenhagen are the beneficiaries of a TV deal that is bigger than ours, but that’s about it. Our stadium is vastly bigger. Our merchandising is vastly superior. We make more money than they do. They aren’t even close to having our global football footprint … but this season they’ve climbed the mountain. They don’t do it regularly, but this season they did.

Why? How? How is it that teams like that can advance further than we do? Well, they won the League and Cup double last year in Denmark, and what did they do in the summer?

Well, they purchased an international left-back, Birger Meling, from Rennes for £2 million. He is 29, and about as experienced as they come. Their second signing was also 29; we know the guy well. Mo Elyounoussi, on a free from Southampton. No messing, they went out and bought a player on English football wages, a guy who has no re-sale value and stuck him in their team. He was excellent last night, as was Meling. They bought 25-year-old Elias Achouri, an attacking player, spending good money on him too. They also bought 26-year-old Jordan Larsson, another name we’re all familiar with. The total cost was around what we paid for ten players in the same window. They were strategic, rebuilding their left flank and forward line.

Then in the January window – you know, that one we all hear is impossible to get quality in – they paid £4 million for the midfielder Mattson who scored their superb goal last night on his debut. They also, by the way, signed Scott McKenna on loan. Mattson came from NEC in Holland, and the Dutch had signed him on the back of an excellent scoring record at Viborg.

Their four big summer signings were all 25 or over, the age we’re told we shouldn’t be shopping at if we want to be able to sell players on, as if that is the only thing that matters to us.

Where did the money for that come from? How did they fund this spending spree? Easy. They sold one of their own development players, Hákon Arnar Haraldsson, to Rennes for £12 million. Between that and two wins and two draws in a Champions League group boasting Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Galatasaray, in which they finished second, they’ll probably post a healthy profit and get ready to go again next year.

They didn’t overspend. They didn’t buy a bunch of projects either. They simply identified what they needed to get better, and where they needed it, and went out and got the right guys in. A lot of people want to convince you that this stuff is rocket science; in fact, it’s actually pretty simple. You trust the manager, you tailor the football department to meet his needs instead of the needs of a bunch of bean-counters and watch the rewards accrue.

Who have been Celtic’s most successful managers in recent decades? O’Neill, Rodgers and Postecoglou. And those guys were strongest when they were running the show unencumbered by the interference of others. Even Strachan, when he was allowed the luxury of spending and bringing in who he needed to, showed you what happens when you let a manager manage and you give him the tools for the job. Champions League Group Stage football. Qualification from the Groups even. And oh, how the money rolls in.

Sure, you have to be careful to keep an eye on these guys and set your budgets so things don’t get out of control. But throwing a bunch of unproven players at a boss and telling him “Make something out of that” is a dreadful way to run a football club.

This policy of not signing experience is quite obviously self-defeating nonsense. Some of the best players those managers were able to put onto the pitch were experienced when they arrived here; Sutton, Lennon, Lambert, Nakamura, Venegoor of Hesselink, Scott Sinclair, Aaron Mooy, Kyogo … I mean these guys brought the quality with them. The idea that our policy should be built around projects instead of those ready-made players has been shown to up over and over again. It is those footballers who elevated us above the hum-drum.

Those guys made the other players around them better, which is how development is really done at the top-drawer clubs. When you have eight quality players out on the pitch you can blood the projects alongside them, bringing them into the team slowly until they have the requisite experience and class to be considered at that level … when you are asking a manager to blood four or five of these guys at a time, that’s just madness. It makes no sense.

We needed a left sided midfielder and a left back in the summer. When you see what Copenhagen did on that side of the pitch it’s a flat-out disgrace that we wouldn’t even attempt that because both of those players were 29 years old. Imagine Elyounoussi in this team right now. Imagine a player like that in an Ange team? What in God’s name is wrong with us that we don’t think that sort of signing has value? Yeah, his wages are probably high; so what? Copenhagen can afford that and we can’t? This is the lunacy of the so-called wage structure at Celtic again, the one, I swear, exists deliberately so that players who reach a certain point in their careers have no choice but to leave us for the greater rewards we just won’t give them at Parkhead.

And this is exactly the sort of system Rodgers wants put in place. One where he can go out and sign a Daniel Podence or an Elyounoussi and not worry that some accountant is going to second guess the decision. He wants to build this team his way; what the Hell else do you hire an elite level manager for except to manage? Instead, his hands are being tied. If we ever want to be more than this, if we ever want to be more than we are, the right people have to be running the show at this club, and you will not find them amongst the stale old timers in the boardroom.