As has been pointed out though he haasn't played every week, didn't start in the team at the start of the season, and has been subbed in more than half of his starts. We defo don't want burnout for him as at his age we have to be careful. I think Browne was brought in to switch with him but his injury hasn't helped so i think we may see more of Aleksic off the bench in the coming weeks. Not long to go until the window now and we have some players back none of us have even seen yet
Dave Jones said... We won't be able to sign strikers like Liam Delap and Ellis Simms due to the money (20m for Delap / 8m for Simms), and we have to be more creative. We are widening the net on finding strikers and Regis Le Bris is helping them a lot as he knows of players they wouldn't have looked at (paraphrased) I agree with the club's stance, look at the gem we have found in Isidor, he is probably better than Tom Cannon and we were all wanting to spend 5m+ to get him here. I'm not sure how anybody can look at this as a bad thing for the club to do. Isidor suits us a lot more in quality and style and his buy option is half the amount of what Cannon would be. 8m for a player of Simms quality when you can get an Isidor for €4m, it's crazy. Also good to hear that RLB is heavily involved due to his own knowledge of players, I expect to see more french arrivals
Didn’t realise he’d moved abroad until just now, had huge potential but doesn’t seem to have settled anywhere, yet
Who would you play ahead of Rigg btw? I don't think he's been as poor as you make out. We dominated the midfield against sheff utd and he was a part of that. I think there is a few conspiracies flying about. Spouted by the usual suspects
I think it's reasonable to suggest that Rigg has dropped off in recent games compared to his impact in games earlier in the season, that's not really a critique but more so an observation and it's to be expected with younger players getting to grips with blokes football. If Alan Browne was fit I think we would have seen more rotation in midfield in the last few games and Rigg would have been protected a little more due to that, the problem lies with RLB not yet trusting the likes of Aouchiche, Aleksic etc to come in and do a job for us.
I think that’s the frustration I have with RLB. His subs when available were always based around bringing Browne in for Rigg. IMO that never worked and just demonstrated that this was a RLB thing. He has players in his inner circle and even then it’s only a middling chance of them getting on. Think that’s evidenced by the situation up top. He has three that he seemingly trusts, but he doesn’t always deploy them. Just something we need to put up with for now. And to be fair I dunno how much that behaviour benefits us. Maybe having the regulars learning the role in game is what RLB prizes - and maybe that helps us long term? Either way I don’t see how it’s a function of pressure from higher up. When taken as a whole the evidence just doesn’t support it. Whether it’s actually the right decision is another matter, but it’s a strategic sporting choice.
Honestly I think it's about trust, trust that the fringe players can come in and play the role he wants them to effectively, perhaps most importantly their roles out of possession, dropping into the block and pressing correctly. If he doesn't think Aouchiche, Ba, Aleksic etc are ready to perform effectively out of possession, he won't put them in, so it's important that those players learn this as soon as possible to relieve the pressure on the core group of starters.
Interesting graph, especially the one on the left. Seems like the left-right axis is an accuracy measure and the north-south one is perhaps related to confidence in their own ability. Bottom left quadrant isn't where you want to be, top left is perhaps a coachable quadrant and top right is where you want to be and bottom right is perhaps the inflated egos.
What does everyone reckon will go down this Jan? I'd personally like to see some fullback cover and a new winger. It depends if we see Mayenda as a winger now, I wouldn't be against another CF of a similar height and style to Isidor to rotate with (Wouldn't be annoyed if not though due to Connolly and Abdullahi) I reckon realistically we will only see 1 or 2 incomings
Celtic have yet to offer a contract extension to coveted teenage striker Daniel Cummings. Out of contract this summer, the 18-year-old scored his fifth goal in five UEFA Youth League games to sink Club Brugge in last week’s 1-0 win. The teenager has also scored 22 goals in 20 games for the Parkhead youth team this season. Brentford, Wolves, Fulham, Ipswich, Sunderland and Burnley feature among a posse of English clubs who have run checks on the forward. After losing Rocca Vata to Watford and Daniel Kelly to Millwall last summer, Celtic moved to tie up Francis Turley and Colby Donovan on new deals. Despite his prolific scoring and interest from down south, however, Cummings has yet to receive the offer of an extension to stay put and is free to speak to interested clubs from January 1st. Link
