Are we better than strachans side that reached the cl last 16 twice and won 3iar?

Our full-backs currently are far superior to those who played under Strachan - especially going forward.

The squad we have just now is younger, hungrier and all-round better than Strachan's (with the exception of two players: Nakamura, and JVOH).

If it were a choice of having to make a team from the two, the majority of Lennon's players make up the team imo.

Forster has proven that he is possibly better than Boruc - and at such a young age proves to have far more potential.

Matthews and Lustig are looking like better, more consistent players than the likes of Telfer, Mark Wilson, Paul Caddis ever were.

Izaguirre - * all over Mo Camara, Lee Naylor and the likes.

Ledley, Kayal and most especially Wanyama - none of Strachan's central midfielders came close to the quality of any of these players. Although not as experienced as the likes of Gravesen and Roy Keane, I still would not swap any of these guys for a Donati, Sno, Keane, Jarosik, or any other.

Hesselink is a player (in his prime at Celtic) I'd like to have in our team as we do not currently have a player of his type.

Hooper I think is a better all-round player than Scott McDonald. Loved some of the big-game goals that Skippy got us, but there wasn't a helluva lot more to his game.

Nakamura would hands down get into the team before Commons - there is no question of that.

The one major difference in the two teams is that their is an astronomical difference in terms of sell-on value of the players between the two sets of groups.

There was realistically only two players who would have fetched anything more than about £5m - one being McGeady, and the other being Boruc (after his heroics in the European Championships).

Now we have guys like Wanyama being touted for considerably more than £10m, Hooper and Forster in or around the England team with huge values now being placed on them. Ledley, Forrest, Izaguirre, Matthews etc who the club will reclaim their transfer fees and then some.

 

I agree with most of this bar the midfield points. Ledley and Kayal are no better for me than the likes of Robson and Hartley really.

Wanyama has turned into a mega signing however.


Caldwell and McManus were every bit as good as Ambrose and certainly better than Wilson.

 

Was surprised at the results of the poll until I realised it was 2 seasons ago. :smiley-laughing002:

This team is comfortably better than any of WGS's sides. It's a far more exciting time to be a Celtic fan too.

 

I really like the side but I wouldnt say its better than Strachans until it does better Strachans - 75% title win rate (3 out of 4), 75% CL qualification rate (3 out of 4), 2 CL last 16s in 3 CL campaigns. Lenny has one title so far and has been with us nearly 3 years. He has only qualified for the CL once. I believe he will potentially equal WGS but he hasnt got as good a record as yet. he probably will in 2 or 3 more years. However, he can claim to have surpased MON in Europe in a way as he never did a last 16 even with 4 or 5 bites of the cherry. Lenny will also surpass MON's title win rate (60%-3 in 5) before he passes WGS's (75% 3 in 4). I never understand why these threads try to compare Lenny to WGS when MON actually has a singificantly poorer SPL title and CL progression record than WGS. Lenny will surpass MON before he surpasses WGS.

 

It was Martin O'Neills teams who built the coefficient up from Aberdeen standard to CL 2nd Seeds rating and who got the automatic CL quallifying place for the SPL, enabling Scottish teams to perform better.

When O'Neill took over Celtic we were 95th in the UEFA rankings.

When Strachan took over Celtic, Celtic were the 22nd best rated team in the UEFA Rankings. When he left we were 48th.

When O'Neill took over Scotland was the 15th ranked League, when he left it was the 11th. When Strachan left it was back to 15th.

O'Neill's team were far superior to Stachans in every way.

Vastly superior players, they achieved higher points tallys in all seasons than what any of Strachans managed, they played in Europe every season any season they never got into the CL groups they reached the quarter final and final of the UEFA Cup... remember all while we were unseeded.