Today in The Guardian, there’s an article featuring Liverpool’s goalkeeper Alisson, who raised concerns about the number of games players are now being asked to play. He’s right to say that the workload is at an all-time high. Eventually, you hit a breaking point. Eventually, you run out of available dates without forcing players to play four times a week.
His specific gripe is with the revamped Champions League format, which now sees clubs like Liverpool having to play two extra group-stage games. I find it somewhat amusing because, for example, the team that finished second in Scotland would have needed to navigate two qualifying rounds just to get into the tournament.
They didn’t even manage the first round, of course, but that’s what real fixture congestion looks like. Next season, even if we win the league, we’re probably going to have to go through at least one round of qualifiers just to reach the group stage.
There are definitely too many games and too many competitions.
The solution seems obvious: we either change the structure of the competitions or eliminate some of them entirely. But who’s willing to ditch the League Cup or Scottish Cup? If the alternative is something like a European Super League, you might get some supporters for that idea.
A revamped Champions League or Europa League won’t be enough to move the needle, and no domestic association will sacrifice one of its competitions just so a handful of elite clubs can further enrich themselves through European football.
Clubs could opt out of some competitions voluntarily, but that would come with consequences.
They’d need fan support, and I wonder if they’d get it. Associations would definitely push back, and rightly so. Manchester United briefly flirted with this idea when they dropped out of the FA Cup to play in the World Club Championship, but it wasn’t exactly a popular decision.
The other option clubs have is to build bigger and better squads. This is where Alisson’s point starts to lose ground because no EPL club competing in Europe can honestly claim they don’t have the resources to better prepare for that. The real issue isn’t how many games players are asked to play, but whether the clubs are structured to do it. A well-managed club with a deep squad can rotate players effectively without losing their competitive edge.
I’m planning a full article on the new financial sustainability regulations soon, diving into how they affect clubs in leagues like ours. The rules are necessary and, overall, good. However, they do have a downside, as they cement the financial advantage of teams in leagues with big TV deals and better sponsorship opportunities.
Still, these regulations have clipped the wings of clubs like the one across the city, who’ve been operating on borrowed time and borrowed money for years. Their squad right now highlights the stark difference between them and Celtic, and it shows they’re not set up for a long, demanding campaign.
Look at our bench from the weekend – it’s stronger than it has been in years. Beneath the starters, we’ve got a solid group of players who are right on the edge of the first team. Holm, Yang, and Nawrocki, for example, are struggling to even make the matchday squad.
This is where Celtic’s true strength lies – not just in the 25-man European squad, but in the depth beyond that.
Compare this to our rivals across the city. They don’t have the same depth or quality in any position.
If injuries hit, and they’re forced to play the same starting eleven week in, week out, it’ll take its toll. While we need to be cautious with key players like McGregor, Carter-Vickers, and Alistair Johnston, we can afford to rotate them. That’s the advantage we have.
We’re now in a multi-front campaign, and resource management is going to be the key to how we do. The Champions League this year looks like one where we can take points, secure cash, and rebuild our coefficient, but we need our best players fit and ready.
Next up is a Champions League game on Wednesday, followed by Falkirk at home in the League Cup. With all respect to Falkirk, we should be able to rest several key players. A “second-string” side should be more than enough for that fixture.
But “second-string” is a relative term here, of course.
When I use that phrase, I’m still talking about a midfield featuring three out of McGregor, Hatate, Holm, McCowan, Engels, and Bernardo.
Our so-called weakest back line would be Sinisalo, Ralston, Trusty, Welsh, and Valle.
Our wide men could be Yang and Luis Palma, with Maeda or Idah leading the line; being able to choose from one of them, with Idah being our second most expensive signing ever, the term “second string” starts to look very amusing indeed.
Even with those changes, we’d be putting out a team strong enough to comfortably deal with most sides in the league, and that’s why we should consider doing exactly that. It’s like having all that money in the bank – what’s the point if you’re not using it? Why have a strong squad if you’re not going to rotate and rest players when you have bigger games on the horizon?
Our ability to manage this strength in depth will be a decisive factor this season.
I’m confident we’ll win the title regardless, but if we use our resources wisely, we can do so comfortably, wrap up a domestic treble, and make progress in Europe all at the same time. Meanwhile, our rivals will struggle to balance their small squad over the course of the season.
There is no way that their side is built for a multi-competition season; it will be creaking by the time we get to mid-November and if we do the job right we could have retired another Ibrox boss and be on the way to getting his replacement sacked as well before this campaign is done.
As I’ve said, I’m genuinely excited about the campaign ahead, both domestically and in Europe. We’ll get a clearer picture of the manager’s strategy on Wednesday, and again at the weekend when we see how many changes he makes for the Falkirk game.
I expect a fair few, but it’ll be interesting to see exactly how many.
The Falkirk game will be “interesting,” in that it might give us an idea on how Brendan plans to rotate his squad this Winter. While across the river? Now is the Winter of their Discontent! With pro King acolytes, the anti King bears and the lying King himself agitating furiously for position and power, the one guarantee is that they will not all be pulling in the same direction. Ergo progress, never a guarantee, will be slow as they drag their deadweights behind them. Discontent will not do justice to how many of them are feeling by the time we rock up to ibrox for the bells. Less the N’erday bells and more the doomsday bells around ibrox.
It’s interesting that it’s a goalkeeper as in Allison that is highlighting this as they’ve the least energy to burn on the field of play…
However it is indeed almost a year long playing sport now is the footy…
Eight games For Celtic in Europe this season and guaranteed as well –
Utterly scary that that would have had Celtic in a European Cup Final back in the days when I started out supporting them…
Perhaps – In actual fact probably – I’ll be in the minority here but I preferred the old European Cup knockout system, probably not many would agree these days but hey ho – it takes all sorts to make a world I guess !
Totally agree with you regarding old knock out system.
Also only champions and previous winners in the competition.
Money talks though, so sadly can’t ever see anything like that returning.
As much as it’s unfair tae single players out at this time, the start of our euro campaign. Considerin we haven’t seen anythin of Trusty yet. My concerns are
still for Liam Scales and Gregg Taylor. Hope more than before, these guys can show they’re capable of competing at this level. We’ve a great chance here tae make some sort of positive impression.
I’m always impressed by the reasearch that the regular CL big and not so big hitters do prior to facing an opponent such as Celtic. You can set your watch to them starting the match with a clear plan to target specially perceived weak areas on the pitch, with a high rate of success. Although I agree that Scales and Taylor have excelled in the domestic game, I’ve no doubt whatsoever that Celtic’s left hand side will be targetted more than any other area of the pitch. I hope Liam and Greg can stand up to the scrutiny that will undoubtedly come their way
Domestic FA’s aren’t willing to give up tournaments, UEFA competitions are growing and FIFA wants in with an expanded World club championship which will be Saudi backed and is inevitable. Something has to give. It might suit Celtic to join a European league but I don’t think the English will go for it, they’d be more likely to pull out of UEFA competitions.
I’m excited about our chances this season but it has to start tonight.