KILMARNOCK, SCOTLAND - MAY 15: Celtic Board members Peter Lawwell and Michael Nicholson during a cinch Premiership match between Kilmarnock and Celtic at Rugby Park, on May 15, 2024, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images)
In a couple of days’ time Celtic’s Champions League squad is locked down. Locked down until after the qualifying route. Locked down until the transfer window shuts.
And I think it’s reasonable to suggest it may be locked down for a lot longer than that. Because I see no signs of life. I see no signs that this club is getting real, getting serious, getting ready to sign players and show the requisite level of ambition.
I see no signs of that at all.
That’s a problem. But not for me. Not for many of you. Because we saw this coming, and we know what this is. Brendan Rodgers also saw this coming. He knows exactly what this is. He knows this is an insult to him. He knows this is the bean-counters blocking his plans for the team. He is under no illusions about what that means, and nobody else should be under any illusions either.
Now, when this transfer window comes to an end – and it’s as bad as many of us believe it’s going to be – the board will be laughing its collective backsides off. They’ll have assured themselves that Rodgers won’t stay, that as of next season control will be entirely in their own hands, and that they’ll have the chance to sign whatever players they want.
They’ll also be free to hire a pliable manager. One who will dutifully try to turn those players into a team. Which Rodgers most definitely will not do if he thinks they’re subpar.
That’s the game plan. That’s the sleight of hand.
There’s a question that always arises when Rodgers’ judgement is put under the microscope. His critics claim that he “wrote off” the summer transfer window of 2023. They insist he didn’t even attempt to develop the players brought in. They say he dismissed them out of hand.
The same critics are often the ones who claim his career is full of bad signings, that he can’t identify talent.
But Rodgers can spot a player whether these people want to admit it or not. He can also see who’s not a player. And the evidence for that is pretty compelling.
So let’s actually look at the 2023 summer transfer window, because it raises the central question. Where is the player who proves Rodgers’ judgement was flawed? Which of those signings has gone on to prove themselves a top-class footballer – the kind Celtic could have built something around?
The answer is nobody. Not one of them.
There isn’t a single Celtic-grade player amongst that intake. Rodgers was right not to waste his time. He was right not to throw minutes at guys who weren’t good enough. He was right to cut bait and move on.
Critics can howl all they want, but he called it.
And that’s what scares me. Because my darkest fear is that those kinds of signings – the low calibre punts, the squad-fillers, the projects who never develop – will be the norm from next season.
Our future is being mapped out for us already. Look at this window: seven signings so far. Two – maybe three – look like they’ll be first-team capable. One of the others is a development player, who will likely be shipped to another club for seasoning. One is someone else’s development player. Shin Yamada might make it. And then there’s the pièce de résistance: a goalkeeper who once left the club because we didn’t develop him properly, only for us to re-sign him years later.
Nygren and Tierney are our big two, straight into the team. That’s the seven. That’s the haul we’re supposed to get excited about. Well, forgive me if I don’t.
When this window closes, and the Celtic board are cracking open champagne, they won’t be laughing at me. They won’t be laughing at the other fan media guys who’ve stuck their necks out in recent weeks, hammering this board in podcasts and articles and every platform available. Because we were right. It was others who were wrong.
When those directors are chuckling to themselves, they’ll be laughing at those who kept the faith. Those who gave them the benefit of the doubt. Those who bent over backwards to excuse their every failure, even when the evidence was staring them in the face. That’s who they’ll be laughing at. And they should be.
We’re getting down to the nitty-gritty now. The point where those who praised this board, who defended this board, who told the rest of us to “stop wetting the bed” or “stop panicking,” are going to have to face reality. Because we were right to be concerned. We were right to be disgusted. We were right to be critical.
We were right to back the manager. We were right to back the team. We were right to fight for this club being everything that it can be. What do these people think – that we’ve spent weeks and months saying this stuff because we like the sound of our own voices? That we’ve done it just to cause trouble inside our own walls? Nonsense.
We’ve done it because the evidence has been clear from the start. This board has no serious people on it. No serious ambition. No serious interest in giving Rodgers what he needs.
The arrogance of those who have defended them, while sneering at us, is staggering. But their defence has now passed the point of farce. The hours are ticking down before deals have to be done for this competition, and they are still nowhere. So, here’s the truth those people need to face.
We love this club every bit as much as they do. We’ve just refused to let ourselves be blinded by false hope or spoon-fed excuses.
The board will try to spin this, of course. They always do. They’ll trot out the usual guff about “prudence” and “value” and “long-term planning.” They’ll dress it up as wisdom and foresight. But we know better.
We know what we’re watching. We know the damage being done. We know Rodgers is being disrespected. And when the curtain falls on this window, it won’t be us who were wrong. We will, however, suffer the consequences along with all those who looked the other way or worse, sneered at us from the sidelines.
Agreed
FFS James, you have been banging the same drum for weeks now, please give it a rest. Of course you are more entitled than any of us to have a go at the board and they deserve it, we all know that, but this week when we have a massive play-off game in Europe can you not come up with something positive to say about the team and the players instead. We have won three games in a row with a bit of comfort and we are now raring to go for that next one, the one that can take us to the Champions League Group stages. That is our focus now, or certainly should be, not you still trying to prolong a battle that you admitted that you lost.
We should all be fully focused on Wednesday night. COYBIG.
There’s plenty of happy clappy stuff out there if that’s what you want. I personally would rather hear the unvarnished truth and do not want to let the board off the hook after all that’s what they’d love.
Do you really think they are on any hook, or even care? We already know the unvarnished truth, we have been listening to it for weeks now. Personally, I would rather read about Wednesdays game now, than all that regurgitated stuff that is getting us nowhere. Each to his own I suppose.
As I said there’s plenty of other places to read about the game. The only way to put pressure on the board is to keep these issues live.
Was pretty sure that Celtic would at least have signed a right winger to back up Forest but I can now see Nygren starting on Wednesday with Engels coming back.
The real worry is no proper back ups especially if injuries occur.
If everything turns out to be true that the board will continue to undermine the manager on purpose then Brendan should resign.
The fans will then have a decision to make.
HH
And am sick of you defending them every time every day mate!! Ur a fuckin joke to defend a board with no ambition but huns are like that
Show me where I defended them?
This should be good?……take your time.
I’m still waiting.
Johnny
One of the truest sayings is, its better to be thought of as arsehole than to say something and prove it.
Rhymes with piss. thank you for your wisdom.
You are a wordsmith virgin, the first sensible thing that comes out of your mouth will be…..well it will be your very first.
You are on here to talk down to people. You say the opposite because it seems to turn you on, so many of tour replies are condescending. You are the typical pub bore who stands alone at the bar and says things to provoke. Like todays fitst offering for example. You are asking a Celtic blogger whose job is to comment on the way the club is, to suddenly stop talking about the main issue that sees the club not replacing the forward line the last window and this one which leads to to todays blog from James. But you dont want to hear that becausr you sre an oddball. Instead James hasn’t to say anything at all about it, Pravda like because we have a match through the week!!! Celtic have 2 matches a week now till the window closes, so going with your pathetic views, James had better not say a thing about it from now till the window closes!!! You are a fuckwit of the highest order.
Loads of typos, using my phone without my glasses on?
At least you managed to construct a fool sentence for a change.
Thats their get out Johnnybhoy, then 2018 is here again from the govan sewer
I still don’t believe they will leave us with this squad. We know we have some good players but there’s no depth in key positions, so it’s not a dig at the guys in the building it’s just plain to see we’re going to need more. Jota aside, we’ve no real injury worries but that can change and our back up options are either unproven or not good enough.
There are no signs of life seemingly but like I said, I don’t think they’ll be so blind as to leave the squad as is.
It’s still a failure on their part even if we get guys in, they’ll have gotten away with a reckless gamble.
??
I have the same train of thought Brattbakk. I can’t believe that we won’t bring nay more players in. I feel like they are operating in the most moronic way of lets see if we qualify for the champions league or not then we will decide level of investment. Rather than the sensible route for a team in spending the money & having a champions legaue ready team that will coast the qualifying because BR got his pre-season with the complete squad.
I think the way this board operate in the market is embarrassing. They seem to just fanny around the whole window but do usually invest & in recent windows it has mostly been late in the day.
I do think we could see scenes similar to 20/21 season when the fans have had enough but that was in protest of a manager not an entire board which is a far more difficult foundation to move
They might have a change of ‘plan’ come Wednesday at 10pm depending on two results…
There again – They fuckin well might not have !
2nd part seems to be the more likely unfortunately
They’ve nae European ambition. None. They see our club as one big cash cow. Have tae laugh at the comments on here, sayin because this subject is repetitive, we should all just more or less just sit back, shut up and take it. Fuck you ! That’s EXACTLY what this board are wantin us tae dae. You people are this boards wet dream. This is our only way right now, of lettin them know its becomin increasingly more obvious what theyre doin and the feelin is, it won’t be tolerated much longer. There will be a time when the support will decide they’ve had enough and if they fail us again here, i for one would back any kind of organised action, tae put as much of a squeeze on their cash inflow as possible, with regards tae season tickets and merchandise. Hit them in the ONLY place it will hurt them.
Personally Kevcelt, I can see quite clearly people’s anger at the present circumstances, of course I can for we all want the same thing, a stronger Celtic. But this week particularly, I am more interested in the teams exploits in Europe than I am of the sideshow that has been created by the board.
An organised action? It will never happen.
You can multi task and have a strong interest in both. Isn’t that difficult for most people.
It will never happen.
You are stating this as fact.
When did you first realise that you can see into the future?
@JG. In case ye haven’t noticed. The reason for this article, is tae highlight how ill prepared we are once again for the Europe your talkin about, due tae this boards incompetence, when strengthenin should’ve been done before now. That’s the bloggers whole point. The Celtic support see Europe every bit, or even more so, as important as the domestic. And ye seem tae underestimate the Celtic support, when ye say some sort of organised action will ‘never happen’. Think ye’ll find if this continues, it could very much turn intae a reality. The support ARE the club and care more about it, than that lot sittin up there on their piles of cash ever will.
Well said Kevcelt,this board are a disgrace and it’s time for some action,it’s all very well winning the pishy SPFL but we need to show a big improvement in Europe but with no sign of any more decent players coming in,this is all down to the money grabbing penny pinching board and James and the fans are quite right to continue to castigate this shower of chancers.
Bravo ??H.H.
The board and happy clappers seriously piss me off. Kyogo and Kuhn, 27m and still no replacements. Shame on you
The Celtic board are shameless,this is the 1st year I have not bought any merchandise & it may continue as it seems the only way to hurt this board is to keep your money in the bank as the charlatans do
But , James, you’re seriously over reacting, are you not?
Have you not read Paul Brennan over on CQN?
His claim is “ Brendan gets what Brendan wants” so I guess Brendan doesn’t really want anyone ? He’s just trying to make our wonderful leaders look silly before he leaves us.
Mischievous Brendan.
The board apologists, having realised that they’ve been talking pish for weeks, are now trying to deflect from the shit show that’s unfolding.
They were and are wrong, and their support enabled this bunch of chancers, to the ultimate detriment of Celtic.
Shame on them.
BTW. I wonder if there will be a spot for Mrs Lawwell in this brave new world.
TELT YEES.
James I’m caught in between you and the board, I get it that a couple of signings should have been made by now, but it is what it is and we’ve got to roar the team on this Wednesday night. The draw has been kind to us, Almaty are the lowest seeded team left in the Qualifiers, and luckily I’m pretty sure the team as it is now should be good enough to take us through. If they don’t then we’re probably not good enough to take part in the Champions League proper. The board will definitely deserve all the flak that will come their way if we don’t beat this team over 2 legs.
The frustrating thing is I think the Manager has the team playing good high tempo football, and a couple of quality additions could make us into a really decent team.
After the qualifiers, teams of around our calibre can weigh up their options, depending on how they’ve done in the Qualifiers. Players become available who weren’t the week before. A big week coming up for the Players, Support and most of all the Board , The Latter will not be forgiven if this goes wrong.
“A couple of quality additions”…. If this board had ANY kind of ambition at all then this is what would happen at just about every transfer window. 2 or 3 quality signings plus replacing the ones we sell for 3 or 4 times the price we paid for them, because we would sell them on. We’d soon have a team that would be getting into knockout stages of CL every year and steamrolling SPFL.
It’s almost surreal looking at the happy clappers comments telling us to move on and just talk about the football…as if the result of a football match is more important than how our club is run.
This blog has always been about much more than the football and is why people capable of critical thinking are on it.
As others have repeatedly stated why don’t ye go back to your favourite site where brennan can tell ye what Peter told him to say.
Hear hear. The Last of the Summer Whine blog is full of them – all old duffers wallowing in bygone days, led by cult leader P67.
Celtic have the strongest defence and midfield in a long number of years.
Sign a couple of quality forwards and we will all be happy clappers including James.
HH
The irishman todays Sir Robert & co bleeding our clubs profits between them, ask what their divident payouts will be again, they all must go before they do irrepairable damage as one day for sure they will, clear visions of 2018 here,