‘Big spending Swindon Town’ doesn’t quite have a ring about it but the Wiltshire side, playing in League One, that’s Division Three in old money, today spent £350,000 to sign up Simon Ferry and Paul Caddis.
The story effects Celtic on two levels beyond the obvious loss of the players.
If ever the abject poverty of the SPL needed highlighted then the fact that ‘big clubs’ like Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen couldn’t compete for the players is obvious.
Between themselves, like the rest of the SPL clubs, they haven’t spent a penny on a transfer fee during the transfer window.
Signing a player that most season ticket holders will have heard of is quite an achievement these days with obscure signings coming in from English outposts or hopeful foreigners with dreams of becoming the next Didier Agathe rather than Stephane Bonnes.
Regardless of the outcome of the Aiden McGeady saga, Celtic are by far the biggest/only spenders in Scottish football and really ought to emphasise that in the SPL table this season.
Without wishing any disrespect to either player they would be unlikely to feature in Neil Lennon’s plans for the season ahead yet are beyond the reach of Celtic’s eleven competitors for the title.
Watching the amount of players that were on duty at the Emirates Cup was an eye-opener. Add in Darren O’Dea, Mark Wilson, Niall McGinn andBerum Kayal to the list plus the development squad players such as James Keatings, Sean Fitzharris, Richie Towell and Paul Slane and a Lennoxtown five-a-side competition could run for longer than a run in the Europa League for Hibs or Falkirk.
It’s almost two years since Rangers made their post Kaunas transfer market splash when Pedro Mendes, Maurice Edu and Steve Davis arrived for the best part of £10m.
The benefits of that expenditure were starting to wear thin last season, despite a disastrous season Celtic finished just six points behind a Rangers team that managed to lose all three home Champions League ties.
So far Neil Lennon has been busy in the transfer market with Efrain Juarez, Joe Ledley, Daryl Murphy, Gary Hooper and Kayal all arriving at sizeable expense with only further departures expected from Rangers.
The red carpet being laid out for Honduran Georgie Welcome is almost embarrassing. The striker will train at Murray Park for a week with little prospect of gaining a work permit due to his lack of international appearances.
How Rangers perform will always impact on Celtic, but this season is really about finding a strong resilient squad of 18 that won’t accept any points dropped at home and who’ll scrap and battle for everything on the road- just as Lennon, Johan Mjallby and Alan Thompson did as players.
If Celtic were to appear in League One we’d expect nothing less than a season of dominance.
Other than Rangers this season’s opponents, with an exception here or there, will be made up of players deemed not quite good enough for League One.
Converting our off field advantages onto the pitch could make the season ahead go some way towards erasing the pain and failure’s of the last two terms.
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Well said. If we can’t win the league with this squad then we should chuck it. Nobody is remotely close to us in terms of spending but I still maintain that we need a big,big name up front-someone who will guarantee us the goals to see us destroy the oposition in Europe as well as domestic. Hail Hail.
we need a class defender more id say.the goals we are leaking are awful.
We need a goalie first of all Zaluska showings so far have been shocking.
We also need a class cental defender as my granny could knock Loovens off the ball
“Other than Rangers this season’s opponents, with an exception here or there, will be made up of players deemed not quite good enough for League One.”
It could be argued that our reserves were only good enough for league 1.
we do need a keeper and another defender and a striker the mid field is good
if we dont get them we will end up 4th or 5th in the leauge