Downsizing is a Myth

Just thought id make a thread to clear this up as ive seen it mentioned numerous times recently.

The team has got worse but thats just down to the gambling on transfers, the transfer budgets and wage budgets have remained the same for 10 years. The team has fluctuated but that is due to the unpredictability of the transfer market for example:

Hedman cost more than Boruc
Mark Wilson cost more than Lustig.
Naylor and Izaguirre were the same price
Hooiveld cost more than Kelvin Wilson
Loovens cost the same as Van Dijk
Hartley cost more than Wanyama
Gravesen cost more than Nakamura
Barry Robson cost more than Ledley
David Fernandez cost more than Commons
Fortune cost more than Hooper
Pukki cost more than McDonald


So

Hedman
Wilson Loovens Hooiveld Naylor
Hartley
Gravesen Robson
Fernandez
Fortune Pukki
​

Is a more expensive XI than:

Boruc
Lustig Wilson Van Dijk Izaguirre
Wanyama
Nakamura Ledley
Commons
Hooper McDonald

But it could just so happen that we sign the first XI and end up with a below average Celtic team or we could sign the bottom XI and end up with a good Celtic team, both teams would cost about the same in transfers and wages.

All thats happened now is some of our best players have been signed and their replacements havent been as good. This is just something thats always going to happen. There will be times when we end up stronger and times when we end up weaker. But nothing can be done as its not like we have the money to go and sign established players we know would be good like Snodgrass, Hooper, Finnbogason or whoever they are all £5million+ players and out of our range.

Some people are speaking like the team is deliberately being weakened or the budgets are getting lower when they are remaining the same.

Like K.Wilson, Rogne, Ledley, McCourt, Wanyama, Lassad, Watt and Hooper have all left but Gordon, Van Dijk, Biton, Johansen, Berget, Boerrigter, Pukki, Balde and Griffiths have all came in and replaced them on the wage-bill. There's been no downsizing of the wage-bill and if you looked the players whove come in while that first lot left actually cost more than the original "better" players did. Nothing can really be done that they werent as good or better, just how it happens.
​

 

Hartley cost more than Wanyama.

Far too sensible as usual ILTC.

(except when you are talking about Mcgregor)

 

He did though, madness to think about he was probably on close to double the wages as well. Id imagine Hartley was probably getting about £12-14k a week. Wanyama maybe only around £6/7k a young guy coming from Belgium where he was probably earning less than £1k a week.

 

Celtic fans see what they want to see. We are now on a downer after Wednesday night and who could blame us . There has always been a small group of fans egged on and encouraged by the MSSM who at all times have blamed the board .
Naturally after Wednesday night their numbers have increased massively . However I always think that it is the manager's job for any given game to get his best players in the best formation to do their best to win the game . It's also the players selected job to do their best to win the game . That didn't happen on Wednesday night .
Downsizing or not downsizing didn't cause Celtic to play so badly.

 

I wasn't disagreeing with you mate, just the ridiculousness of it. I loved Hartley and he done us a turn but he wasn't in the same stratosphere as Wanyama.

 

Just goes to show that no matter what is spent you never really know what your getting for your money in football

 

This is what it is for me. A rollercoaster. sometimes we will be strong, sometimes we will be *.

How can anyone possibly expect any different with the situation we find ourselves in?

In fact, here's a job for you ILTC, can you maybe (in your own time) compile a list of teams in the same boat as us over the last 10 years (teams from countries with similar TV money, sponsorship money, 40k fans) and tell us what their CL exploits have been like.

 

It technically is when you're selling a player for £12 million and replacing him with a £2 million player.

 

Thats cause we have to work within our budget, we cant take £12million in then spend it there and then as that leads to an increase in the wage-bill meaning there then needs to be an increase in the income but as we are theres no guarentee of increased income so it eventually comes back to us where we are spending more than we can afford because the longevity of the initial outlay.

We would probably spread the income over 3/4 years just paying slighly higher transfer fees than we could normally afford but keeping the wage-bill stable.

 

We replaced a player that cost us 900k with a £2million signing?

 

But he was worth £12 million when he left.

 

Bang on the money

 

We are as good as our current scouting (signings), coaching and youth development is. All these things fluctuate over time with periods of transition as well.

 

We have definitely downsized in the last ten years, we had the 6th( I think) biggest wage bill of british football clubs in 2005

Also you can't compare transfers and wages that are even a few years apart without taking into account inflation, and the inflation that has also occurred in football.

For example people say that Larsson cost £650k, but remember that was in 1997, when you adjust for inflation and football inflation, that same transfer would be over £2.5 million today.

 

That is simply because we told Southampton he is, just like west ham told liverpool Carroll is worth £35 million. or liverpool telling Chelsea Torres is worth £50 million.

or WBA telling us Fortune is worth £4million.

Carroll cost more the Suarez did for liverpool so under that logic just by transfer fee alone Suarez was not adequate replacement.

 

You are correct

 

Money is not a 100% guarantee of success especially on a case by case basis, but if you spend more money then you are more likely to succeed in the long term.

Celtic are spending less money now than they have in the past, and they are quicker to sell on the top players.

 

Thats got nothing to do with us though, we get the same TV money now as we did in 2003 or 2004. Where as teams like West Ham now get £50million. (Infact I just guessed that but infact West Ham got £77.1million last season, so me just guessing there actually underestimated them by almost £30million) :smiley-laughing002:

The average amount of TV money for an EPL team in 2003 was £15million, now it is £75million. Their TV money which was like 9x as much as ours back then, is now 5 x what it was then, while ours remains the same.

So EPL diddy teams used to roughly get £12-15million more than us in TV money back then but we could make up for that by selling much more tickets and merchandise than them and so we were still actually richer than them. Now though, Cardiff who were stone last in the EPL last season got £63.7million in TV Money alone - thats more than we could hope for in a season without CL football and thats before they sell a ticket, player, merchandise or get any sponsorship.

 

But the 12 million player cost 900k so replacing him with a 2 million pound player means we are going in what direction...??????