Simon Jordan has slammed the rubbish outcome to Celtic’s Champions League campaign, matching last year’s wooden spoon.
Under Ange Postecoglou Celtic picked up two points with supporters given grounds for optimism that the club was moving towards being competitive at the highest level.
One year on and the hoops have failed again, picking up one point from five matches with a dead rubber coming up next month against Feyenoord as a face saving exercise.
There is very little optimism to be taken from this season’s campaign, the quality of the squad has diminished with Luis Palma the only one of seven summer signing to look capable of playing in the Champions League.
It is a tale of failed recruitment over three windows, Jordan rarely has a positive comment to make about Scottish football but not many Celtic fans would argue with his assessment of this season’s European performances.
Listening in to TalkSPORT, Football Scotland reports the former Crystal Palace owner saying:
They spent €22million in the transfer window this year. That was the Celtic spend, they sold €30-odd million worth of players, so they sold more than they brought in. With the turnover they’ve got, I would expect Celtic to be more competitive in Europe than they currently have been in the last two seasons.
They haven’t spent a great deal of money – give us more money is what he (Rodgers) is saying. If you are spending £20million a season and you are selling £30-odd million worth of players, then ‘if you want me to be more successful in Europe’. I would say ‘be a better coach’.
But notwithstanding that, be a better coach and, at the same time, be given a little bit more ammunition. One coach, albeit he (Postecoglou) had gone a bit off the boil, but everyone loves, has produced the same rubbish outcome.
Whatever the arithmetic and accountancy techniques used Celtic fans can see a clear deterioration in standards on the park this season.
With a month to go attention is on Mark Lawwell and Rodgers to reverse the trend when the January window opens for business.
Good luck with that expecting the club or the board to spend money,that’s like asking an alcoholic to watch your kerryoot,it ain’t going to happen.
And the conedy show and the circus all came to town today with the daily sevco promoting 2 feelgood factor stories,one being Butlins the goalkeeper is available for a starting price of £20 million with Man Utd leading the chase,the other feelgood factor story is that sevco are still in line for an invite to the world football tournament in season 2025 bringing in a multi million pounds bounty to the klub.
Not denying we were awful in the CL this season – not helped by some ridiculous reds, resultant suspensions and injuries to key players. The board need to provide the quality that BR has now openly said is missing (something that was evident to most fans about ten seconds after the last transfer window closed!!!), or we potentially lose him and automatic CL qualification for next year. Even if we do get back in, with Sevco being so pish, we definitely risk a repeat of this season’s shitshow.
However, while we will finish bottom of the group, unlike English media darlings Man Utd, at least we didn’t spend around £1bn on dud players (and run up unsustainable debt levels in the process) to do so. Their group was no more difficult than ours, but their results have arguably worse, given what they have at their disposal, compared to us. Maybe that gobshite prick Jordan can highlight the English CL failings as well. Or explain why Palace were so crap under his “expert leadership”, or why most of their fans think he’s an utter tool that knows feck all about finance or footy.
Unless something “miraculous” happens over the next two transfer windows…we will remain cannon fodder in the CL.
In fact I’m reaching the stage that I only want us to win the League and qualify so that THEY don’t …as I have no expectations of success.
Lazio, for example, were no better than bang average…and we hardly laid a glove on them.
And while I’m on a rant…I don’t like the way we play in the CL…Build up is too slow.
Anyway rant over…
‘Mon the Limassol.
Well Joe, are you really going to feed into such a clown, who was actually woeful within a role of a club?
Maybe he suits the same agenda as yourself in the continuing whining about the summer recruitment?
Maybe your missing the likes of Mccarthy, abilgaard, jenz, bernie, hacko, and big Ben from last season CL squad?
Maybe investing in the likes of GG and JJ is the way to go, when only really wanting to use the club to land the bigger contract they craved for?
Mooy and GG both only available for half a season in there first year with ourselves?
Why the total lack of reality, where we are as an actual team, especially with the more established players within the squad?
Have there been the improvements within there own overall game?
To hard to tell really, as still don’t know what Celtic team is going to take to the field with its approach to the game, and will include this weekend also.
Are we an actual team who are going to play with the shackles on or off ourselves?
Take a look at the difference in our approach to the home and away games within the CL?
Same could apply to a few games within the SPFL, especially against the anti football teams?
Are we going to see players allowed to express themselves on the pitch, or looking for that precision approach within our play, when such players remain out of our price range?
So what type of player are we actually looking for as a LB?
The big physical overlapping LB, who can cross into the area, with no-one there to actually win the ball, but can play as a rigid LB?
Or maybe the headless chicken approach that Taylor provides within many a SPFL match, with being all over the pitch and closing down space for our more creative players to try and operate within?
That’s only 1 position highlighted, yet many more could be addressed with the totally different approaches been taken to games, and how the team is actually set up?
I know which I prefer, and hope to see players allowed to express themselves far more before the winter break, and we look a far better team for doing so, without such a pressurised precision approach imo.
And just as a little reminder, as it’s seems to have gone unnoticed, but yet to field our strongest available 11 at the end of November within a season?
Maybe that’s also the fault of the newer players also, as someone has to be blamed, and seems like they are going to get the blame for everything else within the club at the moment?
Maybe supporting the player wearing the Jersey has become a thing of the past nowadays, as plenty of it on show within our support currently, and hardly helped with the negative approach from the likes of yourselves either Joe?
Who needs the Scottish media to attack the club, when plenty from within are willing to do the job for them?
Editor: Thanks for your contribution, hopefully you enjoyed the backslapping at the AGM and top notch banter from your heroes Lawwell and Nicholson, quality stuff.
Having to field a team with only five or six players not brought in by ML is some handicap but Brendan has aligned himself too closely with the architects of Managed Decline.
No European knock out wins in 20 years and one Champions League group stage victory in a decade isn’t an accident, nor is a £3.5m pay packet and resurrecting the cherished O** F*** brand #celticfamily
Ive read your comment twice and still dont have the slightest clue what you are trying to say.
You don’t have talk some utter pish, Johnno.
You’re all over that Celtic Blog every article every day and no one even reads your comments as it’s exactly the same rubbish every post.
Can’t you try to get a real hobby, like walking or playing football or something and leave us in peace?
A cool re-assessment of long-term player recruitment involving the manager’s requirements might produce better results.
The more I see the News on TV, the more I think of you and your intransigence towards the suffering people of Palestine.
I think you are smug while those Israeli soldiers lord it over those poor Palestinian civilians.
They are poor and defenceless while your soldiers have all the high-velocity rifles the armament industry of the West can muster.
I think of David and Goliath and you are Goliath, in the same way that the British Hun has persecuted and murdered the Irish Nation for the last eight hundred years.
You murder countless thousands of Palestinian civilians with your superior armaments.
If there is a god in the sky, he cannot be on the side of Israel, He cannnot see the wanton slaughter of innocent civilians and think it is okay.
Like England, and aligned with England and the other warring nations of the West, Isreal is a monster. And you are afraid to recognise it.