Is it time for business?

To start with, I have to make it clear that I no knowledge about what negotiations are involved when signing a new player for Celtic (or any other team for that matter), however, I will still given an opinion on it.  As they say ‘don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story’.

I have to be fair to Celtic and say that over the last two years I feel the board have backed the manager with a decent transfer budget.  I’m not even 100% sure how many signings the club has made since Tony Mowbray took over but I am certain it’s more than most teams that we’re competing with so it would be unfair for me to criticise our board for not backing the boss.

We have already got Kelvin Wilson and young Adam Matthews, both of whom I haven’t saw very much of and don’t really know a great deal about but from what I have read about them, I am confident that they can do a job for us.

Does anyone else know much about these two guys?  Or better still, has anyone been to a match where they’ve saw either of them playing? Please do share your knowledge with us.

In the past, I feel we have sometimes been a bit slow off the mark when it comes to bringing in new faces so I would urge the Celtic board to make sure we don’t leave signings to the last minute this year.

I have already written a few pieces on players that I want to see leave and who I’d like to see come in, from the readers comments, I think it’s safe to say that a goalkeeper and goal scorer have to be our top priorities.

I guess the other players required can be left for the comments box or for another day completely, I will leave that up to you to decide.

Like a lot of folk, my main criticism in recent times of the board would be the January transfer window where in 2008 our only signing was Willo Flood.  Had we pushed the boat out and got Steven Fletcher from Hibs, we may not have won the league, obviously nobody knows for sure but that season still hurts and feels like an opportunity lost.

I’ve already written about how thin the Rangers squad is, with a new manager, McCoist, and not very many players, we should be able to blow them away this year but as we all know things that should happen in football don’t always work out.

I, for one, would like to see the board give us a new goalkeeper in time for our pre season, which starts in just a weeks time.

I’d also be happy to see us move some players on, this is something that I’ve also written about but really we must be getting to a position where some squad players who are not going to be used will be earning money that could be used on a first team player.

How many times have we, or other clubs, signed a new player who struggled for form and needed some time to fit into their new surroundings so if we are going to sign new faces, I would like to think we can get it done and confirmed quickly.

I know some will argue that good players can hit the ground running and don’t need time to settle in but I feel that’s it’s a pointless risk to take and would prefer if we got some new guys in now.

With us now in a financial position where we are either trying to find younger players from down south or find guys who are moving a long way from home to play for us, I think it’s a bit unfair to ask a young player to come and settle into a new culture/ language/ team etc without having a bit of time.

Peter Lawwell has already been quoted as saying we will get two or three players in so c’mon get them in and get the deals finalised.

I know there is also an argument that we can’t just sign a keeper or striker for the sake of signing someone and I fully agree with that but I just don’t want to see the team leave for Australia with the only new faces being the two guys that were signed a while ago on pre contract agreements.

PS,  On a side note, I wrote about how I thought a pre season tour of Oz wasn’t beneficial to the hoops but it turns out that we have way more fans that I expected out there so anyone reading this who is going to the matches, I hope you enjoy 🙂

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