I think it goes without saying that Celtic fans aren’t thrilled about the idea of selling Matt O’Riley. Let’s be honest, we all knew this could happen. We had a fair idea, especially after the Atletico Madrid offer from last year, that someone might come in with the kind of money that would tempt the club to let him go.
Matt is an excellent player—a top footballer who is only getting better. Whether it’s at Celtic or somewhere else, Matt O’Riley is going to become a star of the game and will win many more honours throughout his career.
If Celtic fans have a real concern, it’s that we might not get a chance to spend the money in time, or that the board just might not want to. First, because no club has made an acceptable offer for Matt until this late in the day, and second, because of how we’ve dragged our feet throughout the whole transfer window, which continues to be a disgrace.
We’re now 10 days from the closure of it, and we’ve done two major pieces of business. But those have essentially only brought us back to where we were at the end of last season. I can’t say enough how abysmal that is.
I still don’t believe we will emerge from this window significantly stronger. There are a lot of rumours and at least one strategic leak to a friendly hack; I will be most pleased to be proved resoundingly wrong here, but I genuinely don’t expect to be.
I don’t believe we’ve given ourselves enough time to get things done. Maybe there are one or two deals that are almost there, waiting on the O’Riley deal before being finalized. But I don’t think we’re going to get, for example, two midfielders, a left-back, a central defender, and a backup striker in the time that’s left. It would be truly remarkable if we managed that.
We will likely fall short, and then we’ll hear the usual sob story and excuses about how the board did everything they could.
But I don’t believe that. We know the deal for Adam Idah could have been done long ago if it was going to be done for a club record fee. They managed to finalize it in a matter of days once it became obvious we had no recognized striker. That convinces me that the deal was there to be done all along, and for some reason, they just weren’t going to do it.
Still, there is one thing to be said about Celtic’s transfer window, and it’s this: the next 10 days will be much scarier for the club across the city than they will be for us.
Because we at least have the luxury of knowing there’s money in the bank. If we decide to spend, if we decide to flex our financial muscle, we can finally and definitively pull clear of their club in a way they simply cannot compete with.
We’ve all talked about this before, but somehow, we keep coming back to it without ever actually doing it. At some point, that’s going to change.
At some point, a Celtic manager is going to get his way on this, and we are going to build for Europe. And we know that if we create a team capable of competing with some of the Champions League sides, we will pull far clear of every club in Scotland.
We’re about to find out if this board is even semi-competent.
We’re about to find out if these people are better at this than we’ve spent the summer saying. There are no excuses for failure. The money is there, the club has it, and the manager has his targets. He’s identified the players he wants. And if we don’t go out and do the business that needs to be done, heads should roll all the way down The Celtic Way.
But just tantalize yourself for a moment with the question: What if we do? What if we go out and spend the money? What if we push the boat out just that little bit for the manager? What if we build a team that has a puncher’s chance of making some noise in these Champions League groups? We could see quite a show, not just at Celtic, but across the city as well. And the show over there will be a lot bloodier than the one at Celtic Park.
I wrote yesterday about the failure of Dave King’s coup.
About how he and his board of directors took over the club, ejected the so-called “spivs,” and established themselves as the power at Ibrox. But that revolution has been an absolute disaster. Celtic are stronger than they’ve ever been, and by comparison, their club looks puny and weak. So, Dave King’s revolution failed.
The question their fans will have to ask themselves if Celtic suddenly finds its higher gear is, “What do we do now?”
This is a subject I’m going to explore at length later on today in the next CelticBlog podcast.
It’s been a while since the last one. But the next one will be a special, focusing on the historical position that Celtic is now in relative to the club across the city.
But those are questions for the next summer, and for the long-term future of the club over there. Those long-term questions and challenges are going to haunt them. But in the here and now, in this window, in the next 10 days, we can condemn them to an entire season of doom and gloom. We can make it clear how futile the idea that they can challenge us in this campaign really is.
It may seem absurd to say this, but in a very real way, we can decide this title race in the next 10 days if we reach for that next rung on the ladder.
We can demoralize them so thoroughly that they don’t stand a chance. We can’t win it on the pitch, of course we can’t. But we can win the psychological battle before we’re more than a handful of games into the campaign. That’s huge. That’s the opportunity here.
We’d be crazy not to push as hard as we can for that.
We’re level with them on trophies. If we win the League Cup, we move ahead. If we win another treble, we will shatter that club into a million pieces and leave them at the mercy of terrible events—and potentially some very terrible people.
Has anyone asked the board why they are stockpiling £ms while the squad needs strengthened? I’m not hopefull. Fully expect O’Riley to be gone by the end of the week. On the back of that we will plcould bring in Beck and McCowan from Dundee (both of which I am happy with) and maybe a journey man midfielder as Bernardo will be pushed into Matt’s shirt. The real issue is up front. We need another striker.
The board could easily give Rodgers a genuine war chest… But can’t see it and will look to do things in the cheap.
War chest? You’ve been listening to the hun PR machine too often, mate. They’re the ones who specialise in the conflict terminology.
Isn’t it utterly mental how the biggest draft dodging players and support in Scottish Football History (World War I & II) are truly unhealthily obsessed with ‘war’ culture…
Yet they don’t do irony any more than they did conscription…
That said – It’s amusing to see them at ‘war’ with each other all the same !
Beck already back out on loan
Every year we go through this dilemma, will the board spend on players.
What’s stopping the board getting cover for Greg Taylor?
What’s stopping the board getting a left sided centre half?
What’s stopping the board getting a third striker?
The first two positions need strengthening without doubt.
Striker position we could live without, so that will not happen.
That’s before they sell the family silver, that’s what they will do, take that to the bank.
Whilst Lawwell is at the club I have zero faith in the club doing right by the manager.
What’s happened with the director of football role to keep consistency at the club, another area a club operating at champions league level doesn’t have.
What if Rodgers walks in light off this, he’s made it clear what he wants if he dies not get that, then we are in temp managers and the club in a mess again.
Would Ajax, Benfica, Porto, Salzburg, Copenhagen or any other club in a small league manage themselves like this?
This board of directors are not up to the job of running a business with the turnover of Celtic.
The clock ticks, the costs go up, we either end up over paying, or doing nothing, both circumstances could have been avoided
Not keeping the faith
This board is not going to sign anyone. Adam Idah was only signed as we had no fit striker as kyogo was injured and we had a home game to play. As I have said before unless you make it uncomfortable for these people they will sit there. This is the third transfer window they have undermined the manager!
If they don’t strengthen and we go intae the CL with i.e. Liam Scales and Greg taylor, all the support who fork out the imo, vulgar price of £200 for 4 games, will be just tae watch us get utterly embarrassed. Yer hard earned money well spent eh ?! And how many MORE millions in the bank and the directors already stuffed bank accounts. And if all our concerns, turn out tae be once again correct, surely our support will finally realize, this board have absolutely no ambition in Europe whatsoever and it’s profit for their own personal, greedy futures they’re interested in first and foremost. How else can ye look at it ?
What’s your problem? Haven’t you read the headlines today? We’re the best run club in the UK. Lolz!
I’ve got an article about that going up at 2pm 🙂
@ roonsa. Aye and for a club our size and so financialy well aff, whits the point in that, if we’ve a team who’re only the best in a let’s face it, piss poor spl and in serious danger of becomin the team everybody wants in their section in Europe, due tae lack of understrengthin. Fuck that.
WHAT THE FRIG IS GOING ON AT OUR CLUB?
We have over £120 million large in the bank, at least … AND we prefer to weaken the team by selling O’Reilly before spending any of that tank.
I mean what the fcku.?
Brendan should be Screaming blue murder here, this is shameful from a pathetic shower of stingy skinflint asswipe bastards, starting from Lawell down to the last scumbag on our board.
Why do we continuously do this? It’s OUR money. We give them everything they have in their pathetic dumbfuck backward thinking lives.
We need another stormfront at the door of our club and tell them once and for all Enough.
with tens of thousands outside CP will get the message through, and get rid of that overweight tub of lard at the helm. What will it take to get rid of him and that greedy overseer Desmond. Have an overnight vigil if it takes that much, but lets get rid of these wage thieves.
C’mon Celtic, or don’t we give a shit. Certainly looks like that to me.
Yes, there is – absolutely – no business need to sell MOR,
however, there is a very obvious football need to try and retain MOR,
if only for this season?
I’d just like to know if MOR was offered anything to consider staying on
for another season? A financial incentive and an understanding that he
could leave at the end of the season with the club’s support and thanks?
Or, is PL just sitting back, salivating at the idea of even more cash to add to the pile?
🙁
Alas James your last sentence spells out the very reasons why the Celtic Board will not push the proverbial ‘Boat’ out.
The empty seats at ‘Paradise’ while the Tribute Act were on their ‘Journey’ through the lower Leagues were an anathema to our Board. The Celtic Board need a theRanjurs, any iteration of the DeidCo, to guarantee bums on seats.
If there was a consistent challenge from the ‘also rans ’, Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts etc, it might be different, however the ‘History’ of the post 2012 Scottish Football Landscape doesn’t augur well for that proposition.
It hurts to say it but in the absence of a European League or Celtic being allowed into the English League structure then as far as the Celtic Board are concerned, for the bottom line, The Tribute Act must remain relevant. They must be allowed some flexibility to hang on to our ‘coattails’. They must be allowed a little hope. If they crash and burn there might not be a Phoenix like rebirth for the current Tribute Act. It might be the ‘End.’ While that prospect is appealing to us as fans, for the ‘bean-counters’ on our Board it is an existential nightmare.