Any period of time without football matches is usually a rather sanguine one for the Ibrox klanbase.
The local media tell them what they want to hear and there is none of that pesky on-field reality to burst the bubble.
The winter shut down of 2019 was especially enjoyable for the folk who gave us the Famine Song.
The last match of 2018 yielded up an entirely unexpected victory over the champions.
As revealed on this site the Celtic squad had been degraded by a winter vomiting bug.
Only Craig Gordon and Calum McGregor were unaffected.
In the aftermath of the 1-0 defeat, Brendan Rodgers didn’t want to make a big deal about it.
However, it was a material change on the circumstances in the pre-match period.
For the first three weeks of 2019, it was self-evident that The People believed that their time had come.
Of course, the local media were happy to assist in this feel-good pish.
Then the Sevco High Command pushed the boat out with the loan deals for Davis and Defoe.
The dignified euphoria at Ibrox was off the radar and the Stenography Corps told The People that they were entirely justified to believe that the basket of assets would win the title.
However, hope can be a hazardous substance,
Sadly, last night reality intervened.
Kilmarnock dispatched them without being brilliant.
Steve Clarke continues to work wonders on a very meagre budget.
While this was unfolding in Ayrshire Celtic went about their business efficiently.
Despite being without Édouard, Rogic and Tierney the Hoops strolled it like champions.
Yes, their opponents are in the relegation zone, but such teams can often dig and scrap for a draw.
The league table is now was it was before the match on the 29th December.
Celtic are now once more ahead of Sevco by three points and the champions have a game in hand.
The challenge of Kilmarnock, given their budget, is remarkable.
However, injuries and suspensions could hit them in the months ahead and this when squad depth really does prove crucial.
The two loan deals that the champions have brought in have hit the ground running.
Both Burke and Weah know where the goal is.
An important point is that Celtic could afford to do this business with PSG and WBA respectively.
For the avoidance of doubt, the two loan deals for Davis and Defoe are financially ruinous and the whole of Planet Fitba are rubbernecking to see how this will play out.
With all of that Brendan Rodgers took the opportunity in the post-match presser to shine a light on what might be playing out at Celtic.
His comments on the possible acquisition of Ukrainian winger Maryan Shved should concern everyone in the green corner of Glasgow.
You can listen to it here and a hat tip to the folk @90MinuteCynic.
Has Brendan sanctioned this proposed acquisition?
Was it his idea?
He makes several references to “the club” wanting the player and not himself.
Rodgers’ words make my recent piece about “Project Management” appear to be worryingly prescient.
When the Irishman took over at Celtic in the summer of 2016 he had a serious sit-down with senior people at the club.
Brendan and Chris Davies were aghast at the expensively misshapen squad that had been assembled.
The ex-Liverpool boss then insisted that he be in total charge of player acquisitions.
Now that appears to have fallen down.
Unlike the valued customers of Sevco the Celtic support have an instinctive distrust of those in authority positions.
We don’t do deference and the words of the Celtic manager are especially concerning on a night when the natural order of things as re-established on Planet Fitba.
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Brendan now stating he has the final say on all signings, unequivocal about it.
Thanks Phil your info is for me as near as we’ll ever get to knowing what’s truly going on backstage at Paradise,and that is very concerning that it seems BR isn’t in total control of the signings.As ‘Terence Nova’ states ‘I thought We had that sorted.’‼️
You’ve been busy and I’m late in catching up,Ceannais.
On the other hand, if our scouts have stumbled on the next Messi or Ronaldo and can sign him for a pittance now then surely it would be wise to do so? Should that be the case, might I suggest we bypass Southampton and sell direct to Liverpool this time. Or City, United, Chelsea or any side with a seemingly endless supply of blank cheques. But still with a sell on clause for when they move to Barca, PSG?
At the end of the day its all about money, unfortunately and fortunately money drives our club, buying and selling is all part of this structure, won’t be the first board to promise a manager X but then supply Y.
BR is the manager of the team, others are in charge of the club and they pick the new staff for him to manage.
1000s (and me) disagree with this but at the end of the day PL and others pull the strings.
Its a pity it’s come to this as several recent purchases have been a total waste of time, money and studs, and the end of the day all we can do is hope.
A couple of miles away is a company/team that lives well outside its means and looked what happened there…. and seems to be no lesson learned either.
Players at Celtic will always come and go, hopefully with a hefty price tag…. and why…. because its a business.
Wanyama, Foster, Van dijk, Dembele, Armstrong all sold for millions.
I’d love to see it spent on decent quality players rather than a shit load of fringe players… hail hail.
Makes you wonder if the purchase of the Ukrainian winger Мар’ян Швед is just a potential sell on money making exercise as part of the club’s overall buy em cheap and sell on policy.
I can’t see why BR would go along with this as there’s a a surfeit of wingers at the club already, hope they’re not planning to stopgap the CB/RB positions with Bitton or McGregor for the rest of the season.
It was clear that BR neither needs nor wants another winger. Buying a 21 year old to immediately send him out on loan is a rational I struggle to get my head round. Now, I fully understand that it really is impossible these days, when players are regularly bought from clubs based thousands of miles away, for a manager to go and watch every player brought to his attention.
A bigger question for me is WHY are our recruitment team even looking at wingers just now. I would have thought the logical chain of command would be Manager, telling the Head of Recruitment what he wants. Head of Recruitment then passing this on to the scouts. A list of possible candidates being drawn up. Surely then, the sensible thing would be to fly them over to Glasgow and watch them train and in a couple of bounce games where the MANAGER can decide if any of them meet his needs.
Now if someone is about to be signed that BR knows little or nothing of, this is clearly not happening. It looks to me as though either: Someone is stepping in between the manager and the Head of Recruitment at the start of the process, or the latter is making decisions without consulting anyone else.
In either case, BR NEEDS TO GET ON TO DD and have remits clearly defined. ANYONE who has a problem with this knows where the door is. When BR is publicly making statements like this we can’t write it off as MSM mischief making. Something is broken and it needs fixing. RIGHT NOW!!
At least the points all went to the right places last night…
Celtics new loan pair look to have plenty goals to come between them. While I still don’t see them as an investment for the future…. I suppose they can be considered an investment in ‘the 10’..
…even if both are gone in the summer… if they help us get to 8 then they’ll have done their job.
While there IS a week of the window left and Celtic fans hope for some defensive upgrades, I am concluding that this will be a matter left until the summer .
I suppose it makes sense as there will be more movement of players and more chance of finding the right one(s).
It looks very much like the conclusion of the board (if not the manager) is that there is not an issue in terms of domestic football.
I suspect they are going by the old adage about simply scoring more each game than you concede. Celtic have more than enough firepower for this but ….
Europe will be a different matter!
I was forced last night to have to listen to the Killie v Sevco game (BBC’s favour) and keep tabs on proceedings at Celtic Park.
In comparison the projected media hype regarding ‘seasoned pros who will win matches’ with ‘untested youngsters with limited experience’ took on a rather ‘polar shift’ once stats & nostalgia was replaced with ‘actual football’.
A better comparison would be ‘energy filled thoroughbreds’ v ‘tired old donkeys’.
I just hope the thoroughbreds stay fit as they can be fragile beasts ( especially in hoops)
Donkeys while slow are resilient.
Incidentally – Sevcos young Colombian donkey seems to have a good fitness record. I can’t recall him missing a single match through injury. Then again he gets a bit of rest when those cards mount up.
Sounds like he could be off the the ‘sanctuary’ of Southern France now anyway if Mr King gets enough to fund his compulsory share offer.
Oi Dave!!!! Where’s the statement ?
I couldn’t believe what I heard from Brendan in that presser. He is a man who usually chooses his words carefully so what he says, and when he says it, adds some gravitas to it. It is very worrying indeed and I now wonder whether the heated driveway chap is exerting control again. I don’t have an issue, per se, with adding Shved if he is indeed decent and could be developed. However, my problem with this is that they are obviously focused on other issues than finding what most people view as the current need; namely cover at CB and RB. If they screw this up again then there will be hell to pay from the fanbase.
Slightly off topic but there is an interesting FT article about Metro Bank from yesterday.
“Metro Bank reveals riskier commercial loan portfolio
Share dive almost 40% after challenger discloses accounting error and profit warning”
IIRC Metro Bank were the only institution willing to offer banking services to Sevco. What might happen if they suddenly became more risk averse?
Heard in October that Rodgers was off at the end of the season.Think there may be some truth in this , especially with the news about the Ukrainian winger signing.We shall see.
If our manager is not in on this deal, then how is he expected to pick a team. Are we to keep this signing on a back burner, until either he leaves or another YES man is installed. Hail Hail
Points towards Brendan’s exit at the end of the season as this signing would indicate ‘the club’ are willing to listen to offers for James Forrest – neither the player, nor the manager wishes this to happen.
Recently there have been grumblings at board level re our player wage bill.
Is ‘the club’ about to further undermine our Midas touch manager in a power struggle leaving the latter no option but to tell us he has taken the club as far as he can and it’s now time for a fresh face to take us forward?
If this is so then any replacement would see the manager’s role as a poisoned chalice as Mr Lennon did, hence the Deila experiment.
We always get so far, then fall back having to start all over again.
This lack of foresight has horrendous consequences financially – Deila experiment and a half empty Celtic Park with the financial consequences lessened only by timely player sales.
Mr Desmond, I hope, is watching carefully and showing a distinctly forensic interest in his long term investment re the consequences of Brendan being undermined. Brendan has produced the goods and not only corrected the mistakes made by the failed Deila experiment, but done it largely with Deila’s tools. He’s his own man, brilliant at what he does, but he IS very much his own man. He desperately wants success for us at the next level (Europe) which requires investment but brings huge financial dividends.
So far Brendan has more than earned the trust of investing in what he asks for, yes there have been a few duds, but that’s the nature of the game. Look at the big financial picture – incremental increases in turnover across ALL revenue streams. In short Brendan’s achievements are bringing financial growth aside from player sales, and yes, a hotel would add another.
Can Mr Desmond afford another financial ‘tits up’ driven by ‘the club’s’ lack of foresight And us going back to square one again. We’ve got to avoid this cycle, and in Brendan we have the right manager in place.
We’re a team and succeed because of teamwork. The supporters, those running the club and all involved playing football all play their part.
Egos, if allowed to flex muscle are detrimental to the long term aims of the club.
‘The club’ needs to look much more closely at the more successful financial models of buying and selling clubs in Europe ALONGSIDE our manager, being primarily guided by HIS expertise NOT acting inspite of it. Defenders? Where are they in this window?
The evidence is seen repeatedly in transfer window disasters – penny wise pound foolish dealings.
We need to future plan including EVERYONE’s expertise if we’re to succeed in the buying and selling model – not the haphazard approach this window is already panning out to also be.
Wage structure will fall back into place only if we emulate those who have a smaller financial fan base and turn over yet out perform us in Europe on the park. To perfect this model will take time. But we have the financial fan base to grow above them IF we can successfully emulate them.
Brendan can only get players to punch above their weight on occasion, and not always as is expected of him.
What he can do is give us the foundations to succeed like other smaller European clubs have.
Can we afford to spurn the opportunity he represents for us?
All things being equal the Hoops will be sitting 6 points clear of the Ibrox outfit come 5pm Saturday night and with a very healthy goal difference. That particular challenge is over.
If Aberdeen come out of the Killie game with 3 points then they will become number one challenger.
A Scottish Cup visit to Killie could see an early end to the Govan club’s season especially if the Petted Lip has been moved on leaving Defoe and Lafferty to shoulder responsibility for goals.
Burke, apart from his goals, showed some great touches last night, and he chased down every ball.
Loved the way Weah ran in behind defenders to find space despite Saints at times having all their players in or around their own box.
Lets push on over the next few weeks, seeing off any challengers for the SPFL title and clearing the path to a historic back to back treble, treble.
C’mon the Hoops.
Aye…BR’s ” reaction ” to the Shved signing…is extremely concerning.
It looks like the tail is now wagging the dog…and I stupidly thought we had sorted it.
Will we ever get this right…?
Dear oh dear Celtic.
I read with nothing short of astonishment at the aforementioned Ibrokes/daily Ranker blogger Phil, I could never imagine a similar outlet being afforded affords a Tim.
This guy is mental. He says “7 trophies out of 7” is basically shit. I almost stopped there but that part of me that also watches those dodgy videos my pals send me on WhatsApp had me hanging onto the end.
I’m still gobsmacked.
Hoops on the other hand look tasty, 7 goals in 2 games, new bhoys looking good and Bayo introduced to a good sized crowd will make that bhoy hungry.
Let’s hope we do some CB and RB business but to be fair I can’t see it.