A week ago, it looked as though Celtic might sign two international midfielders. Today, there is a story that we might try to sign Joel van den Berg, a 19-year-old PSV Eindhoven reserve who has made only five appearances for their first team.
Martin O’Neill, who seemed optimistic that we would strengthen multiple positions, sat in front of the media yesterday and talked about the priorities being a left-back and a box-to-box midfielder. Almost everybody in the Celtic support expected us to get two midfielders; we did not expect one of them to be a B team player from Holland.
Please note what is missing from that.
There is nowhere in there for a central defender. There is nowhere in there for a right-back. There is nowhere in there for a left-sided attacking midfielder. And if something happens to Viljami Sinisalo, we are going into Europa League games with Ross Doohan as our goalkeeper and I couldn’t even tell you the name of the backup.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
The Ibrox club has gone out of Europe completely and I guarantee you they will spend more money in the next five days than we will. Guaranteed.
After they dropped from the Europa League into the Conference League, they still went out and spent heavily. We went out of the Champions League into the Europa League, sitting on an £8 million trading surplus, and we are nickel-and-diming our way around Europe.
Our transfer policy is a flat-out disgrace.
The board of directors at this club is a joke.
They have no ambition. They have no balls. Their instinct is always to do things as cheaply as possible, and because of that behaviour, because of that way of operating, Celtic has lost more than £20 million in Champions League revenue and our transfer failures have potentially cost us God knows how much more in bankable assets and saleable talent we could have made major profits on.
They caused this mess. Now they are making the manager pay for it. How much more of this are Celtic supporters going to take?
Europa League ticket packages will soon be going on sale. It will be a travesty if more than half of them are sold. If you are still in the Home Cup Ticket Scheme, what are you doing? If you are still insisting on buying a ticket for every match, what are you thinking?
What is going to be enough?
A four-goal aggregate lead with half an hour remaining was overturned in midweek to inflict on us one of the most humiliating European results in our recent history, and now the board of directors is making it increasingly clear that we are shopping from the B or C list of transfer targets. That simply will not do.
The left-back is likely to be Landon Emenalo, a young Chelsea player on loan. The box-to-box midfielder could now be Van den Berg, a teenager whose football so far has been overwhelmingly with Jong PSV.
What in God’s name are we doing? What in God’s name is O’Neill doing standing for this? This club needed a major rebuild. By the end of this window, we could still have gaps everywhere in the squad and millions sitting untouched in the bank.
What in God’s name is it going to take before people stop putting up with this?
A major meltdown in the domestic game?
In case anybody has failed to notice, the Ibrox club is tooling up. I normally don’t give a damn what they are doing across the city, provided Celtic is getting its own business right. But we are not getting it right.
And I do not believe for one second that Derek McInnes is going to remain manager over there for much longer if his form continues. We had better hope they do not eventually bring in somebody who actually knows what he is doing. Because our policy, as usual, appears to be predicated on them remaining a mess.
We are a mess. We are without question a club of low ambition and low intent, run by men so cowardly and gutless that the thought of spending a penny more than we have brought in through transfers seems to scare the living daylights out of them.
By the time this window closes, we are not going to be nearly done. All these people are doing is putting off, putting off and putting off the necessary rebuild.
Look at what has happened with two of the midfielders Celtic has been chasing. Ermin Mahmi? is reportedly going to Çorum for £4.3 million. That is a club which is not playing European football at all. Gvidas Gineitis, the Torino midfielder Celtic has been pursuing, has also been attracting interest from RB Salzburg, another Europa League club just like us. Celtic had been quoted a price of around £9 million for him.
So, spare me the Champions League excuse. That’s all it is. These people simply do not want to spend money and they have no problem ripping the piss out of us. It does not wash. The difference is that Salzburg has shown more bottle, more balls and more intent in the transfer market than Celtic has shown. The Turks have moved whilst we dithered and delayed. It is shameful that anyone would defend this arrant nonsense a minute longer.
All the talk about lessons being learned was bullshit. It was talk designed to sell season tickets. These people have no intention of changing, reforming or doing things differently. The supporter-engagement exercise is a low farce which should be laughed out of the room, and the atmosphere towards the directors’ box today should be toxic.
I’ll tell you something else. One of the reasons Celtic got some of those pre-season deals across the line was the sight of empty seats. The club noticed them. The club panicked last season when supporters boycotted the Scottish Cup match at home. Tens of thousands of empty seats at Europa League fixtures are the sort of thing which could finally force this board to confront what it is doing.
Do not kid yourself that something else will magically happen. Do not imagine that some inspired act of God is going to change the way this football club is run.
It will not. Sooner or later, we are going to have to man up. Sooner or later, supporters are going to have to decide what they are actually willing to do.
This would be a completely different argument if Celtic were being run on sugar-daddy spending and somebody was asking rich people to dig into their own pockets to cover an irresponsible financial gap. But that is not what this is.
The club’s money belongs to you and me. We built the bankroll in the first place. We are the reason this club is wealthy and financially strong. This is our money they are refusing to spend. Once again, Celtic will send an enormous sum to HMRC while the first team is robbed of players in key positions.
We are a business which happens to operate a football club. We are no longer a football club which tries to run itself as a business.
If you are happy supporting a business, then go right ahead.
But this is not Celtic, and our problems have not even properly started yet, because we are staring at the prospect of further European humiliation on top of what we have already suffered, because this club won’t be nearly ready for some of the teams who are waiting for us in a few shorts weeks and months.
So, ask yourself; how much more of this are you willing to take? We were four minutes from losing the title last season to Hearts and the only thing these people took from it is that they were geniuses for binning the manager they hired and then retained for only eight games.
Let that sink in. Let it sit with you. Then decide.
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James, if you scroll back over my comments you’ll see I’ve been pretty consistent with my thoughts
I wrote ,after Paulina’s piece a couple of days ago, stating that Celtic wouldn’t sign anyone of note, and go down the rd of loans, projects or free agents, regardless of whom we may sell to try and recoup the boards failings.
If you look through my responses I’ve been consistent in my thoughts that a boycott of paradise would be the only meaningful way for the fans to make any headway into ousting the absent landlord and his minions.
I know this is asking a massive sacrifice on behalf of the support, but schemes like ” not another penny” etc, has done no good.
These buffoons are parasites and care nit a jot about anything other than their own bank balance and bleeding the club dry.
As you stated, the European package will soon be out, and like you, I would urge all Celtic fans to look at the state of playing and the mess this board has gotten us into, and ask themselves, how much more are we going to be suckers !
In a previous article, I also posed the question about Martin’s legacy and will it get damaged if he appears to be just a yes man for his pal in the golf course.
“Surely” if we in sign a 19 year old Dutch reserve, an 18 year old Chelsea project, and any free agents this board can excavate from a pile of “has beens” ,then for his own pride and honour to he couldn’t sit back and accept this?
He’s in his early 70s, and I use this as a yard stick to suggest that he doesn’t need the money.
I realise has a strong affection for the club, but there has to be a cut of point to say enough is enough.
History will tell us that we’ll still be here this time next week, with no meaningful signings.
Surely the time has now come for drastic measures??
If Callum goes, and I suspect that might be on the cards now, Martin and his coaches might go as well!!!!!!
If we only sign two teenagers on loan for the rest of this window that’ll put a much larger dent in my enthusiasm for the season than getting beat off LASK did. We need a lot more than that. If the plan is to limp to January and hope to get lucky with injuries then it’ll fail. Our four Europa home games all look very tough, it wasn’t a kind draw so we better have the squad.
These players we were linked which are now going elsewhere is either because we’ve pulled out the deal or they would only come to Glasgow for CL football. There’s plenty of other guys out there with quality for whom Celtic would be a welcome step up. No excuses.
If real signings don’t come to Paradise then the fans shouldn’t come either.
It’s the only way to send a message to these leeches.
As for the EL if we don’t add decent players then forget it.
Really is time for drastic action and I include MON in that also.
If the board don’t back him he should walk or risk the support of the fans.
He will always be a legend, even if he left and would go with our thanks.
Stay and he risks everything and just becomes a board lacky.
Very,very sadly I have been saying for many months that Rome is burning and maybe now people will start to realise it most definitely is.
Personally I am completely fucked reading the many daily comments and nicey,nicey suggestions about what needs done and the disgrace of those board bastards.
It is now time for serious action.
These counts are laughing their fucking heads off at us plebs and completely taking the cunt out of us.
I never use swear words to make a point,but I am now at the end of my tether with these cunts and also the daily dose of anti board weak waffle.
We cannot let these arrogant ,greedy,don’t give a fuck bastards continue to drink Dom Perignon whilst laughing at our puny protests.
We must get rid now or continue to be bullied and humiliated by weak men in suits who do not give a fuck about us or our club.
The fact that I have resigned to using swear words reflects the severity and level of my contempt.
PLEASE ACT.
Rome is burning.
Put the fire out before it’s too late.
You’re still stopping short of addressing the Season Ticket situation…If I was a Board member and was told of a 99.9% uptake on ST renewal…I would assume that the support , whilst angry at some things, are giving their ultimate support to the Board by renewing their ST…You and I both know that, by NOT renewing..this would have been a death knell for the Board…But that didn’t happen…So all I’ll say is… Ye canny hiv yer cake….and eat it.
Celtic are not going to deliver in this window. The fans are going to have to act.
The seeds of early CL elimination in 27/28 are being sown right now!
these people on the Board know that a few good results, and everyone settles down, let’s face it if we had been beaten 2-1 or got a 1-1 draw the other night, the majority of fans would be quite happy, whilst looking for a few signings by Thursday. James like me and around 52,000 others you renewed your ST, most of those people are unhappy with the Board, but were not able to make the ultimate sacrifice of giving up their ST’s. I’m not going to be a hypocrite and preach boycotts
Football fans just like meeting up with friends and going to the game, I honestly don’t know how we get this board to see sense, and give the manager of our football team the tools he requires.
I wish the Celtic Podcasters would do some digging and tell us who is scouting our prospective signings these days, because nobody seems to have a clue who is running our recruitment dept
As the cliche goes Football is a results driven business, and the results over the next 4 weeks will either calm things down at Celtic, or drive up the unrest even higher.
We can huff and puff all we want, but these people will ride out the storm if Celtic are domestically successful, and the crowds will keep turning up because unless your team play in the EPL, German Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1 or Serie A then domestic success is all you can hope for.
Granted we should be doing better in Europe, that’s a fact and our Board should be ashamed, because their lack of forward planning, is why we have failed to qualify over such a long period.
James, you mention a trading surplus of 8 million but given the payments due from UEFA due before end of September, we have in the region of 16 million upwards in total. That would have bought the two midfielders we had on our radar before Tuesday. The whole pack of them, MON included are lying bastards. For the guy from Hadjuk saying he is not coming cause we lost that game, turning down the chance to play in the Europa and get on the treadmill that leads to the EPL and going to a team that are in nothing and going nowhere, is a fairytale worthy of the Brothers Grimm.I can reluctantly accept failure after giving it a good try but I can not accept being lied too with such an unbelievable lie. They cant even put together a credible lie. They can all gtf and take o’neill with them
Very well said, Terry.
“Why does Martin O’Neill stand for this” you wrote, always someone else’s fault. Why did you buy a season ticket after years of watching the exact same movie. I notice you haven’t commented on Lazio fans as far as I can determine. That is what is needed, an empty stadium, until ST’s don’t sell and Europa League tickets don’t sell, nothing will change. Yes that is a major and very hard and unfortunate step for fans but we have been discussing the same greed of this board for too long. As long as they are building profit, nothing will change. The board really don’t care about team success as long as the lifelong obsession fans have with Celtic continues to fill the bank balance, that is where they have us by the balls. There is no point in looking at individual transfers we have lost out on, look at all the players we have lost out on collectively over the years, look at the total. You buying a ST was the main thing the board you claim to despise wanted most. All fans including myself need to look at our part in this shit continuing
ST holders have not have given up their tickets because there is no solidarity in the support. The Lazio fans like them or loathe them have made a massive statement but rest assured when all this is over they will get their tickets back. Celtic ST holders are worried other Celtic supporters will stab them in the back and pick up their tickets and they will be frozen out. That’s fair enough but they have no right to tell non ST holders not to buy merch or buy tickets for the cup games or europa league.
So all we have is NAP, if that even exists anymore. I’ve seen plenty new shirts going about.
Maybe the collective could organise a boycott of the next scottish cup home game…at least they would get 100% support this time compared to the 40% backing last time v Dundee? 🙂
We don’t need to arrange a boycott of our next home Scottish Cup tie – the SFA have already ordered that its to be played behind closed doors FFS !!
Try to keep up.
Whooosh!
Ha ha ? Are the SFA in collusion with the so called Collective lmao