Yesterday, this transfer window reached peak farce—at least, I hope it did, because surely it cannot get any more ridiculous than it is right now.
I’ll address today’s transfer rumours shortly but I don’t find it surprising that there’s a report suggesting we’ve offered £6.5 million for a player we know is valued at £10 million. It sums up the way we’ve conducted business—or tried to—throughout this window. But like I said, we’ll get to that in due course. This one’s about our left-back situation.
In the last 12 hours, I’ve read some truly depressing things from our fans—people trying to put glitter on something that looks and smells like something you’d never want to glitter up. I have no idea whether our proposed signing at left back —a Barcelona B team player with a €3 million release clause in a league of stupendous talents—is a player or not. But I do know that some of what’s been written and said about him is absolute garbage.
For example, claims that he’s highly rated by Barcelona fans are doubtful at best. Most Barcelona fans have probably never seen this guy play a single minute.
He’s from a club famous for bringing through its most talented youth players, yet he hasn’t played a single minute for their first team, and he’s 20. He spent last season on loan at Levante in Spain’s second tier. His contract had very nearly expired.
So please, leave off with this ludicrous suggestion that Barcelona fans were looking forward to seeing him in the next El Classico, let’s live in the real world here and accept how stupid that is.
The idea that this signing bears the imprint of Brendan Rodgers is also utter nonsense since Rodgers has repeatedly emphasized the importance of experience. How anyone can suggest that a 20-year-old with a handful of games in Spain’s second tier meets that standard is beyond me.
We’ve fallen far in our expectations if this is where we’re at.
Let’s not pretty this up or sugarcoat it. In an act of utter desperation, we’re now running a development project for someone else’s club. No right to buy, no proper level of experience at the top of the game—because the Spanish second tier isn’t the top level. If he were good enough for the Barcelona B side in that league, that’s where he’d still be.
We’ve been searching for a left-back to replace Greg Taylor for two years now. And today I’m reading that this guy will provide good competition. If that’s the best he can do, he has no business being at Celtic. We have no business paying a £1.3 million loan fee for squad filler. It was explicitly what we did not want, and I am 100% convinced this is the “standard” we can expect in our centre back if we even bother to try and sign one.
I said that whoever we signed for this position would need to be good enough to take Taylor’s place in the team. But don’t be surprised if Taylor starts every week. Anyone kidding themselves that we’ve signed the next Barcelona superstar should take a look at their first team right now. There’s a 16-year-old kid tearing the league to bits, one of the standout players at the recent Euros—that’s what a real superstar looks like. The guys who aren’t quite at that level but could get there play for the B team because that’s the progression path to the first team.
People should stop looking at this through the lens of “he’s coming from Barcelona so he must be genuinely brilliant.” Their academy produces hundreds of players every year just as ours does. How many teams in our own domestic leagues have signed “Celtic starlets” – guys who would never have made it to our first team in a million years – and been sorely disappointed at what they got? The highways and byways of the First and Second Division are littered with the tear-stained hankies.
This is not some wonderkid. He’s 20, and he’s never played a competitive minute for their first team. So instead of going goo-eyed over Barcelona try and look at it like this; we’re signing a 20-year-old left back from Spain’s second tier. On loan. For a Champions League campaign. Stripped of the famous shirt and the famous name, tell me how it looks to you now.
I understand that a lot of people need to believe there’s a coherent plan being followed here, but there isn’t. That’s as clear as ever with this signing.
Two years we’ve been trying to sign a quality player in this position, and now, with Rodgers demanding experience and quality, we’re about to sign a Barcelona reserve on loan. Don’t tell me this is part of a coherent strategy or that this was in the manager’s plans. Don’t tell me this is the level of signing he expected, much less wanted. No matter how much some folks might want to dress this up, every Celtic fan knows that it isn’t.
It’s a shocking signing because it’s low-calibre, low-ambition and pointless. It doesn’t enhance the team; it just fills a squad space. It is not designed to give us strength in depth. It makes it look like people have been busy, like they’ve worked hard and put in the effort. But I don’t believe any of that is true. I don’t believe they’ve been busy; I don’t believe they’ve worked hard, and I don’t believe they’ve made sufficient effort.
In less than a year, Greg Taylor will be out of contract, and the club doesn’t seem terribly interested in tying him down on a new deal. If they were, they’d start negotiating properly and try to work something out. And that’s a problem—not because Taylor is some exceptional footballer, but because he’s currently the only left-back at our club playing regular first-team football and with the corresponding experience in Europe. And that will be true even after we sign this guy. So, the chances are pretty good that this time next season, we could be scrambling around trying to find two left-backs, and after our two year search has led us here.
Because that’s Celtic, guys. This is the club run by geniuses.
The best-run club in Britain, allegedly.
I think this is a shambles. The events of the last 24 hours, short of the football game itself where we were excellent and where Rodgers once again showed himself to be a top-level coach, have been an embarrassment. The way we conduct ourselves in the transfer market is an embarrassment, and embarrassment is the least of our worries heading into the Champions League with the makeup of the squad we’re almost certain to have.
This window is going to end up as a stellar example of utter failure. In any other culture, someone would resign over this. In some places, that wouldn’t even be a courtesy extended to those most responsible for it; someone would just be told to pack up their pencils and beat it.
And I’ll tell you, you can take your pick of the empty suits and nodding donkeys and the do-nothing cardboard cut-out we’ve got for a chairman who drags on this whole club like an anchor even if all he does is count the pens at the end of the meetings.
We would not miss a single one of them.
I read earlier the Rangers had a concrete off from Rapid for Hagi……. I thought ffs surely an all time low, accepting building products for a footballer..!
I know they are doing a bit of work on their building site but I thought that was disgraceful.
Mind you Hagi couldn’t trap a bag of cement and he ran like his boots were full of aggregate.
HH troops
Daddy Hagi thinks that’s too poor a standard to be playing at. He put the blockers on the move 🙂
It’s time Lawwell and Nicholson were both sacked. Get them out of our club now!
Having followed Celtic since the early 1960s (the first match I recall was against Valencia in the Fairs Cities Cup) I can’t think of any member of the Celtic board who was a conspicuous credit to the club: some were frankly corrupt. However, I’m prepared to give the benefit of the doubt in this case. Alex Valle may not be a long-term solution at left back; but it’s clear that he has Brendan Rogers’s approval. Is it possible that he has been brought in in order to bridge the gap until one of the B squad – presumably, Matthew Anderson – is deemed ready for the first team?
In circumstances like this mate I’d rather have seen our own kid get the chance.
I think – but I’m not 100% on this – that we’re letting young Anderson go out on loan. He’s clearly too good for that blood and thunder Lowland League stuff, so I hope it’s true.
I share your anger. This certainly doesn’t meet BR’s criteria for squad additions. Even if it were a loan with an option to buy it wouldn’t meet the criteria. There’s something rotten in Parkhead and it’s surely the Board. I wish BR would just call them out on it.
100%
I remember when we signed some nobody from mk dons for 1.5m thinking he could actually break into our team. What were the scouts and board thinking of eh?
Nice try.
First, remember that was Ange, not these guys, and Ange’s plans were so advanced that O’Riley was the SECOND CHOICE player.
And what was O’Riley brought in to do? To replace players who weren’t even leaving for another SIX MONTHS … that’s why the second season was better than the first, because he was brought early to bed him into the team and work with his team-mates and within the system, and to be a replacement for two long-term servants of the club.
Entirely different scenario, but like I say, nice try.
Same old story, we need a plumber so they get us an electrician. If Lawwell’s mum sent him for a loaf she must have dreaded what he might bring back.
Until there is a cohesive integrated recruitment and transfer structure under a DoF we will play the same game every transfer window.
It is amazing how other clubs are structured while we are so amateurish.
Get a grip of reality here, we do not know anything about this player.
Give him a chance and support him whilst in a Celtic Jersey.
Spanish 2nd div teams could easily finish in the top 6 of our poor league.
When the season ended James I wrote that Celtic had to act then as penny Pinching Peter will count the profit rather than spend it.
James you stated that you were confident everything would be fine, Well our track record going into a late window is to sign projects or loaners.
Wake up a bit earlier James, Celtic won’t change under Lawell.
I’ve got a grip on reality. I haven’t said a thing about the player’s actual ability, I’ve never watched him.
Your comment on the level of the Spanish second tier is both idiotic and misses the point. He’s not being brought to the club for an SPFL campaign, he’s supposed to be a signing that elevates us for Europe, and your daft post cannot argue that this is the case.
As to stating that I was confident everything would be fine, that was many, many, many months ago and you should pay attention.
“Low-calibre” seems like a comment on the guys ability. We signed Frimpong without him having played a single senior game and look how he turned out. Also, he didn’t play a “handful of games”. He had 26 starts for Levante last season, most of which were whilst he was 19 y/o which seems like good experience. Including inaccuracies like that just invalidate other points you are making.
Ahem nope it was a question on the ambition level of the signing.
Do fuck up, Forrest. You’re the reason why Hunalikes in our support speak to people with absolutely no manners nor respect, despite what they think they know about the transfer policy of our club (btw, it had been said on other blogs better than this pish, that Lawwell had NOTHING to do with signings nor budget). You are the poison in our support- no less.
Things are so bad in recruitment dept and the manager is so fed up,he once again dipped into his contacts book for Paul Tisdale to join recruitment,ex MK Dons manager.Wont make any difference whatsoever to this window,and shocking that the boss is having to try and sort this himself (again)
Is that what happened with that? Interesting, I’ll look into that mate.
I see you have decided the guy is shit before he turns up.
A classy hatchet job
I see you didn’t read the piece you dumb shit-kicker.
Because I did no such thing.
Have to agree with u entirely.
Oh..and btw, what u have written shows us the difference between us and them…if he’s going there he’s instantly world class and worth 40m.
The last decent signing we made was Alistair Johnston.
That’s three shocking transfer windows!
The Champions League campaign is going to be a joke… but the board only care about the money from that.
I just don’t know if all this is a money grab, or sheer incompetence when dealing with transfers.
I’m not satisfied with domestic success alone! Grrrrrrrrr!
100% right bang on.