By the close of business today, Celtic will unveil their latest signings to a fanfare of trumpets on the official club channels. The striker will be first. That will go down like a lead weight. Rarely have I seen such a universal denunciation of a new signing.
It is apparent that he does not significantly improve us. Even if he did, that we have no buy clause means that this is a PR disaster either way; if he comes and does nothing he’ll be written off as a complete dud. If he scores a few goals and we might want to keep him he’ll have guaranteed his move somewhere else.
We had the planet to scour for a striker. We have arrived, finally, at a Norwich City reserve on loan. Forget for a moment that he is strong and fast; a lot of players are strong and fast. Our much-heralded world class head of recruitment has had months, literally months, and this is our backup for a striker carrying a potentially serious injury, and who isn’t even on form. I don’t know what other people define as failure in their jobs, but that sounds like a failure to me.
Before the day is out, we will also unveil a left back. We’ve already been prepared for the worst here; he will be the backup to Greg Taylor. Add him to the current backup to Greg Taylor then. Another loanee, another player to pad out this mess of a squad, and another job we need to do in the summer. The summer is shaping up to be a nightmare and it’s a nightmare because we squandered the last one and failed to plug the gaps over the last 31 days.
Rodgers should be shrieking from the rooftops. Instead, he’s defending this and everyone listening to him know he’s just a windsock now, blowing every which way in the prevailing breeze. Not only have those above him at Celtic completely ignored him but are pitching it to their allies that if all this goes wrong it’s his fault, and he’s actually taken his neck and put it in the noose for them. I am sorry, but I cannot muster a shred of sympathy for him anymore. If this is what he’s gotten after fighting his corner he ought not to have bothered. It’s just more humiliation.
When this window closes, I fully expect that the total number of signings for this season will stand at 13. Not one of them – not one – would make it into our best eleven. If everyone was fit, not one of these players would be a starter. After Turnbull and others have left, between loan fees and transfer cash brought in we’ll be looking at all those signings and a £10 million transfer trading surplus for this campaign. The average cost of our signings is £2 million.
Rodgers wanted quality. 13 signings later these people are laughing at him, and when he fronts up to the media when the window shuts he will mount not just a defence of those 13 signings but the strategy behind them, a strategy he was disgusted with the last time he was here and which failed him repeatedly and is failing him all over again.
He quit the last time. He had the luxury of a job to go to and left behind enough success that he hoped it would merit goodwill and best wishes. He was wong, and he does not have either of those things to leave behind right now, and indeed having promised to be here for three years he would have to tell it all if he was to walk just to maintain a shred of credibility.
I know, and they know, he is never going to do that.
But he knew the last time he was here that these people might harm his reputation. He almost certainly has concerns that this time around they might ruin it entirely.
But still, he’ll defend them and the way this club does business.
I fear he’ll be defending it right up until the moment it costs him his job.
Rodgers and Celtic always late to the party. Let’s see what happens tonight. Fair number going out.
HH
Lawwell wont sack Brendan . He’ll do his best to piss him off so he’ll walk away .
James go and lie down in a dark room til this shambles is all over, You are only torturing yourself and making the rest of us depressed.
A taxi driver told me we have signed Marcus Rashford
If only ?
And the pro board sites will still be trying to convince us the failure will be squarely on the managers shoulders.Put your house on it.
True true mate. Why o why is he not threatening them with a walk out before they sack him. Sure if I was boss I would be shouting from the rooftop who is to blame the board not me. I wanted quality and they give me nothing. WHY O WHY would you allow that to happen to yourself. Surely not money
And it only gets worse…
As recently as December, BR publicly stated he needed 4 quality players.
He’s not getting them in January. (Jury out on Kuhn).
Chances are, we lose maybe 2 first teamers in the summer,
(perhaps MO’R and Abada?), to add to the cash pile.
So, come this summer we’ll need 6 quality players?
Based on our recruitment ‘strategy’ over these last
2 windows, we’ll be lucky to bring in 1 or 2 quality players.
Bottom line: not a chance in Hell will the squad be adequate
in quality for the start of next season either.
‘Progress in Europe’ delayed for yet another year as well.
If PL, ML and BR are still in their posts come August,
then it’s Groundhog Day at Celtic Park and another
frustrating, underwhelming campaign to come.
…unless, something is drastically changed?
We have a bug wage bill with panic buys angi brought some good but a lot of players no up or will be our standard on four five year contracts so we are not going down that road we are trying to learn from our mistakes I hope January transfer poor if the manager likes a player and he is not available or to highly priced most of players available have been told by there clubs to find another club yes Rodgers unlike most managers are suffering from past managers panic buys we have had enough of those buys ill be glad when transfer window closes yes we need players but not the once mentioned our squad is good enough for spl we had a bad start to December but to boo after win get a grip just shows how spoilt our supporters have been wuth all that said in media about green brigade the support Celtic three away games coming up might be good get away from Celtic park for a while the nervousness in stands is getting to players if we don’t get a goal even a second we know hiw rmteams approach the game park the bus let the support get uneasy ross county game uf we scored penalty or other chances it was going on 4or 5 penalty miss gave them a lift and subdued us
You’re deluded jack ,you say we can’t get anyone decent in January,I would say shankland and miovski are decent, certainly good enough to tie up this league for us but a 3rd choice Norwich striker,no way is this good enough, Rodgers should just go now because he is in the pockets of liewells and the board,he is just as bad for accepting this dire situation.
They’ve had months, MONTHS, tae get a better quality of player in and its been totally neglected. Fuckin criminal. Rodgers is just a well paid puppet right now, who’s quickly turnin intae a board patsy. He’ll be away at the end of the season, or before. If it’s before, we all know who the board will stick in there. Lennon and (or) kennedy part 3. Gettin ahead of maself ah know, tho wouldnae surprise me one bit.
I have been saying this. What do Lawwell and the board actually do? Paid lunches. From October they should have been making sure they had targets, agreed with the manager so they could hit the ground running when the transfer window opened.
What do they actually discuss at board meetings if not how to improve the team? Bonuses?
Rigged football from the money men.The Celtic gravy train forever bringing fortunes for tories,liars and charlatans
Can you maybe throw in a couple of jokes at the end of each article, James? Because it’s becoming a very depressing place to visit of late.
On a serious note, it’s taken 30 years for Celtic to go full circle. We are now back to the days of self interested jokers running the club into the ground to suit their own ends.
We’ll be getting referred to as “malcontents” next. Remember that?
We already are being described as malcontents on CQN – not necessary malcontents on The Celtic Blog but certainly some of the Celtic supporters in general…
To be honest, I had to look the word up to see what it meant as it’s never been a part of ma life thus far !
I think Jack McGinn invented that word and Not The View popularised it.
Every winter window is hell on earth .. you may find 1 or 2 nuggets of gold somewhere in the window but we( Celtic) will refuse to pay anything near a decent price.. meaning we sign with no disrespect to any player coming to parkhead to try to apply their trade we sign under performing and half decent shite .. and the Celtic board get away with it ..
I always thought that since the summer debacle ,that the board told Rodgers all the pish he wanted to hear and now he’s been done up like a kipper,mind you a £3 million pound kipper,and that’s why he dances to liewells tune,I thought big golf head desmond was his mate and fought his corner,why didn’t he ask desmond to step in,I’ll tell you why doesn’t want to rock the boat ,his gravy boat and I’m sure he doesn’t really care what happens to him or Celtic next because he is rich beyond his wildest dreams and doesn’t give a flying fuck.
“We had the planet to scour for a striker”
Yep – I hear you James and it’s a fair enough desire…
But there are TWO scoring for fun at far lesser clubs on our BLOODY DOORSTEP –
And still we couldn’t or wouldn’t attempt to purchase them…
And jeez oh – we can bloody well afford the two of them together if need be !
Hey ho, it is what it is, and we won’t know ‘what it is’ until everything gets underway again after the transfer window. In my opinion everyone is far too negative, all fearing the worst and scaring themselves to death along with a few others. Let’s see how it pans out, I’m certainly not overly worried by all the knee jerk reactions, for there is still a lot to look forward to and I am more than happy with Brendan doing the steering. He is the best manager in Scottish football bar none and he will now go ahead and prove it.
Thankyou Johnnie Green for a wee bit of a pause. It’s all going a bit pete tong – suddenly ALL of our players are crap. The 2 new boys are just in, or still on their way in the door and we’ve got them pegged as crap. Maybe we could give them a chance?? I think we’re in for Miovski but the Dons won’t let him go pre-summer. I also think we’ve done well to retain MO’R + CCV and clear out the excess deadwood. I reckon the dark side and the press are enjoying watching us all spontaneously combust.
C’mon Jack, you’re gonna kill us with that lack of punctuation. I’m now on an iron lung!
Our standard is the SPFL. That’s it! We do not prepare and are not prepped for Europe. Our standard now is a two horse race because we let that other horse on to the track. We could have and should have pushed on to improve in Europe but we lack the ambition. WHY? I, for the life of me don’t know.
IF we do not win the league this year we will need to spend money in any case to wrangle it back. It just does not make sense… business and emotionally.
Johnny Green, you are badly missing the point. Win or lose the league, Celtic are regressing massively. Disaster is a matter of when not if.
As soon as Peter Lawwell walked back in the door the place has, once again, become a shambles. Before the next home game the DJ should play Sparks song ‘amateur hour’. It sums the board up. Amateurs. And a bunch of nepotistic 5th columnists.
Wish I had your optimism Johnny,don’t forget sevco are on our tails and with help from the MIB who knows how close they’ll get or god forbid overtake us, regards Rodgers,we seem to have went back to this terrible passing back and forth ,side to side ,back to goalie out to full back up to midfield or wings ,hit a brick wall and we pass it back side to side to big Joe who chucks it out to the full back and it starts all over again.best manager I’m not so sure ,we put one over on Clemente but he has beaten hearts Killie, Motherwell.
Disaster looming. No left back cover. No title. This was a ‘must sort’ window. Yet nothing has been sorted. Nail biting rollercoaster to come.