I don’t think Schad is extolling the virtues of anything *but* ‘wait and see’. I just think he doesn’t trust the board. Which is entirely fair enough.
I'd have preferred we saved the £7m to increase the bid on one of the other players we want and had given Hesketh a shot. I rate him and had him down as the Davis replacement long term personally. £7m for a first choice player seems low but I'll obviously wait and see, if he turns out to be another average player who's not that much better than Hesketh or even Prowse in that position and needing gametime i'll be frustrated.
It makes me slightly happier about the transfer strategy. If we were signing Cameron, Adam and Crouch, I'd have a problem. I'd still say the players we have signed recently are mostly reasonable. It's what we haven't signed that's giving us issues.
Judge him by all means, but not for the price. He's in his last year in the Scottish PL...Celtic have little choice but to sell and probably consider 6-7 million a decent price. Sutton posted good riddance as he wanted to leave, but most fans on the forum I looked at thought that harsh. Hasn't been as good for them recently, but was very good the season before....injured I believe. Most point out, that unlike some, he hasn't made a fuss or been difficult even when seeking a move....their general thoughts are that most people would want to leave for twice their salary, so wished him good luck.
Fair enough. Although im mostly judging him by him not being a standout player in the SPL apparently. It feels like £7m is what he's worth, which is what i rate Hesketh as, which was my line of thought. not seen him play so am certainly willing to give him a chance though.
It's the boring-British-name syndrome all over again. If we were signing Estuardo Brazofuerte from Real Sociedad everyone would be excited about it.
As a stand-alone signing, I have no problem with this. £7m is hardly anything these days, and at 26 years old he's still young enough to be sold on after a year or two if it doesn't work out. Hopefully it does work though, obviously. The concern, as Schad I believe is highlighting, is that he ends up making up 33% or even 50% of our summer (first team) acquisitions. If that's the case, we're just going to be in another relegation battle again. Faith in our board is at an all-time low (with them), for many people. So it's only natural that, until hard action/evidence is presented to us to prove otherwise, some people are not going to get excited about this transfer, and even come across as negative about it. That's not Armstrong's fault, that's the board's. Is he a small cog in our transfer dealings, or is he the headline act?
Its the board i dont trust. It is not so much the player; we buy some good players and buy some dud ones same as everyone else. It is the positions we identify to strengthen that i dont trust (not Armstrong related). Les once said we have the best midfield in the league or words to that effect and it was utter nonsense. I dont believe they have a clue on where we need to strengthen.
Indeed we won't. But enough transfer windows have gone by now where the board have let us down, in my view. There's only so many times you can merrily bobble along saying "let's see where we are when the window closes", only to left disappointed.
I wonder if we have champagne tastes on beer money. And that goes for the fans as well as the board. We have an inflated image of ourselves and spend too long pursuing players that bigger clubs can step in a snatch from under our noses (for financial and status reasons). There are probably other lower EPL clubs who are buying decent but ordinary EPL players and their fans are quite happy about it.
Armstrong doesn`t want to leave Celtic - rather, he wants to test himself at the highest level possible, and improve himself as a player. And it isn`t all about money for him. Listen to him being interviewed - he`s articulate and intelligent.
Man some of you need to smoke some weed or something. I dislike the board but some of you take it too far
I watch Celtic regularly and let me tell you that £7m is a steal for this young man. Ignore last season as he was injured but anyone who saw him the year before will tell you that he possesses a rather novel attribute for a potential Saints midfielder - he can shoot.
So when he plays for Scotland, we can all cheer on our Celtic brothers!!! As this is another signing from Celtic, shouldn´t we have a bonding sesión with Celtic fans? A kind of brotherhood. It would also link us with St Pauli, and Athletic Bilbao.
Celtic must hate us as much as we hate Liverpool, except hopefully we go about things in the right way. Les must have one of his mates in at Celtic or a loyalty card or something.
