{"id":8701,"date":"2016-03-03T09:25:59","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T09:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etims.net\/?p=8701"},"modified":"2016-03-03T09:25:59","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T09:25:59","slug":"from-the-sofa-five-point-plan-for-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etims.net\/?p=8701","title":{"rendered":"From The Sofa: Five Point Plan for The Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

El cormaco gave us his thoughts before the game last night, and I send him my apologies for not posting this before the game. I got caught up in all the excitement of the match.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

From the Sofa: A Five point plan to bring back our \u201cGrand Old Team\u201dSorry, no cheap jokes here, no research (natch) and very little cursing at<\/div>\n
Ronnie either.<\/div>\n
There are many things going on just now which are pulling the fan base in opposing directions:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Ronnie in \/ Ronnie out \/ downsizing\/ No Living wage\/ no pursuit of \u201crestorativejustice\u201d over the EBT years\/ scattergun signing policy \u2026.I could go on, but these are some of the reasons why it seems so many Celtic fans are losing connection with the club at the moment, attendances are down, the \u201cthunder\u201d has left Celtic Park to be replaced by a permanent cold wind, grey skies and unrelenting drizzle.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I aim to try to cheer us up however, not make things worse, so here are five things I believe are achievable to get things back on track.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In light of this the club statement on OBFA act is welcome.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
1) \u00a0 Pay the living wage.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 Celtic fans, in the main, are left leaning, people on the side of the \u201cwee guy\u201d; the downtrodden and exploited, so it galls many that the club wont engage fully with the living wage. No ifs or buts, no excuses, get it done because it\u2019s the right thing to do and it\u2019s what the fans want \u2013 the cost of the gesture would in my opinion be made up in return of goodwill on match-days opening up those wallets in the club shop or lounges<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
2) \u00a0 Change the manager.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0This issue is causing many irate debates at present, and a house divided will never stand. Or something. Ronnie has divided the support, his defenders think those that want to see him gone are having their heads turned by a media who always had it in for him, those that want him gone point to the growing list of perceived failures and serious doubts about whether he can \u00a0turn things around in futureThis isn\u2019t a debate on the rights and wrongs of those positions, I m trying to\u00a0think about how to reenergise and unite the support. If Ronnie were removedat seasons\u2019 end the \u201cshould he stay or go\u201d debate would cease immediatelyand if only for a short time attention could turn to the new manager (Steve\u00a0Clarke, Paul Lambert or Martin O Neill for me) and Celtic fans can get united\u00a0behind a common cause once more, at least until the new guys idiosyncrasies\u00a0become apparent.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
3) \u00a0\u00a0Find a player who makes us sing\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 I think I\u2019ve confessed before to also following West Ham. This is a great\u00a0season for West Ham and the signing of Dimitri Payet has galvanised the\u00a0support; skilful, expressive, seemingly committed to the cause, he is the type\u00a0of player fans at West ham love. And indeed Celtic \u2013 a Di Canio, a Moravcik, Naka, jeez even a Mc Geady – some one you want to go to see play as you don\u2019t know what little bit of magic they will show. Currently we have dozens (literally) of players who can play this role of attacking midfielder \/ tre quartisita but all of them are one paced, predictable, keen to move the ball sideways rather than take a man on and beat him with a piece of skill. At least the ones we\u2019ve had enough time to see enough to make a judgement on, with the possible exception of Allan who does seem to have a bit of vision about him.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0 Now Payet is obviously out of Celtics\u2019 price range, and players like this are at a premium, but we pad c\u00a3300,000 for Lubo and \u00a31million for Di Canio, so with the right scouting it can be done. We should scrap the 3 or 4 \u201cproject\u201d signings in favour of one \u201cmarquee\u201d player who will give us a couple of memorable seasons, get people coming to see them play before moving them on for profit or not depending on age when<\/div>\n
they sign<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
4) \u00a0 Lose the Dead wood\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 A consequence of the \u201cproject\u201d signing policy is that the playing squad is too big, with too many similar players, too many with questionable commitment to the cause, or who are dreadfully poor, taking up wages and places, disconnecting us from the squad and vice versa. \u00a0Even if it means paying up contracts just to get guys like Boerrigiter and Ciftci out the door its worth doing to my mind, to make getting in to the team more realistic for more players and concentrate our minds better on those players who really are going to be part of the team rather than wishing time away on players we never get to see play \u2013 Allan, Christie, Roberts, Henderson, Nesbitt etc etc. to be clear these are players I d like to see play, but with so many in their way ahead of them its not happening.<\/div>\n
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5) \u00a0 Reduce Lawwell\u2019s bonus and link it to on field achievement\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 In these financially straightened times its harder and harder to justify the\u00a0bonus our Chief Executive gets and causes discontent among fans.I understand his role is on the financial side and he is achieving these targets\u00a0so is entitled to these bonuses. I also understand the job he has to do is\u00a0extremely difficult but\u2026<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0While revenues are falling and the standard of the team is clearly also in\u00a0decline there should be some parallel reduction in his bonus, and failure to\u00a0reach stated on field targets such as qualifying for the Champions League\u00a0should be reflected in how much bonus he gets. Celtic have a great year on the pitch \u2013 it will generate more income so Pete gets his big bonus, Celtic have a bad year on the pitch, Pete doesn\u2019t get his big bonus. It may be the case that his bonus system is linked already ( though I don\u2019t think so) in which case it may just be a case of opening our eyes to Celtic\u2019s version of \u201cAll in it together \u201c or if not then renegotiating his deal to one more in tune with what fans believe to be \u201cright\u201d<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
So that\u2019s five, and in my opinion some board humility over some mistakes in direction in recent times, and a commitment to a new inclusive policies aimed at keeping us pulling in the same direction, underlined by these 5 policies being announced as a suite of positive changes at the same time. For good measure we could throw in openly seeking removal from office SFA \/ SPL officers involved in Rangers EBT collusion, seeking some kind of official position on new club \/ same club, blooding more youth players in the first team and FFS stop signing the same type of attacking midfielders and sorting us out with a credible defence!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
There’s my thoughts, I’m sure you have your own….<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

El cormaco gave us his thoughts before the game last night, and I send him my apologies for not posting this before the game. I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/090121-fivePointPlan.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-2gl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8703,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8701\/revisions\/8703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}