Celtic FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2014/15 Mod Warning post #6011

To give it a better context, this is what he said before the game

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl/lennon-celtic-board-played-fair-on-transfers-1-3063222

“I don’t feel short-changed, but I think the squad is short,” said Lennon.

“Seven players have gone out the door, four have come in and, out of those seven, we lost three very important players. We have tried to bring players in and that has not been forthcoming. I don’t feel short-changed by anybody – it’s just the way the circumstances have thrown themselves at us.

“We could have asked Kelvin to stay until this tie was over, but I don’t think that would have happened.

“I didn’t really want to sell Hooper when we did, but we had no alternative in the end. It’s just one of those things where, in the space of a month, we have lost three valuable assets to the squad. Every situation is avoidable, but I don’t think there is a lot more we could have done.

“But we still have a game to retrieve it all. I’m not saying it’s over. It’s not. I think we are still very much in this tie. Yeah, it would be as sweet as any victory I’ve had as manager. It would be, considering everything that has gone on in the last six or seven weeks, the amount of qualification games we have had to play and off the back of what happened last week as well.

“The squad is really stretched at the minute so we are trying to do the best patch-up job we possibly can. These things happen – so I am not putting my excuses forward before the end. We are a bit stretched but I think we will prevail.

“There’s a lot riding on the game. It’s so early in the season and we have always maintained that these games are the hardest for us to overcome for varying reasons.

“But I think the players are still angry from last week. There is always a fall-out after these games and things get said, so they will be very motivated to play in it and to prevail.”

And this is what he said afterwards

"I don't know. You are asking the wrong person.

"We came into this with no real help, which makes it even more remarkable what we have achieved tonight."

"I am relieved; there's a great sense of pride in what we've achieved tonight considering we lost Hooper, Wanyama and Kelvin, who were the spine of the team really for the last year and a half," he said.

"I'm angry as well at the reaction from the first leg to the team.

"For my liking, the environment here is all wrong - there's far too much negativity.

"These players have given everything for the club and put Scottish football in a very good light last year.

"I wouldn't say they had a bad night last week. They just didn't take their chances.

"And yet the hysteria afterwards was disgusting. It may have come from some quarters of the media, it may have come from some quarters of our own support.

"But the knee-jerk reaction to one average performance is baffling to me and it just makes the job impossible at times."

It wasnt that big a swipe at the board but he did say what everyone else is thinking, which is refreshing because at least he wont defend the board to the hilt. He had a fair bit of anger towards the Scottish Media, more so than the board.

I actually forgot about the other players that left because the focus has been on the first team regulars. There was 8 first team players from last year that left and only 4 signed and none of them are 100% yet.

Its another great achievement for Lennon when you consider the difficult circumstances he was put in by 'corporate decision making' (certainly werent footballing ones!) and he's delivered big time again for the club. Hard to believe that he didnt get a wage rise of some sort!

I really hope Celtic go back to their first choice targets now and dangle the UCL carrot and do negotiations with more confidence.

Jelle1880 wrote: »

STV saying you lot agreed a fee for Schalke's Pukki.

http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/celtic/237714-celtic-agree-fee-with-schalke-04-for-finnish-forward-teemu-pukki/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Great transfer if this is true.

Is he good? His goal/game ratio is not inspiring.

We have fees agreed for him and Biton at the moment

PauloMN wrote: »

It's easy to have a go at the board and Lawwell etc., but it's clear money is there to be spent by the people they have been looking to sign. Celtic's transfer window is made utterly harder than other clubs due to the fact that we:

a) play in a **** league, even worse without Rangers
b) have to go through poxy qualifiers to get into the CL groups

Both the club and potential signings both need to be looking at the situation to see if a potential move makes sense. I hear people on here taking the piss out of Rangers because of over-spending on signings they don't need to win Div 1. Would the same people say the same about us if we signed players and then failed to qualify for the CL? Also should we just sign players for the sake of it, and then realise we don't have the quality each season if/when we do make the CL groups?

My only criticism of Celtic's handling in all of this is that I think we need more than one or two names on our list of targets. But overall, I think they do ok in what is a really difficult transfer scenario for Celtic.

Player sales & Europa League had already offset potential UCL failure financially and more, never mind the UCL income from last year but I dont think my criticism falls into the category your suggesting.

Signing have been reactive instead of proactive. Regardless of Lennon wanting to keep players like Hooper, the writing was on the wall for the board for almost 2 years when he first rejected a contract extension. Wanyama was in a similar boat yet the searches for replacements only seemed to start after they were sold. Thats a huge flaw in transfer policy, especially our buy cheap, develop, sell big one!

The writing was on the wall for the likes of Gershon, Miku, Lassad, Rogne, McCourt & Murphy yet nothing happened unless Balde, van Dijk, Mouyokolo, Boerrigter are to be considered squad players and the "blue chip" signings are yet to come. 3 of them have been injured since arriving, the other was only back from a long term serious injury.

Kelvin Wilson was the only transfer close to being unexpected but if Lawwell & Park were doing their job properly, the fallout from that could have been minimised by having the rest of the squad in better condition. Plenty of reasonable criticisms that dont put the long term health of the club at risk.

Celtic have shown poor judgement in handling the expected squad changes this summer and Lennon has pulled it out of the fire for them but unless they step it up, Celtic could suffer badly in the group stages. The objective now is to not come last so there is european football of some description after christmas.

On another note of criticism at the club, injury management at Celtic needs to improve big time, Brown playing on hip problems last year. Is Forrest going to be playing with sciatica for the season?

EDIT

Ledley & Samaras's contract havent been dealt with properly either. If we'd lost last night, they would have been touted around Europe this morning by either the club or agents

Jelle1880 wrote: »

STV saying you lot agreed a fee for Schalke's Pukki.

http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/celtic/237714-celtic-agree-fee-with-schalke-04-for-finnish-forward-teemu-pukki/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Great transfer if this is true.

Biton i like from what i have seen,Pukki had a decent ratio for HJK so hopefully he can recreate that form

premierstone wrote: »

Absolutely and well deserved aswell, Victor, Hooper and Wilson all sold for a combined total in excess of £20m and virtually nothing put back into the squad,

We spent the guts of £7 million on players this summer already. Realistically that's more than what I'd expect us to spend on players. Can you see us spending much more? I can't see us going above £10 tbh.

Not G.R wrote: »

We spent the guts of £7 million on players this summer already. Realistically that's more than what I'd expect us to spend on players. Can you see us spending much more? I can't see us going above £10 tbh.

£7m to replace Victor, Hooper, Wilson, Gershon, Miku, Lassad, Rogne, McCourt & Murphy is nowhere near enough, and between teh money earned last season and the money recouped from transfers I would consider £7m as a paltry figure tbh. Thats not even mentioning the reduction in our wage bill from last season.

Group C please footballing Gods

There'll be some quality nights in Parkhead. This is what ever CL group should be like

Gary Lineker ‏@GaryLineker
Bye bye Celtic!

Big eared twat