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The Board - general discussion (including Res 12); notes from the AGM
Topic Started: 15 Jul 2014, 12:03 AM (1,414,844 Views)
murphio
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Could start a row in an empty room
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Otis B Driftwood
2 Sep 2015, 08:27 AM
murphio
2 Sep 2015, 07:44 AM
Otis B Driftwood
2 Sep 2015, 01:45 AM

Quoting limited to 3 levels deepreductio ad absurdem in attempt to diminish what I said: yes, Lawwell will have an input, but the bottom line is that the board will set spending priorities. There is also the small matter of the £100 reduction in season book prices: that isn't going to affect income streams at all. Tell you what, let's spunk millions on a load of players with extravagant wage demands in the hope that we can qualify for the CL every season... that worked well the last time it was tried by a Scottish club... didnt it?
I understand it just fine so you can ram your condescension up your jacksie. The notion Peter Lawwell is the highest earner at the club for being nothing more than an administrator, doing Dermot Desmond's bidding, is risible. As CEO - and de facto Director of Football - he is ultimately responsible for the loss of millions of pounds in revenue - income that had to be plugged by selling the family silver season after season. Everything is in steady decline and the only thing this man knows is to continue with the same, failed policy - he is a one trick pony. But still, the hun will be back next year and he stick £100 back onto the price of a season book - that will solve all his problems. :lol:
So -just to be clear - you think it's all Lawwell's fault, and his alone? Clearly, the board disagree with your take on his performance in his role.
No, the failure is collective; the board provide a basic framework which requires the club to be run within its means. The scouting team, the management structure etc has been put in place by Lawwell and its failure is ultimately his responsibility. No one is suggesting we spend money we don't have; the problem is how we spend the money we do have.
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columbo
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For me - the board of our football club has to 1. make sure the club is financially secure
2. ensure the football side is well managed and, as far as is possible , funded
3. make sure by a combination of the first 2 points that we have a winning team on the park that our support want to see

Easier said than done I am willing to admit.

For most , I would imagine , and certainly for me - having a successful team that is good to watch is the biggest concern but I understand that financial realities are a massive factor in this.

However ,we seem now to have got into the mind set where our board are willing to sacrifice everything to achieve a season on season positive balance sheet.
The planning does not seem to be related to the team on the pitch but on a worst case scenario where if we fail in our initial objective (CL) we can make up any shortfall in income by selling our best players then rely on our scouts to turn up a couple of gems to repeat the cycle somewhere down the line.

The reality of lowering of playing squad quality , loss of goodwill from the fans , the resulting dwindling attendances,and our falling reputation as a European club are all a price worth paying for a profit at the end of the season.

This cycle eventually must come a cropper and it seems as if it may be coming shortly.
At the end of this transfer window we are relying on our manager, who has yet to prove himself, to mould a collection of untried , inconsistent or injury prone defenders into a defence that can hold its own in the Europa League and hold of a robust challenge from Aberdeen.

The front players, what can you say - Celtic supporters have always had heroes - but the board have decided we can do without them as well.
When we spent some reasonable money on the young Croatian defender and Scepovic was moved on it made sense- the board had understood -the manager was going to be backed
and we were going to have a striker to fire our imagination.

Let down in a major way.

A club at the crossroads.
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murphio
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Could start a row in an empty room
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columbo
2 Sep 2015, 09:35 AM
For me - the board of our football club has to 1. make sure the club is financially secure
2. ensure the football side is well managed and, as far as is possible , funded
3. make sure by a combination of the first 2 points that we have a winning team on the park that our support want to see

Easier said than done I am willing to admit.

For most , I would imagine , and certainly for me - having a successful team that is good to watch is the biggest concern but I understand that financial realities are a massive factor in this.

However ,we seem now to have got into the mind set where our board are willing to sacrifice everything to achieve a season on season positive balance sheet.
The planning does not seem to be related to the team on the pitch but on a worst case scenario where if we fail in our initial objective (CL) we can make up any shortfall in income by selling our best players then rely on our scouts to turn up a couple of gems to repeat the cycle somewhere down the line.

The reality of lowering of playing squad quality , loss of goodwill from the fans , the resulting dwindling attendances,and our falling reputation as a European club are all a price worth paying for a profit at the end of the season.

This cycle eventually must come a cropper and it seems as if it may be coming shortly.
At the end of this transfer window we are relying on our manager, who has yet to prove himself, to mould a collection of untried , inconsistent or injury prone defenders into a defence that can hold its own in the Europa League and hold of a robust challenge from Aberdeen.

The front players, what can you say - Celtic supporters have always had heroes - but the board have decided we can do without them as well.
When we spent some reasonable money on the young Croatian defender and Scepovic was moved on it made sense- the board had understood -the manager was going to be backed
and we were going to have a striker to fire our imagination.

Let down in a major way.

A club at the crossroads.
Nail on the head.
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warbleshinney
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If we look at the some of strengths and weaknesses of our policies:

Loan Deals Strength - can get a good player for a year (e.g. Denayer). If you get a dud you can hand him back.

Weakness - If the player is good then he returns to the original club and we are left back at square one looking for new player for a position, especially at a critical period for us (European qualification). There is always a feeling that loan players are 'temporary' and continuity is getting compromised.

Young players/Projects Strength - in 2 years time we could theoretically have a dynamic midfield comprising players like Ryan Christie, Scott Allen, Tom Rogic and Liam Henderson.

Weakness That is the future - these players are as likely to fail/be average as to succeed - we play games in the present, not the future.

Safe financial model v Speculation Strength - Well run safe financial club which will avoid the nightmare of debt and collapse.

Weakness - if playing ultra safe may not invest in team properly and miss out on Champions League qualification.


I think most of us would like a model that continues with an investment in youth/projects while ALSO pursuing at least one established player each year that would add immediate quality to the team (i.e. small specualation rather than flamboyant spending? Also to avoid loan players?



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Pendy12
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I await Paul at CQN telling us we tried but failed, we can't put our club at risk by signing players over our structure and that we have an exciting future with the new young players we have.

My main gripe with our board is that as a fan, we top half premier league prices for everything at our club- season tickets, merchandise, food at games etc. the return we receive is that we operate as a bottom half championship club. People won't want to hear that but it's true, Bristol City offering £9 million for a player, Derby signing Brad Johnson for £6 million. We as a collective fanbase contribute so much to our club, however were not getting value for money which is what Peter Lawwell keeps telling us is crucial.

It's not a great time to be a Celtic fan. It's certainly not as bad as when Fergus saved us but it's a different kind of struggle. We are losing matches against teams such as Malmo who we should never be losing to. We plod along in the SPL and we are meant to be happy by this. I want a change, I want this club to feel like Celtic again and not a business.
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Corky Buczek
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Ned Rise
2 Sep 2015, 09:15 AM
Not the first time I've said it and I doubt it'll be the last, but I wouldn't be surprised if this managed decline is designed to provoke a backlash so that our billionaire can wander off, telling us we're ungrateful and seeing how we get on with some less mentally stable rich owner.

Can't see any other reason for the 'policy' they employ. McCann had the 'build it and they will come' while the current board have a 'dismantle it and they will leave' outlook, and they're not the slightest bit bothered about it. Of course, the recession has hit loads of fans, and some might not fancy it because there's no huns, but the 'product' and 'matchday experience' has been in decline for a long time.

Celtic used to get home gates of 60,000 every fortnight. This season it will be about 40,000, and some of those will be ghost attendees, having bought their tickets and not turned up. But there's no denying that season book sales have collapsed, even if the official figure is as close to the truth as Kim Jong-un's golf scorecard. With ticket sales, food, lottery tickets, merchandise it wouldn't be outlandish to think we're about half a million down on each match day compared to the day Peter Lawwell walked in the door to 'get the debt down'.

Unless debt is genuinely going to jeopardise the future of the club, there's no reason that a club can't carry some. Operating in the way we do has been counter-productive. We have missed out on £40M in the last two years by taking chances. Unforgivable really. And while we should have had enough to see off Malmo or Maribor, the evidence of Legia and even from last season in Europe suggested we were far from being able to take these teams for granted. In both ties, we got what we deserved. Absolutely nothing.

There is no reason why the club can't invest in players before they sell other players. We knew VVD would go and within a margin of a couple of million we knew what we would receive for him. A decent striker and proven defenders could have been bought, gone through pre-season and up to speed with the way the manager wanted the team to play.

Anyway, no point on focusing on one game. This has been going on for years. I'm amazed that there are people who still think that things will get rectified in the next window, or we'll give such and such a player time to settle in. Some might up their game as Griffiths has done and fair play to him for that, other signings might turn out to develop into fine Celtic players, but we're like footballing freegans looking for something that will keep us going for a wee bit, while telling the world that this open packet of cold meat covered in yesterday's fish sauce and vegetable peelings is actually pretty decent fare.

Hopefully these transfers in settle quickly (we're only in September after all and have only been knocked out of one European competition so far) and our forward line miraculously becomes more than the some of its parts and the defence, with the addition of a promising yet error-prone centre half (join the queue) needs to gel in a way that prevents humiliation in Europe's lesser competition. If it doesn't, we'll be looking for a new manager with another vision, another way of playing, and another 'season of transition', which is basically every season now that we aggressively pursue a policy to sell, sell, sell any player who has the merest whiff of cash about him.
This
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Mackin
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The Ginty McGinty genius
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I wonder how the 'wait until the end of the window before judging Lawwell' brigade feel this morning.

The same old pish year after year after year.
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SwavBhoy
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Getting on a bit
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henrikisgod
2 Sep 2015, 09:16 AM
Surely social media is our only route to let them know our feelings?
I don't want to stop supporting the team on the park but I don't like being taken for a mug either
Constantly bombarding their social media outlets to crashing point will at least get them to notice we're still here
Maybe Cartuja or the like could come up with a nice wee photoshop that we could constantly bombard them with?
Just a thought
Who is in charge of PR at Celtic? That supposed statement from Ronny. :ffs: That email :ffs:

I tweeted the club from my bed last night at 11pm, with regards to our striker situation for the Europa League and informing them to take a good eff to themselves.

Having slept on it and calmed down; I feel like tweeting it again to them. They don't give a toss about the fans now and are trolling us. Clueless indeed.
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jebus82
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Nanananana Andy Halliday.....ANDY HALLIDAAAAY!!
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what a pish poor transfer window, at least we already know the team wont qualify next year too. :brickwall:
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henrikisgod
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Considering retirement
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SwavBhoy
2 Sep 2015, 09:47 AM
henrikisgod
2 Sep 2015, 09:16 AM
Surely social media is our only route to let them know our feelings?
I don't want to stop supporting the team on the park but I don't like being taken for a mug either
Constantly bombarding their social media outlets to crashing point will at least get them to notice we're still here
Maybe Cartuja or the like could come up with a nice wee photoshop that we could constantly bombard them with?
Just a thought
Who is in charge of PR at Celtic? That supposed statement from Ronny. :ffs: That email :ffs:

I tweeted the club from my bed last night at 11pm, with regards to our striker situation for the Europa League and informing them to take a good eff to themselves.

Having slept on it and calmed down; I feel like tweeting it again to them. They don't give a toss about the fans now and are trolling us. Clueless indeed.
I was just thinking if they get the odd random tweet or email they can just brush it off but if we had one thing that we could just constantly bombard them with it would at least get noticed
I mean they would wet their knickers if people weren't able to get on the website to get their hard earned cash swindled from them buy season tickets / EL packages or merchandising
The only thing that would make them take notice is if it hit's the revenue streams, everything else is just white noise
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paulst1967
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Rubbish transfer window. What did you expect though? Board MIA in transfer window once again
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vlad
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vlad
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We have a striker in Griffiths who is punching above his weight on a hot streak domestically.
He shines against shampooe but it remains to be seen what he can do in Europe.

Cifci, an expensive unproven, suspended accident waiting to happen, who has demonstrated little in the time he has been here, to set the pulses racing.

Stokes.

There it is.

The Celtic front line..

eff me.

That really is as poor as I can recall.

Fergus McCann built a 60,000 capacity stadium to put bums on seats not in jerseys.
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Gonga
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I wonder if there is some idea to level the playing field domestically a wee bit.

Lawwell works at the SFA, can't imagine they don't have discussions about the effect of Celtics dominance in Scottish Football.
It would suit Lawwell get away with spending less and if it's under some guise as a long term rehabilitation of Scottish football then I can see how an agenda like that would translate to our current transfer policy.

Like it or not, the weekly domestic games need to have more value, there needs to be more competition and we need to be challenged more to have better focus and bite about us when we do play the likes of Malmo.

That's not making excuses for the board, I think they should have signed a striker, and a proper LB at least. And the timing once again of when we do business is clearly without European Competition in mind. It's self inflicted, as it often is.

There is clearly an agenda at board level to downsize, and as that happens games against Aberdeen, Hearts and eventually the huns will be a lot more important once again.


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beaumontbhoy
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Getting on a bit
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stormsonjupiter
2 Sep 2015, 09:25 AM
We have signed 8 new players & somehow we have come out of this window weaker.

Someone at the club must have a lot of faith in Cifcti. He will most likely lead the line in The Europa. I'm not writing him off but there is no reason whatsoever we couldn't have brought in a quality forward.

I feel for Ronny. He has not been properly backed.
ronny is not innocent in this. he was the one who wanted ciftci and thinks he is good enough. he pushed that deal when i'd say 95% of fans thought he was shampoo at utd and did not want him here.
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kevmcgovan
Getting noticed in the reserves
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Think the board are relying on season ticket sales next season going up for games against the zombies. They are running the club like a business rather than the way most football clubs are run. This although it has the upside of the club funding itself and looking good to investors its boring to watch. The club will win the league with the current squad, possibly a cup competition and put up a decent fight in the Europa League. That's good enough for the board to show the club is 'successful' on the pitch and that the right level of investment is there. I hate to jump on the bandwagon but fan power makes the difference and need more voices to be heard against the current situation.
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dazabhoy67
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Off treasure hunting in Holland
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Ned Rise
2 Sep 2015, 09:15 AM
Spoiler: click to toggle

:worthy: :thumbsup:

Couldn’t agree more, there are some posters that I look out for on here and your one of them. Always bang on the money. :thumbsup:

We don’t budget for the Champions League, so getting there by gambling in future may be seen as the best option. Dermot and co may be thinking, every year we pay over the top wages for the league we are in. Why not lower ourselves to just better than our rivals? We are now going on a serious spree in the Scottish transfer market, buying up all the best opposition players on lower wages. Is that really our new game plan?

A couple of years ago I truly believed we had hit rock bottom with the downsizing for a club like ours. How wrong was I!!!
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KirkyBhoy
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columbo
2 Sep 2015, 09:35 AM
For me - the board of our football club has to 1. make sure the club is financially secure
2. ensure the football side is well managed and, as far as is possible , funded
3. make sure by a combination of the first 2 points that we have a winning team on the park that our support want to see

Easier said than done I am willing to admit.

For most , I would imagine , and certainly for me - having a successful team that is good to watch is the biggest concern but I understand that financial realities are a massive factor in this.

However ,we seem now to have got into the mind set where our board are willing to sacrifice everything to achieve a season on season positive balance sheet.
The planning does not seem to be related to the team on the pitch but on a worst case scenario where if we fail in our initial objective (CL) we can make up any shortfall in income by selling our best players then rely on our scouts to turn up a couple of gems to repeat the cycle somewhere down the line.

The reality of lowering of playing squad quality , loss of goodwill from the fans , the resulting dwindling attendances,and our falling reputation as a European club are all a price worth paying for a profit at the end of the season.

This cycle eventually must come a cropper and it seems as if it may be coming shortly.
At the end of this transfer window we are relying on our manager, who has yet to prove himself, to mould a collection of untried , inconsistent or injury prone defenders into a defence that can hold its own in the Europa League and hold of a robust challenge from Aberdeen.

The front players, what can you say - Celtic supporters have always had heroes - but the board have decided we can do without them as well.
When we spent some reasonable money on the young Croatian defender and Scepovic was moved on it made sense- the board had understood -the manager was going to be backed
and we were going to have a striker to fire our imagination.

Let down in a major way.

A club at the crossroads.
:thumbsup:
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lisbonlion10
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Well I was waiting on the window to decide whether to buy a season ticket. Ta Peter, you've saved me £500
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The Green Lantern
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What does Dermot Desmond get from effectively owning Celtic - is he actually making a return on his investment?

In an ideal world I'd like to see the club owned by the fans but I'd welcome any kind of new ownership right now. I've always been wary of foreign owners but maybe someone with cash and the savvy to see how big a club we could be wouldn't be such a bad thing? Pie in the sky, of course, but we need to find a way out of this mess.
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MAH KA SHAUGH
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Quote:
 
I wonder if there is some idea to level the playing field domestically a wee bit.

Lawwell works at the SFA, can't imagine they don't have discussions about the effect of Celtics dominance in Scottish Football.
It would suit Lawwell get away with spending less and if it's under some guise as a long term rehabilitation of Scottish football then I can see how an agenda like that would translate to our current transfer policy.


I'd think the best way for Celtic or other Scottish clubs to do their bit for the country is to improve their team and achieve respect in European competition , raise the co-efficient points level and the bonus kitty that is shared between other Scottish SPL clubs as a result would be enough to silence their concerns.

My feeling is that the board are more along the lines of thinking that giving the fans a team that is winning the league by 17 points is a luxury we need not afford and suggests we have a lot of slack to play with before the second best team becomes a threat. We'll find out this season how much slack there is now. As for targets in European football Im not sure what the board's strategy is because logic would say you strengthen and prepare before you go to the battle.

If the ambition is mainly to stay a bit ahead of the rest of the SPL and continually reassess the situation as we go along then there's always the risk that we could allow a title challenge to happen unexpectedly.
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