Cast your mind back to last summer. Celtic had just come off the back of another terrible season, no silverware in the trophy cabinet and speculation growing that at least two of our best players were heading for the exit door. Neil Lennon was caretaker boss and suffered the indignity of watching his team get knocked out of the Scottish Cup by Ross County. Things were not good. The Board spent the summer humming and hawing over whether to give Neil Lennon a new contract. Aiden McGeady was sold to Spartak Moscow for £9m and the Holy Goalie, Artur Boruc, left for Fiorentina for an undisclosed fee, rumoured to be around £800,000. Lennon was eventually appointed as the full-time boss and set about rebuilding a team short on players and confidence. He made a number of astute signings including strikers Gary Hooper and Anthony Stokes, midfielders Biram Kayal and Joe Ledley and brought in loan signing Fraser Forster from Newcastle to play between the sticks. Fast forward twelve months. Celtic find themselves trailing Rangers in the league and teetering, once again, on the brink of going out of European competition. Now, it's early days, and only a fool would write off Celtic's chances of winning the SPL title but questions need to be asked about the intentions of the Board. Neil Lennon did very well putting a team together last summer but it should be kept in mind that he did so spending less money than we earned from the sales of McGeady and Boruc. So far this summer we're made one signing to add to the two players who signed on pre-contracts in January. Total spend: £900,000 This season is one of the most vital in recent times because of one thing: money. The winners of the SPL title get automatic entry to the Champion's League next season and it is likely to be the last time this happens for a number of years. There is approximately £15m up for grabs and our Board has spent less than one million pounds strengthening the team. Anyone can see we need a dominant centre back and a target man up front. Are we, yet again, going to jeopardise our chances of winning the SPL title and Champion's League football for the sake of saving a couple of million pounds? Sadly, it looks like it.
1. We need to buy an experienced defender who has played in the 'big' leagues. 2. We also need to buy a left back as Chuck does my head in and we need cover for Izzy. 3. We need to buy another striker who has a proven goal scoring record, not some dud target man. 4. We also need to drop Scott Brown and give someone else a chance, his passing has been absolutely shocking lately. I've always defended Brown against the critics but his form is at an all time low this season (so far anyway). 5. We need to get rid of Samaras, the big man is a liability and our play suffers when he plays.
I don't think the emormety of losing 4 titles on the trot has occured to them and the ammount of players we have who have no chance of a games is just silly but we fail to shift them. Someone isn't doing their right, players should have been moved on to free up more money for Lennon and they should be taking a risk to prevent 4 in a row which if it occurs I think is reason enought to demand Lawwell out and his bonuses returned.
Had a few articles published on there over the past few weeks. It's Mick's (the site owners) way of attracting new members to not606.
Of course Celtic need to spend money. WE probably have a good first eleven all positions just about covered, It could be argued we need a new centre back, or two; as we are not yet sure of Wilson and his partner, maybe Rogne, maybe Loovens. Having found a player capable of doing the right job in every position, we now need at least one back-up player of same capabilities for every position. Now we will be allright if we don't get many injuries. However if we don't get injuries players will not want to stay as they are not getting first team football and their value will fall. Club debts increase and soon there are big problems.
