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Thoughts From A Sofa 3

 

Refreshed and invogorsted from his break in the old country, el cormaco returns with some food for thought.

Thoughts form a sofa 3

 

“walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart”

 

Every Celtic fan will know these words well, and will at some stage have sung these words mournfully, at other times in celebration.

 

Right now I m finding it hard to relate to them, the hope in my heart has all but gone.

 

Tuesday night was a huge disappointment no doubt, but it got me thinking on my sofa about what Celtic is in today’s football world and where we go from here.

 

It is hard to see hope when our business model now is based entirely on being a selling club, finding “projects”, polishing them up and then selling them on for a profit.  Wanyama, Forster, Hooper, Mc Geady, Ki are the best examples of when this model works, and soon Van Dijk, then Bitton / Johannsen/ Forrest. When one of our players now goes on a geat run of form I don’t get exited for what tey are going to do for Celtic in the coming seasons but wonder how much we can sell him for.

 

For every success there is a Pukki, Balde, Bangura, Boeerrigiter – a punt that backfires and sees us lose money on players just to get them off the books.

 

To be clear, I understand why the board follows this model and I broadly support it. It does however kill hope in the heart – “success” i.e. reaching the CL group stage obviously generates money for the club in the short term but also in the medium term as these projects play on a bigger stage and add £ to their transfer value. Any player in our squad is available and all we can hope to do is stand still – imagine how much better our team could have played on Tuesday with a midfield of Wanyama, Ledley, Ki, but of course all these players are long gone, sold to maintain the financial position of the club, and their replacements are in my opinion in every case inferior. So success is not really on the field success, but financial, maintaining a position as Scotland’s pre eminent club and keeping shareholders happy

 

We are in a situation of ever decreasing circles – fail to qualify for CL group stage, sell players to make up the shortfall, bring in cheaper replacements hoping they can develop and get up to the level of their predecessors, see them fail and so another batch of players sold on. It gets to the point though were the replacements are not wanted by other clubs for large fees – Commons, Armstrong, GMS, and so we are left with a weaker squad and less finance with which to improve it.

 

To look for a moment at Tuesday itself, I think we can all agree where to point the finger:

 

The board for continual downsizing, corner cutting, finger crossing and general apathy towards the hopes and dreams of the fans. For taking for granted the devotion of the fans, and slowly eroding the hope that lives in our hearts. For failing to invest in glaring weaknesses in the team – full backs (both sides), centre half, creative midfielder, physically imposing striker.

 

The manager for getting what he asked for in terms of the pre season planning, but failing so far in my opinion to develop any viable plan B or to address our basic problems with defending set pieces, and failing seemingly to get the players up for such a huge game. Personally I am beginning to doubt in the Ronnie revolution – where was this super fit team to dominate possession with incisive passing? Would Lennon’s Celtic have allowed three goals from corners over two such important games? Ronnie talks a good game no doubt, and talks often about learning lessons, when are we to see the evidence of this learning? Having gone 2-0 up in the tie, a good, mature, well drilled team would have managed the tie from there on in, ensuring a relatively stress free progression. Celtic? We shat it, pure and simple.

 

The players for failing to play any where near as well in the second leg as they had done in the home leg, showing little desire or ability to get on the ball and open Malmo up. The goal Griffiths scored after a couple of minutes in the first leg was beautiful thing, quick incisive passing opening up the opponent before a calm finish, the very essence of what Ronnie has been talking about. But to fail to create another move any where close to that level for the remaining 180 minutes of the tie is an indictment of their heart, belief and ability. Did anyone with 20 minutes to go believe we were about to mount a siege on the Malmo goal to get back into the tie? Is Griffiths really viable at this level in away games when some form of physical presence is required to help the team get up the pitch? Is Charlie Mulgrew a viable left back? Boyata hasn’t been here long but the initial signs aren’t too good. Someone (sorry, cant remember who) talked about Johannsen as a plastic hard man the other day, a perfect description of his play of late, all posturing and pointing while under hitting obvious passes with outside of his foot.

 

All elements of the club – board, manager, players have work to do to restore faith and belief, but I think we the fans now sadly recognise that we are not a CL level club at this time, what is more depressing is trying to identify how we can become one again:

 

This year the bottom team in the EPL will receive £99m, last year across the summer and winter transfer windows £835m was spent in transfer fees in the EPL. How can Celtic possibly hope to compete? Is modern football now a bogey, a closed shop for the rich elite clubs with an ever widening financial gap that Celtic can only look on at enviously? Can the balance be redressed, and if so how?

 

With the draw out for Europa league, its got some good level teams, I don’t believe we’ll qualify from that group ahead of Ajax or Fenerbache, and so the ever decreasing circle takes another downward turn.

 

Finally to cheer myself (and maybe you if you are still reading) I’ve put my big crystal balls up on the table in front of the sofa and gazed at them for a while (some one has to) and I’ll do some predictions for the season:

 

Champions: Celtic. Surely we cant not win the league… but  I felt Hearts were coming up with great momentum, and will run us very hard and Aberdeen will be in and around again too. If we go on a shitty run we could very well put ourselves under some domestic pressure for the first time in a long time(and it may be no bad thing) With now playing Sundays we’ll be playing catch up on other teams, which can be difficult.

Relegated: Kilmarnock. Shite club, shite fans, even less ambition than our board, good bye and good riddance. I feel sorry for that guy on You tube, but he seems to be just about the only passionate fan they have.

Cup: Hearts. We seem to have lost the knack of winning “our” cup.

League Cup: Celtic …but yet seem to do well in this one now.

Manager of the Year: Super Duper Markie Mark Warbmeister Warburton. The best thing to happen Scottish football ever™. He’ll also be given a special medal in recognition of saving Scottish football and have a statue built outside Hampden by the SFA. Or the wheels will start to wobble on the heavy pitches, bears will begin to get angry once more, they will realise the club is running on fumes minus the promised “over investment” (2 players released this week, or “mutual consented” of course) and the whole thing could fall apart spectacularly

Player of the Year: I don’t know the names of many second Rangers players, but one of them. Whoever their top scorer is, accompanied by many many pages in the rags about why they are “so” good. Failing that Griffiths? He may not be good enough in Europe but will score score score for us this year.

Young Player of the Year: Can James Forrest still qualify? Some other Sevconian, with the help of some of the nominees in the Writer of the Year Award, hyped up to Lewis Mac Leod (?) levels of unsubstantiated moonbeamery

Top Scorer: Griffiths

Ref of the season: Very closely fought, Willie Collum and the lads will be battling hard to be the most biased, blind, ridiculous and laughable, but Steven Mc Clean will once again be the man to beat

Writer of the Year: another keenly fought contest, who can get their head furthest up the Warbmeisters back passage? Chris Jack has impressed so far, with his cuddly buddy Matt Lindsay showing good form too, but it’s a long season and there will be many fawning pieces written between now and then, unanimously informing us all of just how great the Warb-machine really is. Did you know he used to work in the City, working really long hours? It’s true you know. Did you know he left it and went back to football because he loves the game? Yep, fact. Or that he helped set up a European youth club competition? Its all true Timmy.

Funniest moments of  the year: When 2nd Rangers get the begging bowl out to get the money together to finish the season, and fans (co-investors) are convinced once again to be parted from their money

 

So that’ll do it, I’ll walk on, there is still some hope in my heart, but hope alone, expectation left a long time ago

 

 

 

 

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8 years ago

What a very good blog spot on on so many points and am the same still down and next to no hope that reptile lawell has stolen that as well as my money but am a Celtic fan and I’ll still cough up my dosh fool me HH

Charlie Saiz
8 years ago

Bit of realism will not do the place any harm El Comarco.
Yes it’s dour thoroughly depressing and ultimately a huge balloon burster being papped out the Champions League but the reality is we are a Europa League side now.
This is not the end of the world of course but a platform that is a good bit higher than the one we currently ply our trade in.
The Board are ultimately responsible for our demise at the top table.
Since the masses came back from Seville there has been a systematic downsizing at Celtic.
Debts run up have been brutally paid back at a severe cost to Managers and teams ever since.
The Mowbray experiment put the tin lid firmly back on the biscuit tin so to speak.
I think the turning point was probably Fortune £4m of utter mince.
Since then the Investors have baulked at anything near that amount.
We coulda probably shoulda bought Finnbogason 2 year ago that would have saved us the signings of Pukki Balde Scepovic and most likely Derk Boerrigormortis.
If there is an answer to reversing the trend then for me it lays at Boardroom level.
Surely Dermot can see the current situation is not one the Support are in favour of?
Surely the empty seats are a visual that he should be doing something?
He has the money to buy the other major shareholders out and raise another share issue not only to get his own input back to?
I think if he then gave us all the opportunity to take a 51% controlling share we could then see all profit at Celtic fed directly back into the side.
Something drastic needs to alter and I think a fan controlled Celtic could be it.

Devoy45
8 years ago

Charlie, totally agree.How can we get control of our team?

Charlie Saiz
8 years ago
Reply to  Devoy45

It could be done if say all the Ordinay Share Holders agreed to pool their shares as one elect a spokesman then approach Dermot and the Board and spell out what it was we wanted.
I don’t think Celtic should be being run for men with money making more money whilst the product on the Park suffers.
They could be given a plain and simple ultimatum by the fans through Dermot ..time is up you have made your skin now we want our Club back .being run properly of course but for the benefit of the Support,Management and Squad.
These people are not here for the love of the Club their primary interest is in making money.
Offer them the right price and kindly ask them to leave/fuck off.
Dermot could under right such a move he has the wedge.
Celtic Football Club is nothing without the fans it’s a business.
But it’s everything for the fans and we are not too interested in the business side of things.
The Clubs Finances should go directly back into the squad and running of the Club.
There should perhaps be more emphasis on Charity it is after all why we all ended up here.
I don’t think it’s healthy for Mr Lawwell to be lifting over £500k in Bonus in a year where we have failed as a Club to deliver.
That’s rewarding failure at the end of the day.
If the turnover has dropped 5%on the year then his Bonus and all their divid ends should reflect this.
It should not impact on the side.
This appears not to be the case.

Charlie Saiz
8 years ago
Reply to  Charlie Saiz

underwrite’

The real anton rogan
8 years ago
Reply to  Charlie Saiz

Charlie. No one makes money out of Celtic. No one. All money we earn, we spend.

Vinnie
8 years ago

Regarding “Ref.of the Season”

Don’t, whatever you do, forget Madden, who today made a serious bid for ‘stardom’ by showing 6 Yellows and a Red to QoS players and awarding TWO penalties against them. This might not, ordinarily, have helped him all that much except the opposition today was Lazarus Rovers.
No doubt they “gained no sporting advantage”, though.

On a brighter note. Tuesday night has gone and a truly horrible, sickening night it was too. But one terrible performance doesn’t mean everything’s wrong. Forget the Board, I don’t want to go there. With decent performances on the park (and no blatant cheating by Refs) we’re good enough to lift the treble and have a good go against Ajax, Fenerbahce and Molde. Europe till Christmas at least.
My glass is half-full again. Onwards and upwards.
HH

Bhoris
8 years ago

I’ve supported Celtic since i was born. I will support them till i die. Got millions of memories following the tic and i will get loads more before i die. Listen to friends and other peoples stories about following their teams and they dont come close to my memorys. Dont care how bad or good we ever get i will always know we are the best and thats fucking magic!

el_guapo
8 years ago

It can’t be argued against that the board are generally too conservative when it comes to spending but I would ask this question. How many clubs in the “Champions” qualification route of the Champions League have a higher budget than we do? Malmo certainly don’t. So I think “spend more” is a slightly facile argument. Would an extra 5 million investment have sent us through the other night? I doubt it because that kind of money doesn’t buy you genuine quality anymore.
For me there’s a feeling of inevitability about our position right now. It’s slightly depressing but until a time comes where money isn’t concentrated with the same clubs then this is how it will be.

San Miguel
8 years ago

You should also remember that the fans were doing the huddle at 3-1 against Malmo at Celtic Park. We thought it was good as finished , I thought to myself that it was not a good idea.

Treble_T
8 years ago

Most people already know what we can’t do – how about telling us how we can improve the product on the park.
Every one of us who subscribe to Sky have helped create the monster across the border, who have lost all touch with financial reality.
Unfortunately that means we will always struggle to compete and tread water is becoming even more difficult.
I’d love the sky money to disappear and reality to make a welcome return, but until that happens I will continue to support the greatest club on earth.
Hail Hail

Bhoris
8 years ago

It was still good when we done it san. If we’d waited then we wouldn’t of done the huddle. You never know whats round the corner so celebrate while we can. Kilmarnock was non stop singing and we drew in the end. Was still magic

tom o'neill
8 years ago

Apart from getting it all off your chest you could have saved time and effort by confining your remarks to the Board’s long running inability, or more likely unwillingness to make the necessary investment in a physically imposing striker.

Admin
8 years ago

One thing we need is leaders…Broony cant do it himself and indeed loses the plot so isn’t 100% reliable. Old Guy next to me at the St Johnstone game remarked “Something isnt right….listen…they don’t talk to each other!” and it was true.

It wasn’t until Mulgrew came on that you actually heard a voice from the pitch. Men and Boys…we need more men to help the boys

Half_Fool
8 years ago
Reply to  Desi Mond

Absolutely Desi. Been saying this. The best, the very best, teams are a team of Captains. We need to develop a team of strong character; which a requires a boss who is big enough to handle a bunch of characters. Hopefully RD can make that happen.

Saint Marys Bhoy
8 years ago

For me, the main reason we are not in the CL is not that we aren’t spending enough on the playing side (we do after all, spend more than most of the other teams that qualified through the ‘champions’ route), it is the fact thay we lost 3 goals, and one indirectly from corner kicks against a mediocre team from Sweden.

For me, there is something fundamentally wrong with our defensive coaching – zonal marking is certainly suspect?!

Surely our defenders should be able to prevent such indefensible (pardon the pun)

Saint Marys Bhoy
8 years ago

(Sorry i wasn’t finished)

…mistakes at corner kicks.

If we had defended competenly, would we have lost the tie? – i think not.

Can a Sevco player win player of the year.

If you refering to the players player…they can but only in their own division.

jrw
8 years ago

As I commented last week, we are not on a level playing field when it comes to finance. It can certainly be argued that the Board has been somwwhat modest in its readiness to fund the team over the longerterm. Howevr, it can be also be said that money does not guarantee success and there is always the risk that reckless spending leads to the kind of mess we see elsewhere – south of the river to name but one, and Leeds Utd offer an another. Two of the best players that the club as had in the last 20 years were not the result of big spending transfer deals. It is a difficult thing to get right, so I have some sympathy with the Board. The way that the game’s finances have been skewed by TV money and big spending foreign owners in the English game means that it will always be a major struggle for clubs like Celtic and many others – look at Ajax. We may occassionally manage to fight our way into the CL group stages – but every year that goes by that becomes more and more difficult; and once there, getting out of the group will continue to be a tall order for clubs in our position. It is all very depressing, but that’s not to say that we shouldn’t aspire to the top table and hope that Celtic can produce its own quality players. Whilst he was much reviled at the time, Sir Bob Kelly in the 1960s was against live TV coverage of football matches – perhaps he was right all along.

elcormaco
8 years ago

Thanks for reading and commenting guys. Desi makes a really good point imo about the lack of leaders and talkers in the team I know it’s comparing apples and pears but the Saville team had Maltby, Lenton, Lambert,Sutton Hartson etc, real men who’d have a go at a team nature not doing it

elcormaco
8 years ago

Jesus predictive text on a phone is annoying… Hope you know who I meant!

Yokerbhoy
8 years ago

Looking at the bigger picture, the point made about elitist clubs from the English Premier league and the ever-widening financial gap is extremely valid.
Only occasionally do we now see a club from outside Spain, England, Italy and Germany making the semis or even the quarter finals of the CL and this trend will only intensify in the future.
I know that talks about this have already taken place and the idea seems to have died the death but I would absolutely love us to compete in a breakaway European Super League featuring some of the biggest and best teams from Holland, Portugal, Scandinavia, Greece, Turkey, Belgium, Austria and even the Czech Republic and Poland. There would obviously be serious complications of all types to get something like this officially underway but the potential financial rewards of such a venture as well as the attraction of playing against quality sides week in week out would be huge.
At best, this could be a possibility in the very long term but I’d love to see it happen.

Gerry
8 years ago

I think the “Blame to Board” is a convenient cop out as it directs anger at those who we don’t root for every week. As has been mentioned above our spend on players and wages must be among the highest of the Champions in the lesser European leagues. I wouldn’t want to swap our squad for the Malmo one for example, we did have the better players. The problem is our better players did not perform to their level (as Ronnie pointed out) and their team collectively added up to more than the sum of the individual parts. Why? If you solve that problem you are brighter than me, perhaps a mixture of belief, complacency etc. How can we hit pre-season running next year, that is the key; not losing the momentum built up over the season, Ronnie got the preparation he wanted so maybe his preparation was wrong.
And as for zonal, while I’m not a fan, teams lose goals man marking at corners as well. The only difference is you blame one defender rather than the defensive unit. There is no wand that guarantees good defending of set pieces 100% of the time, but three goals in two matches indicates a problem, so get it sorted.

Steve Naive
8 years ago

True Gerry, zonal marking is only brought into focus when we (other teams) lose a goal…what about all the times it works ? If you don’t play you run the risk of getting beaten (Bradford-Chelsea) and we didn’t turn up. We were visibly better than St.Johnstone on Saturday, in what could have been a difficult game and they have gave us much more problems last season.
Thought Izzy was very good and Biton was murder for large parts but didn’t hide and continually showed for the ball.
Janko added a more physical presence but GMS was also poor.
Watched him do this for Dundee Utd. when they came to us and he fades badly and cannot defend

The real anton rogan
8 years ago

Since when did we begin to ‘do well’ in the league cup. Our record is abysmal. One win in 4 or 5 years does not domination make.

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