Now that the dust has begun to settle from Saturday’s game, the thoughts of a lot of us are turning to the summer and the necessity of a rebuild. Another one. It is not a pleasing thought to have. It’s an infuriating one, to be honest, because it should not be necessary. This club should be riding high. We’ve brought in a dozen players in the course of this season … and the successes stories you can count on hand. With fingers to spare.
It is absolutely shameful how they went about the summer rebuild. Shameful. The manager could not have more clearly expressed his contempt for their efforts. Let’s not mess about here; they would have done this to anyone they brought in, Rodgers was not special in that regard, and the proof of it is the first summer signing, Odin Thiago Holm.
They brought him in without having a manager in the building. Think about that. They spent part of the transfer budget on that guy when we didn’t even have a head coach. That is beyond ridiculous. That is someone completely unqualified playing Football Manager for real with actual footballers and actual money … at our damned club. How dare they.
We should have known then. We should have seen how it was going to go. And Rodgers should have been uneasy as well. It was his budget someone was happily squandering, and oh how it was misspent. The two centre backs are fourth and fifth choice behind Scales and Welsh. It’s all well and good the “head of recruitment” falling on the sword, but the people who sanctioned that, the people who allowed it, would have lost their jobs if we had any accountability at all.
Whenever I think about the summer nothing sums up the utter insanity of it better than the growing shape of the Asian Cup Finals on the horizon, a tournament which was already set to claim our two starting strikers, our left sided attacker and one of our key central midfielders. How did they fortify us against that? They signed another three players who had they been up to the job would all have been lost to us and playing in it. I still can’t believe it.
It’s appalling. I hope they are suitably mortified at having ever allowed it under the roof of our allegedly professional “world class” football club.
There is no angle you can look at this from without feeling deep disgust at the mess they made and the risks they took with our season, and for what? So that some people could indulge their mad fantasies and their egos? Sure, Lawwell Jnr has gone, but that can’t be the end of it, these people behaved far too ineptly for us to simply leave it at that.
I am resigned to them brass-necking it out. They might be embarrassed but they aren’t going to be shamed. They still think this club is theirs, that they can do with it whatever they want. One of them – perhaps the chairman himself – will step onto that field next Saturday and think he can milk the applause of 60,000 people as though this triumph was down to him; it isn’t. This was in spite of them. How can any of them even think they deserve credit?
They forced the manager to work with a weakened version of last season’s team, and but for his outstanding talents this season would have been a disaster on all fronts. So last summer is on them, and the fact that we need a rebuild at all is entirely their fault, and they not only have a professional responsibility but a moral one to fix it.
And yeah, it will probably be expensive.
When major organisations make mistakes because of incompetent leadership the solutions usually are. But the Champions League money is now assured, and there are more games and more potential rewards than ever before, and it was the work of Brendan Rodgers, those players and we the supporters which got us there … and all of us are owed an appropriate response.
We need a minimum of 4 starting players GK, CB,LB,RM With 3 quality back up players in CM,LM, and a Striker. That’s assuming no one leaves, probably looking at a £30M plus spend, Lawell will not sign off on that. The accountants don’t understand pro active investment, everything they do is reactive, we need real decision makers on the board, not the nodding dogs and cronies who have been in place way beyond the recommended 5 year cycle.
Once I see them DELIVER they will get my money ? certainly not before that.
Get a tifo made telling liewell GET TAE FCUK and take the rest ae the Tory hairdressing him and Desmond Doughnut.
Tory bastards
Let’s not kid ourself here,,,the last couple of windows have been poor and expensive,,we
keep saying it can’t happen again, but as historically we do it every couple of seasons,, rather than put the foot on the throat of ibrokes certain elements of the board take the pressure off and allow what we’ve seen this season,,,between officials,, var,, and our own board seems to be keeping certain teams relevant,
well said james…..there should be a clear out at boardroom level….but will there? the arrogant bastard lawwell is still in the building…HOW can he have the brass neck to grasp onto his position – any position….of course, overseeing the whole boardroom shitshow is DD….and he ain’t going anywhere….it’s his ba’…..
We are not over the line yet, I agree with what you are saying about the rest of it but we know from past seasons that anything is possible. Lost two titles on the last day not too long ago!Get the point required then talk about summer rebuilds.
Let’s get this season tied up first, for the players, manager and support. They’re the ones who deserve any and all credit. My suspicion is tho, if this board have the CL money and of course, the ST money banked, as well as knowin the ibrox club will have extremely limited funds available tae spend, ah can only see that encouragin lawwell and desmond tae stick tae their usual strategy. Imo, that was always the dilemma of this success. Once again, no strengthenin properly, prospect buyin and very little, if any, European ambition. We’ll soon know if its gonnae be the oh so familiar, days and weeks goin by with the usual ‘silence’ and no info on players comin in. Hope ahm wrong.
As per usual I don’t anticipate the board pushing the boat out, that just won’t happen with that overly careful lot. The only consolation is that I think they do realise the hostility that they have created within the ranks and as a result they will certainly put more effort in than they did in the last two windows. So let’s face it and be thankful that it couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Need a new owner with ambition james. Happy to finish in front of them, unacceptable. Story goes DD was outraged at cup defeat on penalties on RD reign but finds it acceptable to be gubbed by Bodo Glimt,Feyenoord,leipzig,Midtjyland,Sparta praha. etc. No idea if anyone would take it on, but it won’t change with status quo.
Brendan Rodgers must be the only 1 responsible for incoming signings , the puppet master lawwell has to realise his incompetent meddling has already cost the club millions on project players .
His obsession with keeping sevco relevant is outdated and cost us 10 in a row and now is the time for him to go.
We’ve seen this before from him,several times in fact, not pushing the boat out and pressing so far ahead that never again would we be in this predicament that sevco almost claimed the title and the CL money.
An obscene salary with bonuses for overseeing abject failure on his watch.
Brendan Rodgers must be able to continue managing our club successfully and take us forward without any interference.
Last summer’s shit show lands squarely on Lawwells shoulders. Him and his laddie indulged in a bit of football manager using their cunning plan ie the “criteria” they also had the added bonus of getting one over on Rodgers even before he arrived in the building.
We all know how petty and vindictive he is.
The plan was to get a team of future stars together to be flogged a year or two down the line, a kind of football version of the Harlem Globetrotters. Unfortunately in true Lawwell style we ended up with 12 Rodney Trotters.
If he appears on the park on Saturday he should be booed, he nearly cost us the league as well as the £20 million he wasted, with absolutely no accountability.
Look at Brendan in that photo, Liewell was..well lying and BR knew it
I don’t think Liewell has the brass neck to take to the field on Saturday….I hope he does as the crescendo of boos will tell him all he needs to know about how we feel
Time for a clear out at board level and to employ some real professional people.
No more project players, a LB RB RH And tough midfielder, would not be too unhappy if we kept Idah but Miovski would be great alongside our talisman
I won’t pretend to know the answer. This is why Brendan is on big bucks. He surely must be telling the board his feelings about the constraints they placed on him and that they are unacceptable.
I dont blame Brendan for the problems Celtic have faced this season. He still won us the League and he should take a large slice of the credit for that.
But Brendan needs to, in my view, negotiate the chasm between the board and the fans better. It’s not enough to be seen to be sulking behind the scenes whilst, at the same time, fronting pressers and telling the media journalists that he’s happy to work with what he is given.
I’m certain DD is clever enough to know it’s often what Brendan doesn’t say but implies by his actions and sometimes leaving out the conclusion of a statement:
By playing Scales and Welsh ahead of the costly centre backs foisted on him.
By winning the title decider without a single one of those “Celtic model” signings.
By saying: “James Forrest is the best winger at the club” (despite all the development duds you’ve brought in without my endorsement).
The league’s not won yet. Let’s nor be like Rangers and count ourchickens too early. Kilmarnock will be doing g their best.
Yep – Definitely not worth being too cocky Gerald as ‘Rangers’ were when they were alive and their doppelgänger Sevco are these days…
Hopefully we can get it won tonight without playing and keep our key players off that bloody awful plastic tomorrow night…
Plastic pitches in the top league…
Only in NOT so Bonnie Scottish Football !
Maybe I’m falling in to an old trap but I think the board will back Brendan this summer. There’s no hiding from the shambles of the last 2 windows. It’s a win/win for them, back him and if it goes well they done the right thing, if it doesn’t go well it’s all Rodgers fault. So I think the money will be available and hopefully Rodgers has already identified who he wants. Get a couple of key men in at the start of the window.
It`s not “our club” any more than Morrison`s is our shop because we visit it regularly. It is only the club we support. Celtic belongs to them and they know it.
This board are full of people who think they are so much smarter than the average fan and treat them as fools. They are no better than the Kelly, Whyte dynasties who eventually had to bring in Big Jock to sort out and organise the young kids that Sean Fallon had successfully brought to the club over the previous 5 years. Kelly and White got lucky that a guy who loved the club like Stein did, was available.
This Board got lucky with Postecoglou, and Brendan has dug them out of a hole this season. They had better not try to fob the fans off once again. We have the money to create a bigger gap over our main opponents. We have been in this position before in our history, and failed to make it count.
Let’s bury this arrogant Ibrox mob and their media lackeys for years to come, Lawell is so out of touch that he has tried to keep the Scottish League artificially competitive, the Celtic support don’t give a fig for that. Let’s leave them a distance behind us, and then we can concentrate on improvement in Europe. C’mon DD make this your legacy, this is now your opportunity to leave The Rangers behind in our slipstream. Grasp it.
Nothing will change over the last 20 years Celtic have been very successful making good returns for the shareholders so they will continue with this system . The new champions league format will increase revenue by around 30% more so Rodgers might get a bigger budget plus looks like some player sales. But don’t expect millions spent on new players the board are spending on a new indoor playing areas at barrow field also they could also build the hotel complex at Celtic park to bring in more revenue let’s see what really happens this is providing we win the league 2 games to go 3 points in it a draw tonight will see us champions .
There needs to be a clear out including a number of those brought in last season and before.Sell Mikey Johnson,Lagerbelke, Nairobi,Haksababovic,Palma,Seigrist,Bernebei, Also use Oh,Yang and Kwon plus money to bring in Miovski and Mackenzie. Also Bring in Burgess from Ipswich for £750,000 buy out clause as Centre Half, Casteels on a free from Wolfsburg,Belgian International keeper,Conway from Bristol City