Celtic Banter Archive March 23 2015

23 Mar 2015 18:27:49
Evening ED007 I hope you're well mate. I just got back today from a cracking week in Santa Ponsa and I'm reading that Guidetti has been charged over his song on dutch tv. seems a bit of a joke to me and I'm glad to see the club backing him over it.

On the footballing side of things it seems I missed a great performance from the team on Saturday, I should maybe go away more often.

Also I heard earleir today that John Park was in Poland at the weekend, any idea what he was up to?

{Ed007's Note - It's all right for some swanning off to the sun in March. It's meant to have been Karol Linetty from Lech Poznan and Michal Zyro from Legia Warsaw we were watching but I don't think it was JP that was over.}

23 Mar 2015 18:51:42
I have heard somewhere that Ronny and his assistants are sending this international break looking at under 21 footballers with the idea of scouting on 16/17 year old .
Did you hear anything about this Ed?

{Ed007's Note - I don't know what the plans are for this international break.}

24 Mar 2015 08:59:14
I'd be very surprised if Legia were willing to sell their best player to us after all their huffing and puffing earlier in the season. Like to see it though. I also really liked the look of the young winger who played against us for Zagreb.

23 Mar 2015 17:06:18
Hopefully we have learned our lesson when it comes to missing out on the top scottish talent. GMS and Armstrong are proving that the best scottish players can do a job for us. With that in mind who would you like to see us bid for next season that currently plays in scotland? Does anyone else think that Rooney at Aberdeen could make the grade. 25 goals and should break the 30 goal barrier by the end of the season. that's a great return and twice as many as our strikers have scored (i do know we have chopped and changed striker while aberdeen stick with Rooney, but still think its a good record) then there's maybe Cifti and the young left back at Hamilton. Can anyone think of anyone else they think celtic should be looking at? Markie

23 Mar 2015 18:28:58
No, he flopped at Oldham he will be another Willo Flood

23 Mar 2015 18:57:44
Marki . Our mini season against Dundee Utd indicated to me that Ciffi certainly isn't Celtic class . We have never played a centre forward meaner on kicking an opponent's head than the ball.
I don't think Rooney could hack it either .

23 Mar 2015 20:50:35
I have always said we should shop in our own league as even though a completely different class level it is exactly what the majority of big clubs in Europe do. It strengthens them and weakens the opposition so a win-win situation. Dundee United would have put up a much better fight with GMS and Armstrong in their team but even though we couldn't use them in 3 of the mini-series games we weakened them significantly.

I was completely shot down when I suggested Billy McKay in January so not surprised to see others shooting down the Rooney suggestion. Why would we sign a striker who has 25 goals already, knows the league, knows the oppositions weaknesses, is good in the air, works hard and would cost about 500k when there are Bangura's, Scepovic's and Balde's out there for us to waste around 2 million on each? No words.

23 Mar 2015 21:10:42
Markie our problem is that RD likes to play 1 up front and we already have LG. I would imagine that we are not getting JG and Scepovic is still not No1 choice ( to date). So I think RD will be looking to his homeland for another striker.
Also unless we are lucky we will be looking for more CB`s & a LB, and another keeper to support Gordon.


HH

23 Mar 2015 21:29:21
Niall is completely disagree with you. We need the other teams in our league to be strong. Especially if sevco get promoted. Taking their best players who are not good enough for celtic would be pointless and devalue our league further

24 Mar 2015 06:10:27
Dont think he'll look to Norway for a striker. don't have them, simple as that. Against Croatia tomorrow we have only one fit striker. 41 year old Frode Johnsen.

24 Mar 2015 06:27:38
Im undecided to be honest on both cifti and rooney. I agree that cifti did very little against us but would argue that his service over those games was non existant really. Would he have scored more if he had been in a celtic shirt? How many would grifiths or guddetti have scored if they had played for Dundee Unt in those games. I think sevopic and guddetti could possibly both be sold which leaves us 2 strikers short. Scott Macdonald scored lots of goals for us including against rangers, man unt, milan, and came from motherwell. He also flopped when he went to middlesborgh. I think at the price he would cost that roony is worth buying. The options are spend big on a striker which they won't do and is still risky, or buy another £2/3 mill striker who flops. Even if roony flops after being at celtic we will easily get our money back on him from an english club. I would take him on. Markie.

24 Mar 2015 08:38:14
When was the last time Celtic signed a striker from a Scottish team that was a huge success? Was it Tommy Coyne or Andy Walker?

Our recent crop of Griffiths, Killen, Stokes have had varying degrees of success but none of them were the star striker we have been looking for and all had good records before signing for Celtic.

24 Mar 2015 09:25:00
We should definitely shop in the Scottish market but only if the players are good enough, like GMS and Armstrong. If there's better elsewhere then there's nothing wrong with looking abroad.

24 Mar 2015 14:16:48
Henrik

My point was more that these guys know the league as opposed to buying untried duds from abroad.

As Kev says they have to be good enough as I wouldn't take players just for the sake of it but ruling out players just because they play in Scotland is wrong.

24 Mar 2015 15:32:06
Fair point Niall but are they good enough? I'm just against weakening our opponents for the sake of being able to beat them. I was delighted we signed the 2 dundee utd boys because you could see the quality was there. Hopefully RD has a couple of guys in mind already

24 Mar 2015 16:32:52
Markie we cannot sell off Guidetti as we only have him on loan for another few weeks
Rooney and Ciffi are average strikers playing in above average teams in the SPL .
They have no experience of playing against an 8/9 men defence, that they would come up against if Celtic signed them . There is a hell of a difference playing against Kilmarnock with their normal defence and midfield players allowed to cross the half way line and the defence that Kilmarnock put up against us.

24 Mar 2015 17:40:33
Chris, rabmac. Scott Macfonald 750k from motherwell answers both your questions. For a similar fee and knowing that as soon as he has pulled a celtic shirt on we wouldn't have much trouble getting our money back why not? Like I say the 2/3 million pound european strikers has cost us around £10 million! Balde, puki, sepovic, bangerra (any more?) That option is totall failure, the only other choices are spend bigger but we all no that won't happen and we know that it still doesn't always work. So what is so wrong with spending a paltry 750k on a guy who we know for a fact can score 30 odd goals a season in scotland, his wages wouldn't be a problem and like I say its almost risk free as we would get all or most of our money back if he does fail. Or maybe I have missed something, where would you guys go and what would you spend on our next striker? Markie

24 Mar 2015 22:08:09
Markie, we have no reason to know how many or how few goals Rooney would score for us . If it was as simple as you make it out to be, then Celtic would have signed him up last January . I would be very confident that everyone involved in signing Celtic players, are decent and honourable people . Their primary concern is to sign players who in their professional judgement will make Celtic a better team . I trust Deila and his assistants to sign the most appropiate players they can from wherever .

They may rate Rooney, but he may or may not fit into the attacking formations and tactics that Deila has in mind .

24 Mar 2015 22:15:04
Henrik

Only 1 way to find out.

I know we have to be careful with our money but with the money we have wasted recently on average (that is being kind) strikers surely it is better to spend 500k on a proven striker in our own league than 4 times that on a risk.

25 Mar 2015 00:37:55
NiallH. Proven to do what, to fit into an average Aberdeen player and be one of the few attacking players to be sought out in front of goal. I know Jackie Mac reckoned Deila is worried, I am not sure about what, but I don't think Deila is worried that our goals come from a great number of our players, from many positions and we are not restricted to one goal scorer .
At least, we have moved on to not ridicule Deila anymore for only playing one striker.
A couple of months ago there was almost an outbreak of mass hysteria on here re the fact that we only played one striker .