Reading the sports media at times, it is easy to forget that we follow football in Scotland. You would think, based on the some of the clickbait nonsense out there, that we had ready access to English football’s vast TV resources and wealth.
Some of the sites that have us linked with players throw around the most absurd sums of money; money that Celtic, even with our surplus, are just not going to pay. Remember, our biggest transfer outgoing spend in recent years was Ange’s first campaign where the outlay was roughly £18 million. But we actually posted a surplus, because we also sold Edouard and Ajer to pay for it. We could certainly afford to do it again, but not the way some suggest.
That’s why I marvel when I see suggestions that we would spend £10 million plus on a goalkeeper; we have more than one position to fill here, and unless we’re talking about a player who is truly exceptional, we’re not going to pay eight figures for anybody, not when there are so many areas of the team where we need to reinforce or strengthen.
Most Celtic fans are being sensible about this. They know our limitations as a club and those which are imposed on us by playing in Scotland. They are not insanely demanding tens of millions be spent on single players or even that we whittle down the surplus to spend tens of millions across the boards. Four or five strategically chosen signings, of the right quality, will make a whopping great difference to this team. We are not as far short as some think.
Across the city, their website are filled to the brim with the worst kind of nonsense though. Today some of them are saying that a deal for Fabio Silva is “unlikely” in the summer because some people aren’t convinced he would be worth signing. No-one stops to ask where in the wide blue were they ever getting the money to complete that deal had he actually possessed an ounce of football ability, as opposed to that which you usually see in a bad acting class?
But these Peepul are fed lies and disinformation and feel-good guff so readily that it’s no wonder some of them can’t discern fact from fiction. That they can’t do basic maths has been evident for a long time; some of them still don’t accept that their previous club ran out of money because for years they had been spending far too much of it.
In case it hasn’t dawned on them, I’ll crunch some numbers for them here.
Key players are out of contract and by all accounts are leaving. All of them have to be replaced. There is some talk in the media that this will “save them” millions from the wage bill; are these people too stupid to realise the simple fact that their replacements won’t be coming to the club to work for free? They have loanees going back to their clubs, and they will miss them, because they cannot afford to pay big money for any of them. The manager has already cut the knees of Connor Goldson; the manager also says he expects him to be at the club next season. Yeah, because if he’s not that’s another player you need to replace with limited funds.
Insane as it will sound, they have already committed a sizeable chunk of their transfer kitty on the signing of Diomande, who doesn’t have to be paid for until the summer. All their January business was high-risk gambling on making the Champions League by finishing as champions. If we win the title we get that prize instead. So that gamble will have failed.
They are talking about buying Sima. They don’t know how they are affording him, so I would say that’s unlikely. I do hope they try, and I do hope they succeed because he seems injury prone and has one good game in every half dozen. That would be a colossal squandering of cash.
At some stage they need to explain to their fans how this rebuild is to be paid for, and this is where the real madness starts. They are shopping Butland around to clubs in England; what happens if (as I expect) there are no takers? They harbour a fantasy about getting Tavernier and Goldson shipped out to Saudi Arabia for obscene fees; sources in Saudi denied the Tavernier story last night, saying that Gerrard isn’t interested, which confirms my suspicion that he is more interested in saving his job over there than in lending a helping hand to Ibrox.
The Goldson story wasn’t real anyway, just a bit of Daily Record speculation which sounded like something they were trying to promote as opposed to reporting what was really going on. They have a number of players out on loan they can try to punt; Lammers might get a modest offer from Holland, and they might do a low-ball deal to move on Hagi. Crucially, there is a lot of speculation that will try to move on Dessers, Rankin and even Cantwell.
Good luck with that! It will be funny watching them try. The chances are that they will not find a single club willing to pay premium fees for any of these guys. I very much doubt they will get takers in the eight figure zone for Butland, who English clubs could have had for free last season and who has lost an awful lot of goals for a keeper in the SPFL.
Remember this always; it doesn’t matter how much our media hypes these guys. Real professionals watch these players, serious people will be the ones who make these calls and I think you’d be hard pressed to find many who would conclude that he’s a top-drawer player. We are also looking for a keeper this summer; would we spend that kind of money on Butland if he was somewhere else? Think about it in those terms, and then consider that everyone within our price range is going to be cheaper for other clubs looking for keeper than he is.
That makes our lives harder. But we’ll live with that, it’s the price we pay for not working harder or moving faster when we should have. It does show the challenge their club faces if it tries to sell Butland for a massive, unreasonable fee … and just like Celtic, they would then be forced to go out and try to bring someone decent in, and that won’t be cheap.
Their fans can make up all the fantasy nonsense that they want, but the reality of what awaits them in the summer is enormous and it should be sacring them a little, especially if we get the Champions League cash and Rodgers gets a chance to put his own stamp on this team. They would be facing a strengthened, emboldened Celtic with strength in depth with a side assembled on the cheap … and still carrying some of the lamentable failures of recent years.
No wonder they don’t want to fully face up to it.
It all depends on who wins the league. If they do they have a track record of splashing every penny and more so they will substantial money to re-build. If they do not they will struggle. But I’d still bet they spend around as much as us regardless. If they get CL money they will spend more than us in my view.
The destination of this seasons title is crucial. I believe that if Celtic succeed in making it 3IAR this year then the club will dominate for another decade & possibly beyond. The mismanagement & poor financial stewardship of theRanjurz can only result in troubling times ahead for the new club. This opinion is based on the average annual losses of £10.1m since being established in 2012.
We`ve been hearing all this “reckon they`ll be skint soon” stuff for years now ad they are not only still there but are the only team now who COULD win a treble.
Only team that could win the treble really, ffs Livvy and St johnstone have won the league cup and this season it has become a major major trophy because the huns won it, was expecting an open top bus parading around Glasgow, we win the double and the bubble is burst and they can’t go on posting losses as regulations are starting to be adhered to.
One of their forums is talking about Butland now being valued at £20m!! Seriously. The same forum does this every year, only to watch the players they value at 8 figures walk out the door for free or for an undisclosed nominal fee. Its hilarious. Its also great to see that a lot of their fans are now talking about how good NEXT season is going to be for them! Its the hope that kills them, every single season! They never learn!
Their skint and hoping to unload the overpriced wages these flops are draining weekly from their already depleted coffers , we win the league and their fucked, simple as !
They’ve posted massive losses year after year even taking into account player sales and champions league money and now their on the ropes .
Title win and champions league money for us will put them back in the grave and finally we can stamp the earth down on them .
Fuck lawwell and his “old firm”……must have sevco in the league by any means possible agenda , personally I’d love to see them disappear for good.
But then again scum does rise to the top of a cesspit.
Remember when Rangers were “linked with”:
1) Ronaldo (the fat one)
2) Gary Linker (as backup for Kevin Drinkell, perhaps)
3) Lothar Matthäus ….. ?
Over 30 years later …. they still haven’t learned.
Idiotic chimps.
We`ve been hearing all this “reckon they`ll be skint soon” stuff for years now ad they are not only still there but are the only team now who COULD win a treble.
But they might still sign them.
On Butland, he is relatively poor with the ball at his feet. I would be very surprised if a top 5 league side looked at him this year.
I think supporters of TRFC (and some of our own tbh) struggle with the concept of double entry book keeping – wages have to be paid for and season ticket cash piles have to fund operations throughout the season.
Agree we need 4-5 key signings and our team/squad will be immeasurably stronger.
They will still be in their rebuild mode when we are completing 10 in a row….. that is if the present entity lasts that long.
I read this morning that they’d ’decided against’ signing Silva before the article explained they couldn’t afford him anyway. They gamble big with what money they do have, lose, and survive to roll the dice again. Except that one time… their gambling behaviour hasn’t changed with the new club. Even if they win the league (they won’t), they’d probably do something stupid like buy Fabio Silva anyway.
Vandals stole my car and burnt it oot, I wiz raging.
But then I realised that I could just get number plates similar to the stolen car and tell everyone it’s the same car.
Totally unrelated I’m in court for having invalid insurance, turns out you can’t just plate it to look the same, invalid MOT was another blow.
In court I got 12 points and I thought “that’s more than the 2012 tribute act have ever won from us”
Oh they’re coming for 3 points, but only if we put a speed camera outside paradise.
Anyone fancy buying a 2012 shitty old banger aff me?
Up the RA