listening to Real Radio tonight and they stated that WGS has spent £34 Million in just over 3 years. when you look at the standard of player in the squad you must question the managers ability to buy a player. i know he has sold a few players to balance the books but if that figure is right it really does pose a question. they also stated that Martin O'Neill spent £30 Mill in 5 years, ok he had a team with Larrson, lambert etc already there but when you look at McGeady, McManus, Caldwell, O Dea all cost nothing you really wonder how much cash has been wasted on the adam vigos etc.
Found this on a website and it looks about right the most recent signing in January, Flood pat McCourt, Mizun and McGinn are the others to add By Ewing Grahame Last Updated: 2:12AM BST 31 Mar 2008 The Celtic manager has spoken of building a Team One, a Team Two and a Team Three during his three years in Glasgow. Will the Celtic board trust him to assemble a Team Four? Ewing Grahame weighs up Strachan's 31 signings to date. . . and finds more misses than hits. Team One (2005/06) Jeremie Aliadiere French striker signed on loan from Arsenal. 2 appearances, 0 goals. 2/10 Artur Boruc Strachan's finest signing, costing just £650,000 from Legia Warsaw. Best Celtic goalkeeper in living memory. 117 appearances. 9/10 Mo Camara Free transfer from Burnley. Looked over-priced. 24 appearances, 0 goals. 2/10 Dion Dublin 36-year-old made only three starts but picked up SPL and CIS Insurance Cup medals. 12 appearances, 2 goals. 5/10 Roy Keane Sentimental journey or shrewd injection of charisma and experience? Collected two medals before retiring through injury. 13 appearances, 1 goal. 5/10 Shunsuke Nakamura Divides opinion. Strachan refers to him as a "genius". Others see a dead-ball specialist who offers little else. 116 games, 23 goals. 5/10 Paul Telfer Strachan's old reliable, 73 appearances, 1 goal. 5/10 Adam Virgo Has started three games since his £1.5m move from Mark McGhee's Brighton. Celtic must keep paying him until 2009. 12 appearances, 0 goals. 1/10 Du Wei Signed on loan from Shaghai Shenhua. Played just 45 minutes of a disastrous Scottish Cup tie at Clyde. 2/10 Mark Wilson Strachan paid Dundee United £500,000 for right-back. Lightweight and injury-prone. 42 appearances. 5/10 Maciej Zurawski Polish striker had a decent first season at Parkhead, but was never the same again. 30 goals from 72 appearances but none from 10 in Europe. 6/10 Team Two (2006/07) Mark Brown Signed for £50,000 from Inverness as back-up for Boruc, the former Rangers keeper has been competent enough when called upon. 10 appearances. 5/10 Gary Caldwell A Bosman signing from Hibs. Has committed more high-profile gaffes than anyone since Rab Douglas. 73 appearances, 2 goals. 4/10 Thomas Gravesen Arrived with a fanfare (and a £2m fee) from Real Madrid but failed to claim regular spot. Now on loan at Everton. Celtic contract has another year to run. 33 appearances, 6 goals. 2/10 Paul Hartley Has struggled from being constantly shifted around. 47 appearances, 1 goal. 5/10 Jiiri Jarosik The Czech midfielder had ability but rarely applied it. Sold to FC Samara for £500,000. 47 appearances, 7 goals. 3/10 Kenny Miller A Bosman signing, the Scotland striker scored just 8 goals in 38 domestic appearances but managed 3 in 8 European ties before being sold to Derby for a handsome profit of £3m. 6/10 Lee Naylor Looked fantastic for half a season but has struggled to rediscover that form. 86 appearances, 1 goal. 5/10 Jean-Joel Perrier-Doumbe Scored winner in last year's Scottish Cup final in only his fourth appearance. Injury has restricted him to just four more. 5/10 Steven Pressley Signing the veteran defender as cover in 2006/07 made sense. Giving him an 18-month contract didn't. 25 appearances, 2 goals. 5/10 Derek Riordan Despite over 60 goals in final three seasons at Hibs, Strachan sees him as a wide midfielder. 32 appearances (eight starts), 8 goals. 2/10 Evander Sno The teeenage midfielder cost just £250,000 from Feyenoord. Ponderous style. 49 appearances, 1 goal. 5/10 Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink Cost £3.4m from PSV Eindhoven and also splits fans. Lacks mobility but has been prolific enough, albeit not in Old Firm games. 69 appearances, 34 goals. 5/10 Team Three (2007/08) Scott Brown Strachan's record signing (£4.4m from Hibs) hasn't yet realised potential. Suspended three times this season. 44 appearances, 3 goals. 3/10 Massimo Donati Spent six years at AC Milan without getting anywhere near first team. Now we know why. Not fit for purpose. 39 appearances, 4 goals. 2/10 Andreas Hinkel Lacks pace but deserves a settling-in period following move from Sevilla. 12 appearances, 1 goal. 5/10 Ben Hutchinson Celtic paid Boro £250,000 in January to bring forward a move for the young striker yet he's only made one substitute appearance. 5/10 Chris Killen Another Bosman buy. One goal in 25 appearances (22 from the bench). 2/10 Scott McDonald Undeniable success. Strachan outbid Rangers to capture the Aussie for £750,000 and he's long since repaid that fee. 44 appearances, 28 goals. 8/10 Barry Robson Cost £1.25m from Dundee United. At 29, will have little re-sale value. Since Strachan won't drop Nakamura or McGeady, where to play him? 8 games, 2 goals. 5/10 Georgios Samaras Could be a decent impact player. Loan move from Man City yet to be made permanent. 8 games, 2 goals. 5/10
Comparing Strachan with MON is a nonsense. I have already stated that i would like him to leave at the end of this season but the level of criticism he gets does irk me. I loved MON but look at some of the players he inherited. Off the top of my head... Larsson Petrov Moravcik Mjallby McNamara Lambert All those players played a big part in the success at that time and inheriting someone like Larsson....well, that speaks for itself. He was then given an immediate war chest which he spent wisely on Sutton, Hartson, Thompson, Lennon and Balde. Three out of those five cost £6m. So pretty quickly there was a solid base on which to work on and the rest is history. Strachan came in at a time when MON's big signings were just past the peak of their powers and he had instructions to slash the wage bill and cut the average age of the squad whilst still having to win the title by spending no more than £3-4m on one player. In today's market it's pot luck when buying players at those prices and although a number of these guys can be considered failures i wonder how many fans objected at some of the bigger signings at the time they were made. Gravesen? Jarosik? I can't recall too many dissenting voices when these guys were brought in but for whatever reason they didn't work out. Now consider the massive rebuilding job of throwing out the old (Sutton, Lennon, Hartson etc) and bringing in the new and still managing to win three titles in a period of time when theclub were visibly downgrading. Has the overall quality gone down since 5 or 6 years ago? Absolutely. No doubt about it. This though, would have been the case no matter who was brought in at that point in time. It just happened to be Strachan and he has still managed to keep us successfull during this time. I now feel that it's for him to go. In fact i felt it was time for him to go at the end of last season and i would have enjoyed seeing him leave with his head held high and sticking two fingers up to the numpties who disliked him no matter what he did (they have their own silly reasons for that). Perhaps, he may have seen that as being the easy way, who knows, but i do think things have gone stale now and personally i would like some fresh blood in there. A guy who demands respect from those around him. Someone who has real presence. I think this is important at a club like Celtic and i just don't think Strachan has those qualities about him. No matter what happens in the forseeable future i think he has done well for us at a difficult time of rebuilding/downgrading and doesn't deserve the over the top criticism he gets from certain quarters.
good post Caesar. one Question if the board had £20 million to spend this summer would you trust WGS to spend is on the right player? i totally agree with you on Gravesen & Jarosik, i thought both would be players, the only thing i would say is WGS brought both in then stated they could not play the formation he wanted!! he has also brought in some guys who have just never looked the part, Virgo for £1.5 mill!!!!!!!!!!!! i have tried to defend Strachan and you cant disagree that he has delivered 3 leagues, two cups and two last 16 places in champs Lge, however he has also been in place for so very poor performances. Bratislava, Clyde, Falkirk, St Mirren and Aberdeen in the cups when he has completely failed to raise the team and more importantly change the game when its going wrong, two recent games when he drew with motherwell and lost to st mirren his failure to change the tam was baffling. 1-1 at motherwell and we only use 1 sub? 0-1 at St Mirren and he changes his left back for a left back, he had three central defenders on, would the better change with 5 mins left of a cup tie you are losing not be 3 at move someone further forward, even put lovens up front and go long? too many time he just accepts the defeat and does nothing. i also sense the players have had enough, the Boruc issues, McGeady and his determination to stick to the same players must be having an effect in the dressing room. Guys like O'dea and Loovens must be sick watching McManus play that bad every week and still starting, same for the forwards. as you say its time for him to go and its unfair some of the abuse he gets but i do see where some of it comes from.
Martin I see that's an old article, and the scoring is pretty negative. I'm struggling to see how that adds up to £34M though. As mentioned, downsizing the wage bill and having a cap on transfer fees inevitably brings down the quality in the squad. With that in mind, and knowing players in that price bracket are a bit hit and miss, I think Strachan has done pretty well over the piece. Of the duds, Mo Camara cost nowt, and didn't stay long. Virgo was a disaster, but just about every manager has a couple Du Wei was only being looked at by Celtic, and a taxi was promptly phoned after the Clyde match. Donati looked a cracker to begin with and the fans really took to him. It all fell flat though, and Donati showed why Italian teams were glad to see the back of him. There are other players there awarded really low scores who either cost the club nothing, or have raised their game eg. Caldwell and Brown. Riordan wasn't given the opportunity, and so decided to revert to Neds'r'us and made himself even less popular with the manager. Was always a bit of a gamble and it never paid off. I would argue that given the money spent on each player, they have mostly given a decent return. Considering the lack of real quality, regular loss of form is expected by players costing so little.
Without wanting to advertise another site too much, there's quite an interesting fans' comparison and analysis of recent Rangers versus Celtic signings at: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...chan+signings+celtic&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=uk
problems only start when you don't win the league, rangers being the prime example when you don't win the league. champions league money is all the more important now.
And after todays shocker against Hearts then it looks like you can start counting your pennies because IMO the league's over. Congratulations on 4-in-a-row. Hopefully, we can give you a better challenge next year because at this rate, with Champions League money strengthening your position, it looks as if we could be behind for the forseeable future....Walter MUST now go!
Granted there have been some bad buys but there are far more positives. . . . . . Gordon Strachan has almost halved the wage bill, enabling Celtic to be in a very strong position financially, he has brought 3/4 titles in a row, he has twice qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions league and he has made some very good buys, Boruc, Caldwell, Scott Brown, Hartley, Nakamura and McDonald, also he has bought players who i think will go on to become very good Celtic players, Loovens (on sundays performance), Hinkel and Crosas. Give Strachan the money and he will take us to 5.
Samaras 20 goals 52 games not too bad. The problem is your expecting too much. No player is interested in playing in Scotland so your already scarping the bottom barrel of talent to begin with.
Samaras hasn't scored in 12 games mate. I totally agree about no-one wanting to play in Scotland. Can't compete financially with the leagues in England.
It,s celtic,s title yet again without any resistance since we stuffed you 4-1 at parkhead this season Unbelivable - and how football can change so quickly True Celtic fans are realistic that rangers could re-surge under a decent manager -but the present regime at ibrox have proved they havent got the players to win the spl .
The likes of Ferguson and Boyd are Rangers diehards, so they are giving their all and are playing at their peak, they are just not good enough and no manager will change that.
Ferguson was the best Rangers player today after Big Lafferty got injured IMO Boyd is a f*cking joke tbh
Correct. And if Dundee Utd dont do us a favour tomorrow then the gap between the two sides will grow to such an extent that it would not be inconceivable that we could be looking at another 9 in a row scenario. Rangers have not been financially prudent the way Celtc were during our period of dominance in the early 90's and the way things have changed the CL money has become the 'Golden goose', if you like, and as long as Rangers play second fiddle to Celtic and persevere with a manager who has clearly gone stale then it looks grim for the Blues. We wont be able to compete financially for the calibre of player we need to re-establish ourselves; one only has to look at the Scott Brown situation as a microcosm of what I am talking about. He has been terrific for you guys this year and, lets be honest, he was a player we thought we had in the bag, only to lose out as a result of the fact we are, as you point out, skint. I also have to point out however that during our time of dominance in Scottish football it became so boring that we almost, almost, LONGED for some sort of challenge. The simple facts are, however, that as long as you guys remain in front you are likely to stay there. I know this all sounds very solemn but for many Rangers fans it is the basic truth. Our only saving grace, if any at all, is that over at your place you have still got the philosophy not to get too carried away and you do not have too many grand ambitions. The ambition, it seems, is only to keep ahead of us, ever slightly, and that always gives us hope.....
