The Offical Glasgow Celtic thread

[illdecide]

How do we fix this? There are so many factors here...Manager?, Board?, Sevco improvements?. We have totally neglected the factor SG has had, they're undefeated in league and more importantly in Europe and are actually feared whereas we're a laughing stock. Even under the great BR we were crap in Europe.

[Angelo]

Conspiracy theories?

Aye. Jim Farry never intervened to stop a Celtic signing from playing in an Old Firm game.

You'd need to by some deranged nutjob not to accept that the SFA has always had an extreme bias to Rangers.

[JimStynes]

Are rangers really that much in debt?

[illdecide]

Are rangers really that much in debt?

I read a few weeks ago that they need £25m by June this year to finish off the year

[JimStynes]

Are rangers really that much in debt?

I read a few weeks ago that they need £25m by June this year to finish off the year

https://twitter.com/swissramble/status/1333303869334548481?s=21

Just reading this again. It doesn't seem as bad as it used to be. Celtic don't exactly seem flush either. Celtic are only in decent shape because of the sale of KT. The old firm need out of the SPL. It's even behind Austria in terms of revenue ffs.

[michaelg]

Conspiracy theories?

Aye. Jim Farry never intervened to stop a Celtic signing from playing in an Old Firm game.

You'd need to by some deranged nutjob not to accept that the SFA has always had an extreme bias to Rangers.

Do you really think a club that has won the league title 51 times have been subject to bias against them?

[Tony Baloney]

Conspiracy theories?

Aye. Jim Farry never intervened to stop a Celtic signing from playing in an Old Firm game.

You'd need to by some deranged nutjob not to accept that the SFA has always had an extreme bias to Rangers.

Do you really think a club that has won the league title 51 times have been subject to bias against them?

I have no skin in the game here as I'm not an active Celtic supporter (although I do keep an eye out for their scores), however I dont think anyone can claim they haven't been shafted over a period of many years by biased referees, protected by the SFA. Scottish football is rife with sectarianism (you may have noticed  ) and the refereeing and SFA fraternity have done little to separate themselves from it. The majority of issues that I can see are explicitly targeting Celtic and therefore implicitly benefitting Rangers, who let's face it are always going to benefit from a dodgy penalty decision or sending off against Celtic even when they aren't playing them.

[JimStynes]

Hugh Dallas

[Angelo]

Conspiracy theories?

Aye. Jim Farry never intervened to stop a Celtic signing from playing in an Old Firm game.

You'd need to by some deranged nutjob not to accept that the SFA has always had an extreme bias to Rangers.

Do you really think a club that has won the league title 51 times have been subject to bias against them?

Never said that. I said that they have benefited from referees and a football association with a clear bias to them and only a nutjob like Sid could look at the facts and deny that.

[sid waddell]

Celtic's defeat yesterday was a masonic conspiracy, as it always is when they lose to Rangers

The referee was spotted giving the secret handshake with the ghost of Bill Struth before the match

Struth's ghost gave him 5Gs in cash

And Bitton is a Mossad agent

[Angelo]

Are rangers really that much in debt?

I read a few weeks ago that they need £25m by June this year to finish off the year

https://twitter.com/swissramble/status/1333303869334548481?s=21

Just reading this again. It doesn't seem as bad as it used to be. Celtic don't exactly seem flush either. Celtic are only in decent shape because of the sale of KT. The old firm need out of the SPL. It's even behind Austria in terms of revenue ffs.

Celtic have 30 odd million cash in the bank, haven't posted a loss in years and have a billionaire owner. A big problem is we have a executive who took around 5m out of the club last season in salary and bonuses when the club has been underachieving on the European stage.

There is absolutely no reason why Celtic should not be qualifying for the CL on a yearly basis. We have failed to qualify the last 3 seasons, knocked out by AEK, Cluj and Ferencvaros. Celtic's budget absolutely dwarves that of any of those three clubs. Under Rodgers we did qualify for the CL 2 out of 3 times and it is a huge boost for the club, can be worth upwards of £30m to the club - £30m extra every season allows us to either keep quality players at the club or bring in quality players.

The big question mark is why have we failed to make the CL in the past 3 seasons and answer is fairly simple. Mismanagement, both on the field and off it.

We will look at the first season for example, Rodger's last full season. We know Rodgers was getting increasingly frustrated at the board f**king about with McGinn, McGinn wanted the move and Rodgers wanted him in straight away but they were faffing about trying to save a few hundred grand by dragging it out until the final day of the window where they thought they could lowball Hibs into a cut price deal as McGinn was in the final year of his contract.

We ended up out of Europe and out of the CL. We also had Boyata in a similar situation ourselves and both he and Dembele weren't featuring due to the fact they both wanted out. Celtic had made no contingency plans at this point. They had made Bain and Edouard permanent transfers but that was the only action. Benkovic arrived on a loan deal on the final day and Mulumbu arrived on a free transfer. You can see why Rodgers was irate. He had brought Celtic CL action 2 times in succession, there was plenty of money there to spend and improve the squad and the board decided to pocket it. We missed out on McGinn, missed out on CL football, hawked off Dembele and we brought in a loan signing and a freebie.

The next season we prioritised the sale Tierney. For me £25m was a pathetic fee, Tierney had 4 years left on his contract, is easily one of the best left backs in Europe. Every Celtic fan knows how good he is, if Celtic or Lennon had put the foot down and said he's not for sale then there would be no issue with Tierney. It's similar to the time McGeady left, McGeady was on with Simon Ferry lately and said it was the club who wanted to sell him rather than the other way round though he was willing for a new challenge at the time. Rodgers also said that the club tried to sell Tierney for £10m when he was at the club but he demanded Tierney stayed. Anyway the Cluj result is probably on Lennon, starting McGregor at left back and leaving Jullien on the bench was shambolic. Ferencvaros was Lennon's fault again this year, leaving 2 strikers on the bench while starting with none.

We all know (or those of us who are out blinded by county loyalty) that Neil Lennon is a pub league standard manager who can't operate at a club with European ambition. His lack of tactical awareness, training ground failures, poor planning and man management means Celtic will continue to underachieve. The only reason he is in the job is that he will do whatever it is Lawwell tells him to. If Lawwell tells him next season that Ajer and Edouard go then Ajer and Edouard go, I think it's almost inevitable that both these players will leave next season and for an absolute song to.

We have thrown away our dominant position due to mismanagement, a proper managerial appointment after Rodgers would have ensured CL football, it would have ensured a bigger budget and possibly the chance to extend the likes of Ajer and Edouard and make sure they would not have been sold on the cheap. But we all know that Lawwell looks after his own personal interests before that of the club.

Lennon has to go and Lawwell has to follow. Desmond needs to put his hand in his pocket and cover the losses of the mess Lawwell has made of this club.

[Angelo]

Celtic's defeat yesterday was a masonic conspiracy, as it always is when they lose to Rangers

The referee was spotted giving the secret handshake with the ghost of Bill Struth before the match

Struth's ghost gave him 5Gs in cash

And Bitton is a Mossad agent

Satire isn't your cup of tea.

[marty34]

Are rangers really that much in debt?

I read a few weeks ago that they need £25m by June this year to finish off the year

https://twitter.com/swissramble/status/1333303869334548481?s=21

Just reading this again. It doesn't seem as bad as it used to be. Celtic don't exactly seem flush either. Celtic are only in decent shape because of the sale of KT. The old firm need out of the SPL. It's even behind Austria in terms of revenue ffs.

Celtic have 30 odd million cash in the bank, haven't posted a loss in years and have a billionaire owner. A big problem is we have a executive who took around 5m out of the club last season in salary and bonuses when the club has been underachieving on the European stage.

There is absolutely no reason why Celtic should not be qualifying for the CL on a yearly basis. We have failed to qualify the last 3 seasons, knocked out by AEK, Cluj and Ferencvaros. Celtic's budget absolutely dwarves that of any of those three clubs. Under Rodgers we did qualify for the CL 2 out of 3 times and it is a huge boost for the club, can be worth upwards of £30m to the club - £30m extra every season allows us to either keep quality players at the club or bring in quality players.

The big question mark is why have we failed to make the CL in the past 3 seasons and answer is fairly simple. Mismanagement, both on the field and off it.

We will look at the first season for example, Rodger's last full season. We know Rodgers was getting increasingly frustrated at the board f**king about with McGinn, McGinn wanted the move and Rodgers wanted him in straight away but they were faffing about trying to save a few hundred grand by dragging it out until the final day of the window where they thought they could lowball Hibs into a cut price deal as McGinn was in the final year of his contract.

We ended up out of Europe and out of the CL. We also had Boyata in a similar situation ourselves and both he and Dembele weren't featuring due to the fact they both wanted out. Celtic had made no contingency plans at this point. They had made Bain and Edouard permanent transfers but that was the only action. Benkovic arrived on a loan deal on the final day and Mulumbu arrived on a free transfer. You can see why Rodgers was irate. He had brought Celtic CL action 2 times in succession, there was plenty of money there to spend and improve the squad and the board decided to pocket it. We missed out on McGinn, missed out on CL football, hawked off Dembele and we brought in a loan signing and a freebie.

The next season we prioritised the sale Tierney. For me £25m was a pathetic fee, Tierney had 4 years left on his contract, is easily one of the best left backs in Europe. Every Celtic fan knows how good he is, if Celtic or Lennon had put the foot down and said he's not for sale then there would be no issue with Tierney. It's similar to the time McGeady left, McGeady was on with Simon Ferry lately and said it was the club who wanted to sell him rather than the other way round though he was willing for a new challenge at the time. Rodgers also said that the club tried to sell Tierney for £10m when he was at the club but he demanded Tierney stayed. Anyway the Cluj result is probably on Lennon, starting McGregor at left back and leaving Jullien on the bench was shambolic. Ferencvaros was Lennon's fault again this year, leaving 2 strikers on the bench while starting with none.

We all know (or those of us who are out blinded by county loyalty) that Neil Lennon is a pub league standard manager who can't operate at a club with European ambition. His lack of tactical awareness, training ground failures, poor planning and man management means Celtic will continue to underachieve. The only reason he is in the job is that he will do whatever it is Lawwell tells him to. If Lawwell tells him next season that Ajer and Edouard go then Ajer and Edouard go, I think it's almost inevitable that both these players will leave next season and for an absolute song to.

We have thrown away our dominant position due to mismanagement, a proper managerial appointment after Rodgers would have ensured CL football, it would have ensured a bigger budget and possibly the chance to extend the likes of Ajer and Edouard and make sure they would not have been sold on the cheap. But we all know that Lawwell looks after his own personal interests before that of the club.

Lennon has to go and Lawwell has to follow. Desmond needs to put his hand in his pocket and cover the losses of the mess Lawwell has made of this club.

Good post. Lennon got offered the job in the Hampden showers ffs. What a set up!

Lennon's taking them to Dubai on a 'training camp' this week.  Another f:*king joke.  What's he at?

In the middle of a pandemic, let's f*#k off on a plane to Dubai.

I know one thing, he'll not be working on set pieces.

Lennon and Lawell out.

[general_lee]

Think some fans need a reality check. The sense of entitlement and hysterics is almost Rangers-like. "Big club" moniker has been bandied about the last 24 hours. Some things have been completely uncontrollable and out of the clubs hands.

That said; the things the club could control, the things the management could and should have done, but failed to,  have over the course of 18 months or so led us to where we are now. It is unforgivable the mismanagement that has went on in that period of time. All the injuries and covid and whatever else have been overshadowed by reluctance to spend, shite signings when they do, embarrassing results, clueless tactics and a rudderless team devoid of leaders.

I'd happily sacrifice 10IAR if it means a complete clear out.

[Angelo]

Think some fans need a reality check. The sense of entitlement and hysterics is almost Rangers-like. "Big club" moniker has been bandied about the last 24 hours. Some things have been completely uncontrollable and out of the clubs hands.

That said; the things the club could control, the things the management could and should have done, but failed to,  have over the course of 18 months or so led us to where we are now. It is unforgivable the mismanagement that has went on in that period of time. All the injuries and covid and whatever else have been overshadowed by reluctance to spend, shite signings when they do, embarrassing results, clueless tactics and a rudderless team devoid of leaders.

I'd happily sacrifice 10IAR if it means a complete clear out.

You're completely misphrasing the debate. Celtic are a massive club in the same way clubs like Ajax, Porto, Benfica etc are. We shouldn't have a pub league manager who was sacked from Hibs and Bolton in charge of the club.

We have been eliminated on three successive occasions from CL football to three inferior teams with vastly less resources and budgets. It has cost the club nearly £100m of revenue. Celtic are a big club, there is no reason why they can't do what the likes of Porto, Ajax, Benfica, Salzburg etc do at European level.

Nobody here has said we should be going out and buying players from the EPL for £40m but we should be looking at our peers across the leagues in the likes of Holland, Portugal, Austria, Greece etc and how they perform at European level and how Celtic's budget is a lot more favourable.

Take that grouping of 40 clubs out then it's clear that Celtic are one of the richest clubs in Europe.

Look at what a club like Atalanta are achieving in Italy. Back to back top 4 finishes, back to back CL last 16 appearances.

They pick up unheard players from the likes of Gronigen, Heracles, Zurich etc and establish them into first team regulars in a highly successful team.

Celtic need to invest in proper structures and a proper management setup. We need to put that money into getting things right, it's there sitting in the club's bank account, it's sitting in our billionaire majority shareholder's bank account.

There should be a draw to Celtic, they compete for titles on a regular basis, they should be in the CL and have European football on a regular basis, they do have good facilities and an extremely passionate fanbase, the European nights at Celtic Park are what players across Europe do talk about regularly. Celtic are a good sell. They have the finances to compete with clubs from Spain, France, Germany and Italy outside their top 4/5 clubs. They have finances to compete with any club in the other European leagues so it really comes down to ambition and the Celtic board have shown none, they are happy to asset strip the club to line their own pockets.

The fan groupings need to hold the board to account, I think the fanbase have to make a stand that they won't renew their season tickets until such times as Lawwell resigns.

Back the team, sack the board.