It's hard to not go all-in on Martin when our DoFs can't seem to stay in job for more than a year, to be fair.
This site broadly has made up valuations but is as good as any as a starting point : https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/carlos-alcaraz/profil/spieler/748319 Most notably is they have him hardly gaining any value since his transfer And players will go for double or more usually only if the club really don’t want to sell and there is a long contract. There are a few with massive discrepancies but it’s usually rare. So the £30m vs €15m is the difference between fans overvaluing players and this external source. Truth is likely somewhere in the middle and that seems to be the fee being talked about It’s clear we need to sell someone and unfortunately can’t seem to move on onuachu or Sulemana. And seem to have placed a high value on KWP and/or there isn’t a lot of interest
It does seem odd that the last 2 have been poached by much bigger clubs considering our recruitment hasn’t exactly been good in the last 2 years
I don't think him getting sacked is very likely. If he does get sacked then we'll probably be deep in the **** and this season will have been written off. If it does happen the answer should be that the club hires a new manager who plays in a similar way to Martin and needs the same sort of players. Part of our current squad problem and one of the reasons we got relegated was the switching between managers with drastically different styles of play. The problem with the fee is it's obvious our manager doesn't rate him and when a club is selling a player that very obviously isn't in their manager's plans it's much harder to get a good price.
I wouldn't say incredibly unlikely tbh. I get that it'd be harsh to expect him to keep us up and so he won't get sacked on that alone but I think the manner of defeats will be important. If we're in mainly close games that we losing narrowly largely due to a lack of quality than yeah he's not gonna get sacked. But if we're regularly shipping 3/4+ (which we all seem to agree is possible) and he's showing no signs of changing things up then he'll come under huge pressure. Rightly or wrongly.
This is where I stand on Martin too, it will all depend on 'how' we lose and how long/well we are in the fight
I wonder whether our recruitment under those two would have been better if we had a bit more pull and bit more financial muscle and that is what they have used to try and sell themselves? Wilcox I don’t get at all and must be more due to his previous position But under Shields weren’t we also in for Gakpo, Ramos etc? And I think there were musings that we tried for Rasmus Hojlund. He went for a 60m profit a year later and presumably we couldn’t get him to pick Atalanta over us. Not an issue Chelsea would have… I might be wrong but I’m just trying to puzzle it out. Because in terms of who we actually got only Lavia was a big success and the rest not really at all. Edozie might still make money. Baz won’t even if he becomes passable. Etc But perhaps to the VC crowd the one big success if enough to balance it out. It’s almost like gambling on assets to them
Still did pretty well when he played I thought though obviously not as good as we expected. Certainly better than some others like Sulemana. half of the championship clubs are probably far better than half the SPL too. Although that seems irrelevant to my point? Which was there's no guarantee he'll be good enough and unless anyone has been watching Celtic regularly I don't see how even an informed opinion on him can be made.
Have there been many cases of a manager seeing out a whole season comfortably in the bottom three and still being there the next one? It just doesn’t seem to be how clubs work - notably because the fans start screaming and booing and it’s easier to change the manager than the whole side. And that can be done at any point of the year as well. It would be very expensive given he’s signed a new deal - a weird choice given he was only one year in
Yeah I'm hoping that his success in the play offs where he adapted slightly will mean he's prepared to do that again this season but time will tell.
I think Scholes comparison to Burnley will turn out bang on and I think, like Burnley, we will stick with him unless it’s an absolute horror show and there is no choice, like Derby. The club must know the squad is weak as **** for this level and I think they’ll view Martin as a good bet to get us up again
Agree on the Celtic point. Mine was more that he hasn’t performed like you’d expect a £30m player to have done. Whether that means we should sell him and spend close to that one another who might is a different question But everyone seems flustered by how low our transfer fees are and shopping in the 10-15m market. And looking at Brighton signing players no one has ever heard of for 30m and getting twitchy. The way you spend those fees though is signing players for 10m and selling for a profit - which 20m plus for Alcaraz would be. I’m not sure we are in for O’Riley anyway. He seems too far down the track with Atalanta negotiations and the idea he is stalling to wait for us to get money so he can pick us over them is something only saints fans would consider as reasonable. Who we get instead though? No idea
The same pub league that we signed VVD, Wanyama and Armstrong from. Absolutely agree that he is no guarantee. But he will cost similar money to what we get from Charly who we know isn't going to do much for us this season. Martin has worked with both players and will know which will better suit his system.
I've not followed the O'Riley thing tbh so wouldn't have a clue. As I've said before I don't really follow transfer windows as I've never heard of anyone so find it dull and pointless. My point wasn't really about Alcaraz anyway. More that I don't see how anyone can confidently say O'Riley is a better player as it's a huge unknown at this point. I do think his talked about fee is just as absurd as asking £30m for Charly though but that's the world we live in I guess.
For every VVD and Wanyama theres a Jelavic and Goodwillie. Or Aribo even! Could also argue that those two performed well in the CL also at a time when Celtic were okay in Europe. Not 100% but haven't they been ****e in Europe in recent seasons?
I can't say I've paid much attention to that. I think Luton and Burnley both kept their managers all of last season. The other thing is hard to put a finger on, but there's something different about the way Martin is spoken about that makes him feel more embedded in the club. I think it will take a lot more for him to get sacked than it would for most mangers. That and the obvious failure of chopping and changing the season before last make me think we'll need to be truly awful for him to get sacked.
