6-2. Fucking hell.
Never great when you concede 6 to second tier opposition from any country. That was comically bad but it won’t be funny if we’re anywhere near that level against Cliftonville.
Daily Mail are reporting that Wanyama will be signing for Southampton tomorrow. Unclear if this is genuine info or just a guess based on him not playing today.
So £12.5m for Wanyama and all of a sudden we have a transfer kitty. We will hardly spend it all, even if there was an appetite to spend the full amount, we wouldn’t be able to afford the wages of a combination of players that cost over £12m. Wanyama was on a relative pittance so we’re likely to have to absorb an increase in wages with any replacements.
The biggest worry I’d have is that we look at the squad with Ledley and Brown as presumably first choice central midfielders with Kayal to come in if we are going with 3. And then think we have Mulgrew and then Ambrose who can sit there and Rogic offers us a more attacking alternative. I think it’s important that Kayal has a good season for us, because we’ll need time for a new signing to bed in (Wanyama was impressive but imperfect in his first season)and Kayal needs to offer us some reliability and consistency – unfortunately two traits he hasn’t excelled at so far. Interestingly, Brown played that deeper midfield role in the Cup Final at Hampden and was excellent there but I don’t see him continuing there long term when we probably need his tempo higher up the pitch.
Anyway it’s imperative that we replace Wanyama. We’ve lost Ki and Wanyama from that holding role now over the last two summers and while they were very different types of player, they did give us a base for a 5 man midfield that was critical to our style of play, particularly in Europe. We’re unlikely to find someone as effective as Wanyama but I actually think it’s relatively easy to identify competent defensive midfielders (particularly of the robust, enforcer type mould) and I hope we’ve a few on our radar given we were expecting Victor to leave.
Presuming Hooper stays then the other priorities we’ve been talking about are a creative midfielder type player and/or a winger. It’s only preseason, and he was out of position, but McGeouch didn’t look like a guy who was going to be challenging Forrest any time soon. We’ll generally only play with one out-and-out winger who will usually be Forrest but it is possible to play Forrest, Commons and Samaras together and we’ve done that frequently. I don’t like seeing Stokes playing wide that often (even in a 4-3-3) and we will likely not be able to afford to ask Ledley or Brown to play wide too often so I think a wide player will be a priority. Given our apparent interest in Tonev, it seems likely that we are targeting that position too.
Curiously, I actually think for once that we’re ok at centre back and striker. It would always be good to upgrade at either position but Hooper, Stokes, Watt, Samaras and Baldé are plenty for the attacking roles and with Van Dijk, Wilson, Mulgrew and Ambrose we have enough central defenders. Ideally we could sell Ambrose for a small profit and get in someone a bit more stable, and we are missing Wanyama’s versatility which meant he could always drop back there, but it’s not an urgent need.
I understand the economics of football and accept that Wanyama’s gone. But it’s awfully upsetting. I haven’t been this upset about a departure since our favourite lounge girl left The 51 last year. I sang the Wanyama song out loud as I did some chores this morning and it’ll be the last time I do so. I also tweeted him my best wishes and I know he’ll appreciate that. All in all, it’s a fairly emotional situation for me.
Club football is getting farcical to be honest. Not a new trend but this takes it to new levels and is rather dispiriting
Is that a record sale for Celtic? Can’t think of anyone going for more?
Think McGeady was the record at around 10 million
Yeah Aiden for £9.5m was the previous SPL record.
It’s a ridiculous state of affairs alright but hard to blame players given the difference in money available. And for years Celtic have been helping themselves to the best players from lesser Scottish clubs so it’s not like we don’t use our financial muscle.
Without doubt the TV money has distorted competition in the transfer market but it has also blurred English clubs from recognising value. They continue to spend vast sums without improving their teams, though obviously I think this is a good signing for Southampton and I don’t actually expect him to stay there very long.
[quote=“Rocko, post: 800590, member: 1”]It’s a ridiculous state of affairs alright but hard to blame players given the difference in money available. And for years Celtic have been helping themselves to the best players from lesser Scottish clubs so it’s not like we don’t use our financial muscle.
Without doubt the TV money has distorted competition in the transfer market but it has also blurred English clubs from recognising value. They continue to spend vast sums without improving their teams, though obviously I think this is a good signing for Southampton and I don’t actually expect him to stay there very long.[/quote]
Celtic are far bigger club than other SPL teams so kind of an order to it that they would buy best of them. When a small club like Southampton can have so much more financial power than Celtic it is time to give up. Money rules and cannot blame Wanyama at all. Would have less consideration for Martin Jol and his decision to leave Ajax and join Fulham!
The natural order has changed alright. It used to be that success = money so the most successful clubs would have the most money and the best players would filter to the top. Now the money that Monaco or Southampton or Norwich have is far above their standing (recent standing in Monaco’s case) and it’s distorted that order. But that’s just the way the game is. American Football is interesting because money and success are independent, that doesn’t seem to be quite as attractive in soccer because of the lack of parity between leagues etc.
But players come and go - I’m surprised a better club wasn’t in for him and I’d say he’s decidedly underwhelmed but he’s a decent signing for Southampton. Ultimately I’ll still enjoy watching Celtic play for trophies and competing in Europe and playing attractive football. If you care too much about the financial side of things it’s just depressing.
Forster,
Lustig, Irvine, Wilson, Izaguirre,
Forrest, Brown, Rogic, Commons,
Stokes, Samaras.
1-0 down. Swerving strike but Forster should have saved it. Samaras is on the left with Commons playing off Stokes.
Good save there from Forster. His general form is concerning though, he’s making errors and looks sluggish.
There’s space in behind our central midfielders all the time and that’s been the case in each of these pre season games.
Missed that second goal. We don’t look great at all.
It was another sloppy concession. Routine ball looped back in after a corner was initially cleared. We didn’t push out en masse quickly enough and some lad running in sprung the offside trap and, as the ball dropped over his shoulder, he toed it first time on the volley past Forster from 8 yards or so. Forster’s reaction wasn’t the quickest again. Young Mikey Miller and Balde are on.
Another goal conceded on this tour from a corner and we lose 3-0. Nobody was any good. Cliftonville must be favourites to progress over the two legs now.
Some quotes from Lennon last night:
" There has been interest in Gary from two clubs, QPR and Norwich, and I think that will rumble on for a week or so. Can I convince him to stay? It’s difficult. He’s not featured much pre-season I don’t know where his mind is at the minute. Has he played his last game for Celtic? Never say never, but it’s looking more and more that way just now."
“I’ve no idea how much I will get from Wanyama. I’ll maybe have a better idea next week."
“The Mouyokolo signing hasn’t been confirmed yet, He passed his medical but there’s been a bit of toing and froing on his contract."
“I would like a replacement for Victor and we are looking at strengthening a couple of areas – left side and centre-forward. We are really short. We’ve lost Lassad, Miku, Rogne, McCourt, Gershon and Wanyama recently.”