Veljko Milosavljevic

How can anyone possibly know what every ‘big’ clubs scouting departments have on anyone, what’s this even based on? The same articles that are reporting are interest at various times have had Liverpool and PSG sniffing about.

Everton as well.

 

If he goes to PSG for £9m, goes on to be a top level player for them, his full career and beyond we’ll be absolutely screaming about us not paying ‘just’ £4m more and how tight etc etc. we clearly knew the talent, £5m for a guy his age experience showed that etc etc. let it slip.

Even if he has an above average career at a high level, and not a Marquinhos.

We’re a bit mad as a fanbase, raging when we don’t spend, raging when we might spend, raging when we do spend

 

Our scouting network is fundamentally good.. its our ability to close deals which is amateurish.

 

Someone like Brighton sign him and we loan in him January is my prediction

 

Agreed, 9 times out of 10 were linked with exciting players, but we only seem to seal the deal on about 3/10 of those targets most of the time.

 

If we're gonna do that I'd rather go for that young Lukas Vuskovic at Tottenham...had a really good season on loan in Belgium there

 

It can swing wildly in consistency that but it’s something ever since Nicholson took over I think we’ve got so much better at, and I think part of that is down to him seeing Ange’s style of recruiting players.

Ange tended to move on very quickly from a target to the next one if he felt he was needed to persuade someone that Celtic are good enough for them or persuade them to consider us. Important distinction there to make that doesn’t mean don’t talk and assure them of matching ambitions, what we can bring them in there career but they need to have that respect and interest in the first place. We might miss out on some players with that approach but it’s also more decisive for us, brings in the right attitude and doesn’t leave us in situations that we’ve seen before,

The one I bring up is the story about Arntuovic, everything agreed contract wise etc etc stringing us along delaying and then moving to the Premiership instead. That’s not a thing we can afford to do.

 

Would follow on from the Engels type transfer of paying big bucks for really young talents with a huge ceiling who are good enough to develop while playing first team football here. Would be all for it.

 

Scales will no doubt play the guts of the season next to CCV. Blue eyed boy.

 

I want to see more of Nawrocki and think he is good enough to be a bigger part in the squad, but think most of us know Rodgers just isn't gonna give him that chance.
So that said, I would sell all four of these guys in favour of the Servian lad!
Then we can debate the merits of Trusty and Scales on the left and one can be shown the door as we sign a player on a par with CCV that plays left side.

4 good players, then bring up the next youth as 5th choice. As Welsh and it seems Murray aren't gonna cut it either.

 

Apologies for what may ultimately may be a nothing update, but I suppose it’s maybe something worth mentioning.

The Daily Record are claiming that a site called Mozzart Sport (which a bit of Googling & translating tells me they claim to be the most popular sports site in Serbia) are reporting that Red Star are apparently willing to lower their asking price from €10million (£8.6m) to €7million (£6m) due to previously interested clubs cooling their interest.

There’s no link to the actual source of this claim, instead the DR are linking to another article by a Serbian broadcaster from June, that also cites Mozzart Sport, wherein they acknowledge that we previously had an offer rejected (supposedly £5.1m according to the Record).

 

It’s an old article

 

are we there yet that we could right of £6 to 8m ? nah i dont think so on someone so young

psg liverpool or any of the clubs with massive amounts of money and huge tv deals can take a punt on this

look at the 19 year old we bought engels and the fans me included not happy with him or the progress of him after an inital good start to his celtic career

that impatience from us leads to pressure on the player and a young player at that! which could cause them to fail or not progress quick enough

if we had the huge tv money id be all for taking the gamble as because of that huge tv money we would have brilliant employees also in the background making doubly sure this was not really a gamble at all

seems risky as * and the fact red star are reducing the asking fee because theyve scared potential suitors off is setting an alarm bell off aswell

 

Why is it risky? £6-7m is not a huge amount of money to us. Our problem is we generally have a shortlist and we opt to go for 7th down the line because they are the cheap option as we baulk at what clubs are looking at for our main option.

We baulked at the price on Kvistgarden, he ended up moving for more.
We baulked at £7m for Toure, he ended up going to Hoffenheim for €14m.
We baulked at £7m for Orjasaeter last season, they now want £11m.
We were heavily linked with Jashari 2 years ago. He was available form €6m, we didn't move. He's now set to join Milan for €40m.

Once a club is looking for over 5m for a player our board has an aneurism. I could be wrong but since Rodgers first spell below are the players we have spent more than £5m on.

Edouard (bought after loan spell)
Jullien
CCV (bought after loan spell)
Jota x2 (bought after loan spell) & former player
Idah (bought after loan spell)
Engels (deadline day panic buy to replace MOR)
Trusty (deadline day panic buy)

Other than Jullien, unless we are desperate to get a body through the door on deadline we generally only contemplate spending over £5m on players we've had on loan.

Our board are paralysed by fear every transfer has a risk. Is spending £11m on Engels really a bigger risk than spending £7.5m on Luis Palma?, Kwon and Holm?

 

Great post mate.

 

100% on all of this!

Engels will already sell for more than we paid, I've little doubt of that. I'd be surprised if we didn't get all/most of the Idah transfer back too, if we sold him... Our own fans can often be our worst enemies in unsettling and devaluing our players.

As for the board; I understand that balancing accounts is important, and that it's a great strength we have, contributing massively to our dominance domestically, but they need to understand more that money is a tool to get to a goal, and not the goal itself!

Cash for the sake of having it is opportunity wasted... Big transfers that don't inspire growth of the strategic goals are pointless... Rainy day money is one thing, but 10 seasons worth, while dominant, is misusing the funds available...

If we sell an established player for £20M we should be replacing them with 2 more genuine talents, or equivalent, for about £12-15M, and banking the £5M for future use, or supporting the company. Not the other way around...

 

I think Engels gets unfairly rounded on in what's his first season...football here's a lot faster than Bundesliga although a lot less technical. 9 gls and 6 assists in 34 games isnt too bad. I trust the celtic scouting department with potential signings than I do Rodgers tbh. His track record ain't great