How bad a league must the SPL be now. Honestly I think most teams in the Championship would beat both of the big boys and thats hard to admit as Celtic are my second team!!! I mean come in Healy & Diouf are the new striking partnership for Rangers while Stokes and Murphy fight it out at Celtic.....enough said really.
We also have Hooper, Samaras and Shaun Maloney fighting it out with Stokes and Murphy (who has started like once). Stokes is improving massively too and Hooper scored 2 more goals in the Championship last season despite playing 2 less games than Andy Carroll - and playing for a much worse team! Rangers are in administration in all but name, they haven't got a penny. We've a big squad and a Premier League wage bill (45m a year in wages last PLC report).
Om reading my post back Mick it probably looks like a dig (did not intend it to be) was just pointing out the quality is falling in the SPL year in year out and nothing seems to be getting done about it. Samaras and Maloney look good to average Championship players while Stokes had potential but did not cut it down here. As for Murphy I don't need to comment. Just sad to see two famous clubs scapping around for bargain basement players thats not my opinion I am afraid it is a fact :-(
Samaras is a big donkey and Maloney is a cracking wee player if he could keep himself friggin fit. Remember nobody from Rangers shed a tear when they sold Charlie Adam a year and a half ago to Blackpool for 500k. Celtic fans used to chant his name more than Rangers fans Anyway as I said probably only Middlesbrough alone in the Championship would have the level of wages we pay at Celtic so while it's hard to compare directly it would be fair to say we'd probably handle ourselves against most teams in that league.
Looking at it like that its a fair point I suppose (wages etc) But the problem for me is Celtic should be aiming higher then that. The club is huge and has a following in every corner of the world however the SPL has just gone down hill in the last 5 years which is not helping them at all. As a Dubliner living in Sunderland (a padmac) I am lucky to have the red and whites to keep me occupied as if Celtic were my first team I would be tearing my hair out Mick ...;-)
We have a 70m a year turnover, we spend 45m on wages about 10m on transfers and the rest on costs - so basically what we can afford. We only get 1.5m a year television money, give us the 45m Spurs get and we would have the same turnover as them without even adding in the massive extra sponsorship and PL prize money.
