15 Feb 2017 08:56:56
Ed do you reckon Dembele will be offski in the summer? I'd love if we could keep him for another season and if he has a good World Cup we could seriously cash in after that.
I think a RB, striker and GK, possibly another attacking midfielder are needed in the next transfer window. Hoping Chelsea come back in for CG.

{Ed007's Note - I'm 99.9% confident that Dembele will still be a Celtic player next season. The main factor, as it was with Wanyama and van Dijk etc, is if the player wants to leave which I don't see happening yet with Dembele, it still comes down to game time which is one of the most important parts of Dembele and his advisers plans for him, the player doesn't want to sit on the bench at any club no matter how much wages they want to give him.}

1.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 12:46:43
I believe if we could keep this team together for 3 years adding one or two more high quality footballers each year we could have a champions league winning side.

2.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 13:24:09
Cheers ed I hope you're right. My worry (if you can call it that) is if a club like Chelsea make a bid of say £20m will the board knock it back in fear that he may get injured or lose form?

{Ed007's Note - A loss of form wouldn't effect Demebele's price and he will be well insured against injury, stop looking for things to worry about lol
We could have got more than £20m for him last month if we had given clubs any encouragement Dembele was available. I can't pit a figure on it - as the lady wouldn't divulge it to me - but I was told Celtic made it unofficially known what type of money it would take to tempt them to even consider a deal would have made a Sheikh need to tap his mate to buy 10 snout and that Chelsea felt the figure was unrealistic. It was Celtic's way of saying Dembele wasn't for sale at any price - and that message came straight from the manager.
Celtic rarely sell quality players unless they ask to move, the notion that Lawwell or even Desmond got offered £11 million for Wanyama and couldn't wait to sell him is just a myth, Wanyama wanted out, so did Forster, van Dijk (whom he forced to stay and extra year) and even guys like Hooper wanted to move on. We had no room for any manoeuvre with Ledley, we had offered him top whack to get him to sign for free so when the time came there wasn't anything extra without breaking the wage structure at the time.
Celtic will do deals to sell players that aren't wanted or needed by the manager but they have never set out to sell a player simply because it will bring a big fee in, the 'star'players that have left all wanted to leave so Lawwell negotiated the best deals he could and I know he was personally disappointed in Wanyama whom he thought he could get to stay for at least another year with new deal and pay rise.
I've gave Pedro some dog's abuse on here over the years but you'll be hard pushed to see me moan about anything he has done regarding the finances of the Club, it was when he started getting involved in the footballing decisions things with John Park that went wrong.
The only thing that annoys me with him is he has continually said for years we could pay £6-8 million for a player yet we never have - I think that will perhaps change in the summer though.}

3.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 14:54:06
Jonace im all for being positive but come on mate, a champions league winning side! Never going to happen buddy. Not while we play In the Scottish league, no chance!

4.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 15:02:54
I hope you're right about the £6-8M thing Ed, I'm not dying to see that spent but would love to know there is a willingness should the right player become available. The only problem with us spending that sort of fee is that the expectation attached to a record signing would pretty much be that they have to be the best player every week which can weigh heavy on some.

{Ed007's Note - I'm not too bothered with the actual fee but if you're shopping in the market you're spending more on wages which I've been saying for years that I think is far more important.}

5.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 15:22:24
I have been saying for years we needed to raise the wage cap a bit.
Fees don't bother me really as we have spent money on duds then got cracking players quite cheap.

{Ed007's Note - Every transfer's a gamble but eventually it's the wages you pay that attract players and if you're paying a bit more you are shopping at a higher level.
Do you think Samuel Eto'o went to Russia for the weather or the prestige of playing for Anzhi - or was it the £350k a week? The same's happening in China, can you imagine Wayne and Colleen Rooney stoating about China trying to talk to the locals? For £700k a week me and the Mrs would make an arse of ourselves like that no problemo!
Alexis Sanchez would sign for Celtic if we offered him £250k a week, it's not going to happen and I'm only using him as an example but I guarantee you it would happen if we could afford it.
And another thing while I'm on my high horse, it REALLY gets on my wick when you read stories about players wanting to leave their club to play CL football, what they mean is they want the money big CL teams like Madrid and Man Utd pay or as close as they can get, if it was only about playing in the CL why not sign for Celtic for £25k a week or a Basel or BATE who seem to be in it every year.}

6.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 15:20:01
Never say never Lh 👍

Great points there Ed. The way PL and Rasputin had ran the club, from a footballing perspective, wasn't right. The way Celtic fans are talking right now is great, but it should have been this way for years.

BIG window this summer for us I hope.

{Ed007's Note - We're finally shifting that small club mentality that seems to have hung around since MON's time and we're now starting to act like the big Club we always were.}

7.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 16:57:10
If Dembelle does go for forty plus million, how about Celtic going back to their charitable roots and keeping ten million and donating the rest to the purchase of state of thd art MRI machines, and funding for the training of technicians to operate them, and on a different subject, if heading the ball was banned for health and safety reasons, football would be a different kind of game, but would it be worse?

8.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 19:40:29
No chance Jim Tim! Like I said bud I'm all for positivity but I'm also a realist. while we're stuck playing in the SPFL we won't progress to the level of being genuine CL contenders! It's just ain't going to happen!