It’s not a huge assumption.
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Big problem Celtic had really was none of the owners clique, board or management really gave a fcuk about the ten in a row.
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In the 2019/20 season. I think his pay was £3.5m.
For contrast, the highest earning player at Celtic was Brown on about £1m a year.
It’s utterly unheard of in football for an executive to be earning more than the highest paid player never mind 3.5x the amount.
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That’s the bottom line.
The only thing the board weren’t frugal about was their own salaries and bonuses that they paid themselves.
10 in a row would have been fairly pointless. Half the time Sevco weren’t even in the same division. They should have won 15 or 20 in a row really
He was not honourable. He was an autocrat who wanted full control over everything.
Like everything else it’s mixed. Celtic had an unsustainable debt level when he took over. They couldn’t continue with that. He was tasked with wiping it out and he more or less did a decent job of keeping a competitive team on the pitch while stabilising the finances. Celtic were still fairly competitive in Europe in those early years.
The financial differences to bigger leagues exploded in the subsequent years,the competition evaporated in Celtic and I think we lacked a strategy to get through all that on a stronger footing. We developed training facilities and some other areas but there’s no real signs of progress in youth development or anything and the approach to transfers and managerial appointments seems scattered.
Sense is that when Desmond gets interested we’ll spend (on Rodgers or Keane) but the day to day budget isn’t as flexible.
That said we have a high wage bill and we aren’t getting a good return for investments. Much of that is on the managers obviously.
So I think he has clearly run his course and fresh ideas are more challenge are needed, but the debt situation isn’t very appealing to your average fan but ensured Celtic continue to have the ability to spend reasonably well and the 9 in a row on his watch wasn’t all in spite of him as people like to believe.
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It would, it’s all fairly pointless really, but it would have been good to wind up the huns with.
We have 20m in the bank and his biscuit tin mentality left us with a chump manager and missing out on players who would have been great signings over minimal amounts of money.
He has consistently been the highest earner of very close to at the club, which is pretty unheard of for an executive.
Celtic have the ability to spend reasonably because Lawwell didn’t spend. He’s also probably taken well in excess of £20m out of the club that time in excess of bonuses and salary. Wonder what his severance package will be?
We go into next season with the likes of Edouard, Ajer and Christie in the final year of their contracts. The three of them together probably only earn what Morelos gets paid a week at Rangers which is utterly crazy buy tells you the biscuit tin mentality in operation.
The basic fact of the matter is that the sevco management were more intent on stopping the 10 in a row than the Celtic management were on winning it.
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This seems to be a reflection of buying or loaning two relatively mediocre players rather than one good one. I’d say the responsibility for this ultimately falls with the manager (Lennon), who could have taken a leaf out of MON’s book when it came to dealing with Kenny D, but chose not to, perhaps realising you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. This would lead into the narrative that NL was managing more for himself than for the club, but things are never black and white.
Who of the current Celtic first team squad will be gone in the summer ??
This is the problem I alluded to earlier.
Celtic is an old boys clubs. People do not get jobs on merit - it’s cronyism - Lennon getting the gig with minimal experience the first time round, getting the gig the second time around with an embarrassing record since he left the job. Lawwell has a yes man who he can trust and Lennon is willing to do what he’s told as he won’t get a job of that prestige anywhere else.
Kennedy another prime example, a guy who has been foisted on three managers, a guy who went from a scout to first team coach in a few years. Now he’s caretaker manager, he is Lawwell’s man there - another lackey who is beholden to the board for his progression. A first team coach is important, the coaching set up is important. Usually a manager with a good pedigree will be very insistent on having his own men in there, people he trusts and he rates as a coach. With Celtic it seems to be that coaching appointments are foisted on the management team.
In many regards as you said these are outside of Lennon’s control but if Lennon felt he was being undermined by these factors and being unable to do his job to the best of his ability he should have spoken out. Instead he was quite happy to go along with it as he was underqualified for the job.
With Kennedy’s progression - I’d like to know did we ever look at other candidates? Did the managers ever have any autonomy in assembling or reviewing the whole backroom team. From what I can guage from Celtic this season, they are a very poorly coached side, a side who have been repeating the same unforgivable mistakes all season, a side with good players badly regressing in their performance levels.
That simply does not happen if you have a good coaching team. That goes for the manager, the assistant manager and the first team coach. Kennedy for me should be absolutely nowhere near the first team, it’s time to cut him loose and let him prove himself somewhere else.
Very likely
Edouard
Ajer
Laxalt
Elyonoussi
Duffy
Possible
Christie
Brown
Rogic
Griffiths
Klimala
From Edouard, Ajer and the loanees going it should be about 100k pw off the wage and somewhere between £25-30m in transfer fees.
The club needs sizable investment this season, Desmond has not put his hand in his back pocket since O’Neill’s first two seasons.
And until the supporters see the right investment being made in the club then they should not been stumping up on their season tickets. It’s time for action to forced.
Would imagine Rodgers would have no problem stumping up £30m for Ajer and Edouard together. He knows their potential and how good they are, even if in the final year of their contracts. Celtic should be willing to lose these players for nothing though if their price isn’t met. The priority should be to tie them down - if we are shedding 60k wages in the three loanees going I think it should be a priority to utilise that reduction by extending Edouard, Christie and Ajer on long term deals.
It’s fairly simple:
Laxalt 22k
Duffy 20k
Elyonoussi 20k
Brown 25k
There’s 87k of savings in wages.
Bump Edouard up 40k to 60k pw
Bump Ajer up 20k to £35k pw
Bump Christie up 15k to 25k pw
Get them tied down and if we sell them we sell them on our terms.
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Hard to disagree with any of that.
I suspect Edouard will want out if a club comes in for him though, which is for me one of the problems with leaving Kennedy in as manager, and as SAF always said, if a player wants out, get them gone.
He probably would but what I’d do like to see done with Edouard and Ajer is the new CEO comes in and convinces them of the project. Going to invest in a good manager and coaching team and put money in the first team this season, new players in early for the CL qualifying and going to really for the CL qualification.
Bump his wages up to 60k - it’s 3m a year. Celtic can manage that by reducing the squad size and the savings of players who left, particularly the loanees and Brown. Put him on a long term deal - 4 year contract and if he is reluctant to commit but a release clause in it that means Celtic get a good deal. £35m would be fair, he’s every bit as good if not better than someone like Ollie Watkins. I think if you do that there’s a very high chance Edouard stays.
Similar with Ajer.
Celtic have long seen their players as assets to flip at their first hurdle, transparent in telling them do your job and we will both make ourselves rich when you get your big move.
I think the players needs to be motivated by the trust Celtic have in them - Edouard is hugely underpaid. He earns 58% of what Morelos does. Morelos has signed two new contracts extensions in the past three seasons. I’d be pissed off at the board if I was Edouard, underappreciated and underpaid.
We can afford to keep Ajer, Edouard and Christie by making those changes and investing in the first team but I don’t think the shareholders or board want to invest money in the club. If they don’t it’s time for the fans to escalate matters.
Lawwell has destroyed Celtic and I think @rocko’s appraisal of him is utter nonsense.
He claimed Celtic were a financial mess when Lawwell came in which is not true, Lawwell was actually guilty of handing Balde a ridiculous contract that made him the highest earner at the club. He negotiated it and then interfered in first team affairs by instructing management not to pick him when he wouldn’t leave despite the fact he was the best defender at the club.
Lawwell enriched himself and has dragged Celtic back years with his biscuit tin mentality.
You want to give Christie a 150% payrise after the abysmal season he has just had. 
Unfortunately for your strategy Edouard’s agent isn’t stupid.
He can go this summer and earn more than Celtic can offer him (even in your 60k a week scenario).
Or he can go the following summer and get an eight figure signing bonus as well as the wage increase.
He’s not going give away all his leverage to sign a new deal with a release clause in it unless he’s feeling extremely charitable.
Yes.
Do you want to lose him for nothing next summer?
I don’t think he turned into a bad player overnight. I do think he has suffered badly under an incompetent management and coaching staff who you seem to be a staunch defender of.