So Oh has just signed for Genk.
Whatever way you look at it now, we are materially weaker than we were at the end of last season. As Oh departs the club we’re now down four first team players, and all the weaknesses which were there in the last campaign remain.
This is now bordering on scandalous.
The board apologists will tell you that this stuff takes time.
Really? We’ve managed to sell Oh and Haksabanovic for decent fees in the same window where we’ve been unable even to complete a deal for a player who we have a release clause on and another who is available on a free.
The longer this window goes on without a single signing the more pissed off people get.
Look, I had no love for either player, not at the end, not when it became clear that Oh was a one note striker we should never have signed and that Haksabanovic was moody, lazy and prone to the odd emotional outburst online.
But a campaign needs warm bodies, a squad needs to be strong enough to cope with anything, and we’re downsizing. Dramatically.
And all the while, inexplicably, disgracefully, the cash pile in the bank grows larger.
The team heads out for America this week. There is virtually no chance at all – none – that we will be stronger when we fly out than we were when we finished the last campaign. The best chance the manager has to gel a new team has been utterly squandered.
I’ll go you one better; I am willing to offer you odds that the side we name for the first game of the next campaign – the starting eleven and the subs – will be weaker than the team which ended the last one.
The season kicks off in just over three weeks.
I don’t think there’s a prayer of us making the requisite number of signings which changes that, not with the glacially slow pace at which we do business. Can something that looks like self-sabotage on the part of people at the club be anything else?
I cannot remember a window this insipid except one.
And it was the one where Rodgers and Lawwell fell out over the latter’s utter failure to close the deals the manager wanted.
The boss will simply not accept a situation where this happens again, and if this ends the way it’s going right now a lot of people in our support are going to have a choice to make about what they do about it.
We can either demand – and get – a change in the strategy or watch as yet another historical chance to forge a better path is pissed against the wall, at a time when, inexplicably, the money we have in the bank swells to obscene proportions.
This weekend, I wanted to write about the abject state of the club at Ibrox, and I will, I will tackle something along those lines tomorrow.
But their manager is apparently shocked to learn that he will have to sell before he is allowed to buy first team ready players, which he’s now said the current crop of signings are not.
Well colour me surprised. Not really though.
Every Celtic fan who looks at the situation over there could have told Manneken Piss that, and his growing sense of frustration as some realisations about what life at Ibrox is really like are starting to bubble to the surface in his media comments.
Yeah, of course you had to sell before you could spend money. Your club is skint.
But Celtic isn’t. So what in God’s name is our excuse except that some people value the balance sheet over the team sheet?
They shouldn’t be near our club. They’ve either forgotten, or do not care, what Celtic is and what it is for. It is not their personal property or something to boost their own egos, but increasingly that is the function Celtic plays in their lives.
This can’t go on much longer. It cannot continue like this.
They have less than a week, and I have no confidence whatsoever – none – that the team which flies out to the States will be stronger than the one which finished last season, and nor do I believe it will reach that level before our league defence kicks off.
Whatever excuses are made on their behalf that indicts every member of our executive.
Looks to me that the club/business is being fattened up for a sell.
Look at the stock price, the balance sheet is bulging beyond belief. Refusal/reluctance to buy/spend on anything.
If someone had it in their mind to sell their substantial block of shares this would be the perfect way to do it
At last the dam has broken, someone has broken ranks, and we see some sense being written, as opposed to the pipe dreams every blogger has been posting.
This was the biggest certainty ever, I thought it was the huns that lived in fantasy land, but it seems we are more alike than you would have thought. How many times does someone have to do something for it to be seen as the norm?, in this case many, many times it seems. The board have weakened the team window after window after window, with top class players leaving and dross coming in, and why everyone thought it would be different this time, I’m not sure TBH.
Cammy, alas you are highlighting yourself, every movement has to start on an individual level, and most fail because most people can’t act alone.
Lawwells got some cheek , clearing the decks before new signings come in are an utter disgrace, it’s juniors signings he rubber stamped, I fucking despise that bean counting bastard that happily depletes the coffers year after year with a fucking bonus for keeping up his mismanagement and keeping sevco relevant,while weakening us , we are going backwards with this cunt at the helm , no ambition in Europe, this charlatan should be hunted out of parkhead ASAP.
Fuck the sevco filth imposters posing as fans to give you a hard time James.
If celtic don’t buy the quality what BR wants before the season starts then the fans should demand the resignation of lawawell and other directors who won’t push the boat out to get them .And remind them progress cost money in which we have got.
Get lawell OUT!! When was the last season we started a season stronger than the one we just finished??? I won’t hold my breath!! The man is an egotistical prick who thinks it’s playing football manager. We should be passing ourselves laughing at those clowns across the city and looking at squeezing the life out of them. Instead we’re selling players and keeping the money in the bank. Fucking arseholes
Absolutely spot on, an absolute disgrace that we are fancying about. Our board seems to be making sure that the bigoted racist followers of the famous, ha ha, are still relevant.
Time to bury them.
Being someone who previously supported the fiscal approach of the board, am dismayed with the lack of ambition. It’s not what we, the fans, the life blood of the club wants.
I should be histerical laughing at the mess over the road but am not. Are board is a joke.
If they don’t pull their fingers out and give BR what he needs for progress then we really need start campaigning for a change.
Saddening as that is. PL is a weight around the club.
Hail Hail
Stephen…is your surname lawwell by any chance..? You can’t be serious…if you are…yer a dope.
It’s hard to believe really that with the season start only 3 weeks away & the pre season tour upon us not even one signing in the door!! Financially we are in the best position we have ever been and there’s no doubt we have intelligent people in our boardroom. However the worrying thing is that intelligence is nothing without ambition a bit like a bird with no wings and that sums up our board – no ambition whatsoever.
Well that’s The Euro 2024 competition over now and Congratulations to Spain – Thank Fuck !
Anyway that’s another excuse for not buying players left the building…
What next – We canny get the said targets because they’re on leave after The Euros –
Nothing would surprise me about that one being trotted out !
Don’t think it’s too early, fans should be now outside Celtic Park in their thousands shouting out that board. If Brendan stays with a weakened team I will probably lose respect for him too for being put in his place so easily by the board. If he walks he maintains dignity and respect. Cannot fathom what these jokers in the board are up to but it’s not what’s best for the club. Are we watching a rigged game, is this like the wrestling? Do we have to keep as close to Rangers for the SFA and league’s sake. No point in following this any more
Not unexpected as I posted a few week’s back. Everyone blaming Lawell but Brendan has always been slow in purchasing players, look at his past record.
Surely he knows the English market well and could pick up a couple of Goalies and the pick of the big team’s reserves? There are a ton of out of contract players that would walk into our first team, clubs get these lists regularly. It doesn’t take a major scouting network these days to find talent.
We succeed in making it difficult for ourselves. Brendan stated he was not happy with the quality last season what is he doing about it. If he is being turned down he should walk.
James – the surprise is not that this has happened/is happening but that you thought it wouldn’t happen or would be any different. There.has only ever been two seasons (in about the last twenty) where transfers were done quickly and they were the two seasons where Ange was here and Lawwell wasn’t. If Rangers somehow negotiate the CL qualifiers we are bang in trouble because they will quickly spend the money on two or three big players right at the window end.
I’m shocked that Rogers isn’t apoplectic about the lack of players being brought in. I really thought that he would have demanded money spent, and European standard players brought in, to give us any chance at all in Europe. Replacing a goalie, and trying to keep two players we used last year, while selling others from the squad, is seriously not acceptable, in any shape or form!
Are these people on another planet? Do they not realise that they will judged on this transfer window? Are they willing to let us be knocked out of Europe, and hoping that, again, Rangers are just slightly more shit than us?
This lot couldn’t run a church bingo, never mind a world renowned football team.
So aggrevating and sad. They really don’t deserve the wonderful support that this club gets!
I purchased three tickets for the Chelsea game at Norte Dame which were not cheap. Have a five hour drive and an overnight stay to watch my beloved Celtic. I am deeply disappointed that no signings have happened so far and that I’ll be watching a weaker squad which finished last season. Celtic FC will be getting a lot of money for this tour and once again we overseas supporters are being taken for mugs.
A good clean out at board level is desperately needed sooner than later.
Forever a Celt, hail hail.
Utter embarrassment incoming during the tour to the US. As for the CL , it makes you shudder to think about the total demoralization that could result. Is PL still holding on to the purse strings? He shouldn’t be but it feels like he is.
You may be right to be concerned, but I believe you are jumping the gun! I’m positive there are deals being worked on as we speak, quietly and out of the public eye!!I fully expect some signings to be announced very soon!! HH keep the faith!!