The Offical Glasgow Celtic thread

[ned]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

[Angelo]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

It is the best league in the world. 2 english teams in the CL final and 2 english teams in the EL final last year. City have a good chance in the CL this year and United have a good chance in the EL. Wolves progressed tonight too.
Also cant understand why youre up Lawwels arse in the last post. An aura about him Celtic are the richest team in scotland and any player in scotland they want, they generally get. No one can compete in that regard.  He's happy lining his own pockets because they'll be grand wining trophies in scotland but they're really only in europe to make up the numbers. Unless he starts investing in quality for the team to take them to the next level in europe, which he's not, as every other fan knows.

I'm not up his arse...i'm just realistic that if he was to listen to the fools who keep calling for him to do this and that we'd probably end up like Sevco, most people don't like the way he runs the club and want him to spend millions and millions but he know's what he's doing and is doing a good job and as i said earlier majority of clubs would give anything to have someone like him run their club.
You are partly right that the days of competing in Europe are gone, our aim is to qualify for Champions League and get a few quid out of it. We all know we won't win it but so does 90% of the rest of the teams in the competition. Scotland's league and economy has deteriorated over the years and Celtic can do nothing but go with it and for me we're the best club in Scotland because we're run by the best people in Scotland.
We are a club like no other and long may it continue...

In the past few seasons Celtic have got rid of:

Dembele c£20m
Tierney £25m
Armstrong £8m

A big compensation package for Rodgers, a £7.5m sell on fee for Van Dijk.

We're lucky if we reinvested half of that money back in the playing side, we replaced Rodgers with a cheap yes man in Lennon who had been sacked by Hibs in his last job.

Every season we turn over a profit in our accounts, we have a cash reserve building up year on year. In the season before last Lawwell took home a pay packet of £3.55m from the club while he was running it into the ground, it was the same season where he scuppered a bargain move for McGinn with his penny pinching and eventually his sort of miserly attitude that led to Rodgers becoming disenchanted with the ambition and direction of the board, though not excusing the manner he left in.

The bottom line is Lawwell should be despised by the Celtic fanbase as he lines his own pockets as he downsizes the playing operation.

This season alone we have lost:
Simunovic
Hayes
Forster
Gordon
Bauer
Arzani


We have so far added Barkas.

The huns are the opposite end of the spectrum, spending money they don't have and risking financial ruin.

Is there any other football club in Europe where the Chief Executive is the highest paid employee in a season? It absolutely stinks to the high heavens.

[bannside]

Hard one to call. On one hand we all want better player that can go into Europe and be much more competitive...because we all believe Celtic are big enough to do that - but on the other hand, whilst we know Lawell will not do that, we do know he will keep the club very financially sound, whilst Sevco run from one financial crisis to the next. His salary is high but much of that is linked to financial performance bonuses.

Having said that he got very lucky when Rodgers felt the need to do a midnight flit, in my opinion he looked at the remaining schedule with a few very tough looking away games, and was not convinced the treble was on. (Leicester had a very easy run in with all bottom 6 teams to play so he went there for his bonus instead) but then Lenny came in out of nowhere and secured the treble after all.

Had this not happened I think there would have been a lot more heat on Lawell and a massive push to strengthen the squad and deliver a big name manager. He got very lucky the way it all panned out.

[marty34]

Hard one to call. On one hand we all want better player that can go into Europe and be much more competitive...because we all believe Celtic are big enough to do that - but on the other hand, whilst we know Lawell will not do that, we do know he will keep the club very financially sound, whilst Sevco run from one financial crisis to the next. His salary is high but much of that is linked to financial performance bonuses.

Having said that he got very lucky when Rodgers felt the need to do a midnight flit, in my opinion he looked at the remaining schedule with a few very tough looking away games, and was not convinced the treble was on. (Leicester had a very easy run in with all bottom 6 teams to play so he went there for his bonus instead) but then Lenny came in out of nowhere and secured the treble after all.

Had this not happened I think there would have been a lot more heat on Lawell and a massive push to strengthen the squad and deliver a big name manager. He got very lucky the way it all panned out.

Why did Lennon leave Celtic first time round?

Was it not that he saw Lawell wasn't interested in investing and progressing the team and knew that they could win the league etc. handy enough without spending much cash?

Get a lucky run in Europe i.e. beat Barca at home or get a decent run in the Europa league etc and keep the fans  happy.

[Angelo]

Hard one to call. On one hand we all want better player that can go into Europe and be much more competitive...because we all believe Celtic are big enough to do that - but on the other hand, whilst we know Lawell will not do that, we do know he will keep the club very financially sound, whilst Sevco run from one financial crisis to the next. His salary is high but much of that is linked to financial performance bonuses.

Having said that he got very lucky when Rodgers felt the need to do a midnight flit, in my opinion he looked at the remaining schedule with a few very tough looking away games, and was not convinced the treble was on. (Leicester had a very easy run in with all bottom 6 teams to play so he went there for his bonus instead) but then Lenny came in out of nowhere and secured the treble after all.

Had this not happened I think there would have been a lot more heat on Lawell and a massive push to strengthen the squad and deliver a big name manager. He got very lucky the way it all panned out.

Keeping the club financially sound is one thing but it's the money he is taking out of the club personally that is absolutely disgraceful.

He took home £3.5m in the 2018/2019 season. His salary for that year accounted for 6% of the total wage bill

He is up there with the highest earners at the club on the basis of his salary nevermind his bonuses.

How many other football clubs in Europe have their Chief Executive as one of the highest paid employees at the club?

https://videocelts.com/2020/01/blogs/latest-news/report-in-the-times-makes-peter-lawwell-the-highest-paid-football-director-in-britain/

Lawwell is the highest paid football director in the whole of Britain yet Celtic fall further and further behind English clubs every year in terms of spending. Can some of ye not see how absurd this is. The only one benefiting from this is Lawwell, the squad is consistently downsized. We sell a star talent like Tierney for less than he's worth, our wage bill probably reduces, we only reinvest half of that in the playing squad but Lawwell's earnings keep going up and up. The people who back Lawwell are as fickle as they come.

[ned]

Hard one to call. On one hand we all want better player that can go into Europe and be much more competitive...because we all believe Celtic are big enough to do that - but on the other hand, whilst we know Lawell will not do that, we do know he will keep the club very financially sound, whilst Sevco run from one financial crisis to the next. His salary is high but much of that is linked to financial performance bonuses.

Having said that he got very lucky when Rodgers felt the need to do a midnight flit, in my opinion he looked at the remaining schedule with a few very tough looking away games, and was not convinced the treble was on. (Leicester had a very easy run in with all bottom 6 teams to play so he went there for his bonus instead) but then Lenny came in out of nowhere and secured the treble after all.

Had this not happened I think there would have been a lot more heat on Lawell and a massive push to strengthen the squad and deliver a big name manager. He got very lucky the way it all panned out.

Why did Lennon leave Celtic first time round?

Was it not that he saw Lawell wasn't interested in investing and progressing the team and knew that they could win the league etc. handy enough without spending much cash?

Get a lucky run in Europe i.e. beat Barca at home or get a decent run in the Europa league etc and keep the fans  happy.

It isn't black or white. I don't like Lawwell's running of the club and I agree that it's scandalous what we haven't invested and who we possibly have missed out on. However, he has not run the club into the ground.
Lennon certainly was the easy choice but in hindsight he has done a good job. Benitez or Mourinho were pie in the sky.
From your list of players who have left only two really need replacing. Barkas replaces Forster. We need a CB, in fact probably two. None of the rest of those players are a miss.

[ned]

Hard one to call. On one hand we all want better player that can go into Europe and be much more competitive...because we all believe Celtic are big enough to do that - but on the other hand, whilst we know Lawell will not do that, we do know he will keep the club very financially sound, whilst Sevco run from one financial crisis to the next. His salary is high but much of that is linked to financial performance bonuses.

Having said that he got very lucky when Rodgers felt the need to do a midnight flit, in my opinion he looked at the remaining schedule with a few very tough looking away games, and was not convinced the treble was on. (Leicester had a very easy run in with all bottom 6 teams to play so he went there for his bonus instead) but then Lenny came in out of nowhere and secured the treble after all.

Had this not happened I think there would have been a lot more heat on Lawell and a massive push to strengthen the squad and deliver a big name manager. He got very lucky the way it all panned out.

Keeping the club financially sound is one thing but it's the money he is taking out of the club personally that is absolutely disgraceful.

He took home £3.5m in the 2018/2019 season. His salary for that year accounted for 6% of the total wage bill

He is up there with the highest earners at the club on the basis of his salary nevermind his bonuses.

How many other football clubs in Europe have their Chief Executive as one of the highest paid employees at the club?

https://videocelts.com/2020/01/blogs/latest-news/report-in-the-times-makes-peter-lawwell-the-highest-paid-football-director-in-britain/

Lawwell is the highest paid football director in the whole of Britain yet Celtic fall further and further behind English clubs every year in terms of spending. Can some of ye not see how absurd this is. The only one benefiting from this is Lawwell, the squad is consistently downsized. We sell a star talent like Tierney for less than he's worth, our wage bill probably reduces, we only reinvest half of that in the playing squad but Lawwell's earnings keep going up and up. The people who back Lawwell are as fickle as they come.

Valid points except the bit about falling further behind Englush clubs. FFS, Bournemouth are just relegated and are guaranteed 160m for doing f**k all.
They spent tens of millions on a few players. Ryan Fraser has just left them as s free agent and appeared be on 60k plus per week. We cannot compete with that, that is not Lawwell's fault. What is his fault is missing out on players by trying to hardball. Below is direct quote from McGinn;

"It was important to weigh up everything and not just go with my heart because I had basically made up my mind I wanted to join Celtic.
But I also had to weigh up in my mind how strong Celtic's midfield had been for a long time.
I remember speaking to Brendan Rodgers and he said the important thing I would take from it was I would play games.
But Steve Bruce said I would play every game.
I was used to playing week in week out at Hibs and it was so important to me that that carried on.
A lot was made of it but I have spoken to Peter Lawwell since and I have huge respect for how he operates."

[Angelo]

Hard one to call. On one hand we all want better player that can go into Europe and be much more competitive...because we all believe Celtic are big enough to do that - but on the other hand, whilst we know Lawell will not do that, we do know he will keep the club very financially sound, whilst Sevco run from one financial crisis to the next. His salary is high but much of that is linked to financial performance bonuses.

Having said that he got very lucky when Rodgers felt the need to do a midnight flit, in my opinion he looked at the remaining schedule with a few very tough looking away games, and was not convinced the treble was on. (Leicester had a very easy run in with all bottom 6 teams to play so he went there for his bonus instead) but then Lenny came in out of nowhere and secured the treble after all.

Had this not happened I think there would have been a lot more heat on Lawell and a massive push to strengthen the squad and deliver a big name manager. He got very lucky the way it all panned out.

Keeping the club financially sound is one thing but it's the money he is taking out of the club personally that is absolutely disgraceful.

He took home £3.5m in the 2018/2019 season. His salary for that year accounted for 6% of the total wage bill

He is up there with the highest earners at the club on the basis of his salary nevermind his bonuses.

How many other football clubs in Europe have their Chief Executive as one of the highest paid employees at the club?

https://videocelts.com/2020/01/blogs/latest-news/report-in-the-times-makes-peter-lawwell-the-highest-paid-football-director-in-britain/

Lawwell is the highest paid football director in the whole of Britain yet Celtic fall further and further behind English clubs every year in terms of spending. Can some of ye not see how absurd this is. The only one benefiting from this is Lawwell, the squad is consistently downsized. We sell a star talent like Tierney for less than he's worth, our wage bill probably reduces, we only reinvest half of that in the playing squad but Lawwell's earnings keep going up and up. The people who back Lawwell are as fickle as they come.

Valid points except the bit about falling further behind Englush clubs. FFS, Bournemouth are just relegated and are guaranteed 160m for doing f**k all.
They spent tens of millions on a few players. Ryan Fraser has just left them as s free agent and appeared be on 60k plus per week. We cannot compete with that, that is not Lawwell's fault. What is his fault is missing out on players by trying to hardball. Below is direct quote from McGinn;

"It was important to weigh up everything and not just go with my heart because I had basically made up my mind I wanted to join Celtic.
But I also had to weigh up in my mind how strong Celtic's midfield had been for a long time.
I remember speaking to Brendan Rodgers and he said the important thing I would take from it was I would play games.
But Steve Bruce said I would play every game.
I was used to playing week in week out at Hibs and it was so important to me that that carried on.
A lot was made of it but I have spoken to Peter Lawwell since and I have huge respect for how he operates."

Yes that's true.

But contrast what Lawwell takes out of our wage bill (6% of our total wage bill in 2018/19). If you look at this base salary it is 2% of our total wage bill a season (on avg, it could be more now).

The next highest paid director in British football in 2018/19 was Ed Woodward, his salary of £3.16m was <1% of Man Utd's total wage bill.

Lawwell is acting in his own self interest and not in the best interests of the club.

[dublin7]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

[Angelo]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

They topped their group in the Europa League last year.

The problem isn't attracting top players, the problem is the board's reluctance to invest in the first team.

Between Rodger's compensation package, Van Dijk's sell on fee, deals for Dembele, Tierney and Armstrong etc, Celtic have recouped upward of £70m in the past 2 and a half seasons. They have barely spent about half of that while posting consistent profits and Lawwell's salary consistently rising.

[ned]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

Celtic have never been competitive in the CL. How many times have we got out of the group stages?
The same clubs reach the QFs year after year with the odd anomaly. We should be striving for last 16 in CL or QF or beyond in EL. We are hampered mainly by our lack of competition domestically and poor investment in players. I hope we are starting to address that with the money spent on Edouard,  Jullien and now Barkas in the last three years. Lawwell doesn't help but he's doing exactly as wished for by the big shareholder(s).

[dublin7]

Goood player's won't leave the Premier League in England to move to Scotland to play in the SPL for less money.

Even the top championship clubs In England can offer better wages. Your directors realise this and that's why Celtics policy is to buy young unproven talent mixed with best of Scotland. Anything else is pie in the sky stuff

[Angelo]

Goood player's won't leave the Premier League in England to move to Scotland to play in the SPL for less money.

Even the top championship clubs In England can offer better wages. Your directors realise this and that's why Celtics policy is to buy young unproven talent mixed with best of Scotland. Anything else is pie in the sky stuff

Why should Celtic be targeting the EPL for players? Most European clubs will only look to cast offs fro the EPL as they cannot afford to compete financially with them.

Money is a big factor but Celtic will always be a bigger draw than teams like West Ham, Everton etc if finances are not everything.

[marty34]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

They topped their group in the Europa League last year.

The problem isn't attracting top players, the problem is the board's reluctance to invest in the first team.

Between Rodger's compensation package, Van Dijk's sell on fee, deals for Dembele, Tierney and Armstrong etc, Celtic have recouped upward of £70m in the past 2 and a half seasons. They have barely spent about half of that while posting consistent profits and Lawwell's salary consistently rising.

As I say, Lawell's objective is to win the league, and win the cups etc. with spending as little money as possible.  Lawell knows he can do this - win a few trophies and keep the majority of fans happy.

As an added bonus, a run in Europe keeps the fans happy also  and brings 8n a few pounds!

[dublin7]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

They topped their group in the Europa League last year.

The problem isn't attracting top players, the problem is the board's reluctance to invest in the first team.

Between Rodger's compensation package, Van Dijk's sell on fee, deals for Dembele, Tierney and Armstrong etc, Celtic have recouped upward of £70m in the past 2 and a half seasons. They have barely spent about half of that while posting consistent profits and Lawwell's salary consistently rising.

As I say, Lawell's objective is to win the league, and win the cups etc. with spending as little money as possible.  Lawell knows he can do this - win a few trophies and keep the majority of fans happy.

As an added bonus, a run in Europe keeps the fans happy also  and brings 8n a few pounds!

That is Celtic's level now. What else can their owners be expected to do?They can't compete in Europe so just dominate domestically and try to find a few hidden gems around Europe they can sell on for a nice profit in a few years time.

You only have to look at what happened to Rangers to see what happens if they started spending beyond their means