DMAA

I’ll be glad if Skrtel isn’t a target. Very contradictory reports though, there must have been a change in mind somewhere.

I think there are very few managers who have his ability to dramatically improve the fortunes of struggling sides, therefore he just can’t be called mediocre. However I agree his abilities don’t seem suited to being a top 6 team.

The other big reason why we should be limiting exposure to players this age

Geezo calm down, I just said I was bit gutted when I saw the picture. I was a big fan of his, he played a big role in the road to Manchester and played 150 times for us including 3 titles in a row. For me it added insult to injury.

They’re not exactly in the lookout for a manager who specialises in defence. He’s quality at what he does, he’s just not mediocre.

Holt is the only one who I like as a backup but centre mid is too crowded. He’s probably 5th choice which means he doesn’t even make the bench unless there are 1/2 injuries. That’s the job of a youth player IMO.

Assuming those two sign, and assuming we stick with the dreaded 4-3-2-1, our starting line-up currently looks like this IMO. Improved from back to front. Macgregor Tavernier Skrtel Alves John McCrorie Rossiter/Jack Wilson Arfield/Dorrans Murphy Morelos Next priorities are; Sell Halliday, Hodson, MOH, Herrera, Pena, Cardoso, Dodoo, Wallace, Holt, Wes and/or Jak, Forrester. BOGOF everything must go Sign a second quality striker (McBurnie?) Sign a young quality centre back (Goldson?) Sign a young winger who has pace and dribbling skills

He grew up a Jambo so he has no excuse.. After everything he achieved with Rangers he's really twisting the knife publicly parading his son at Parkhead in a Celtic kit.

Can’t wait to see how this team shapes up. What a difference to have a transfer window where the signings actually go straight into the starting line-up. This time last last year our loan signings were Dalcio and Nemane

I’m surprised at people’s negativity towards Murphy. Without him we’d have been blown away by Hibs, he got 3 assists and was instrumental in most of what went right. He’s also one of the only players we have who can dribble past his man, and he’s been better at this when he’s playing through the middle.

Pictured at parkhead at Brown’s testimonial with his son in full Celtic gear

Have to say I was a bit gutted about the Whittaker thing last night so It was good to see a lot of positive headlines this morning from the DR and ET.

No. He has bodyguard commitments with Erdogan that he can’t get out of. Erdogan knows he’s the only man for the job.

With McGregor in I’d like Alnwick and Wes off the wage bill tbh. Kelly is 22 and McCrorie is 20, what’s the point in having these guys at the club if we don’t even trust them to stand in on an odd occasion and play a few cup games at that age!?

Capturing Wilson & Skrtel would prove that he can attract a higher quality player to the club than would ever be possible under an ordinary manager, even an accomplished one like Walter Smith. Very excited to see who else he can attract if these are confirmed. Hoping the rumour regarding Goldson is true.

Claim from his agent in the paper is that he contacted the SFA for a ticket as a neutral and didn’t realise till he was there that it wasn’t a neutral area. He almost joined Motherwell in January apparently. He is dressed neutrally to be fair and if he had been celebrating you can guarantee there would be a video of it. Interesting that Rangers haven’t even bothered to contact him about the whole thing.

Watched that video a few days ago and this guy looks brilliant. As I’ve said I think we should use the loan market sparingly but he’s a perfect example of the kind of player we should be trying to loan. Someone who walks into the starting line-up.

It’s still very harsh to include Allardyce in this. He’s been a success at pretty much every club he’s been at bar Newcastle. And he’s proven time and time again that he is almost peerless when it comes to improving the defensive performance of his sides. He took over Blackburn, Sunderland, Crystal Palace, Sunderland and Everton half way through a season where all had struggled to keep a clean sheet and were in the relegation places. In each season he saved them and kept loads of clean sheets in the process. He also steered Blackburn, Everton and West Ham to top half finishes from those weak positions.

I think it’s would be a mistake to let him go when his stock has fallen. 6/12 months in a much stronger side will bring the best out of him. Definitely good enough to be in a title winning side in my opinion but preferably not up front alone.

Yes I think we’ve taken that far enough. Time to be patient I suppose and see how much we actually have to spend and who is brought in. There’s no doubt Skrtel is exactly the kind of defender we’re desperate for.

Yes I listed Rodgers' signings yesterday and as we discussed he's made some blunders. But in general yes they've been leading the way with their recruitment for about 6-7 years and that's been widely recognised among our fans. It's made them a fortune and will continue to do so. You take away the £6.3m for Ki (bought for £2.1m aged 20), the £13m for Wanyama (bought for £0.9m aged 20), the £11.25m for Forster (bought for £2.25m aged 24), the £14.1m for Van Dijk (bought for £2.7m aged 21) and we'd be facing a different Celtic today. I didn't say we have no assets on the books, I'm just discussing how we should be spending our millions this summer to set us up to be genuinely challenging Celtic for the title in the coming years. I'm being realistic. I'm not saying it's the only opportunity obviously, but worst case scenario (and most likely) that will be our last and best chance to stop them. I didn't mean he'd be no use as a player, I meant no use realistically for stopping 10IAR. Ok he might age fine, but at 36 it's unlikely he'll be better than what Celtic have. I've said that a number of times on this forum. I'm not speaking exclusively but generally. But as I've said it's the millions of pounds transfer fee that is the real issue with Skrtel. As Celtic have shown, £2m can get you huge talent in undervalued markets. That's fine but a team of players in their prime is better yet and countless sides have shown that over the years. In any case we have Alves in there. Look I like Skrtel as a player, I just don't think spending such large sums of money on him is going to get us where we need to be in the coming years.

That's missing my point though. My point wasn't that Alves will be here in 2021. It's that in 2018 we are ploughing our money into people who will be no use to us in 2021. Whereas Celtic are still leading the way by putting their money into players who can deliver today but who guarantee them continued success in years to come. And that is either by staying or by bagging them another windfall. And that's why even a player of Skrtel's quality doesn't make 10IAR less likely (remember that I'm assuming we're talking at the very least £2m transfer fee and 20-25k a week which is £1m+ a year) . The only way it does is if he can help us miraculously win the league this year or next or deliver Europa League success which would generate revenue for the club. Otherwise we've only achieved a very expensive 2nd place with less and less money available to take us to the next level in the following seasons.

For example, whilst the prospect of Skrtel replacing Martin sounds pretty darn good, all the millions we'd have spent to get a 33 year old Skrtel in 2018 will not help us stop 10IAR in 2021 when Skrtel will be 36, Alves 39 whilst Ajer will be 23, Hendry 26, Simunovic 26, Boyata 30. The money will have been spent on the 18/19 & 19/20 seasons with no thought for what happens next.

My view on that is that it's common sense to utilise the loan market, but only in a limited manner. You'd probably be foolish not to aim to have one quality loan player in your starting line-up. If Gerrard can get a hold of a player like Solanke in this way then nobody would argue with that. It's reliance on loans (Aberdeen & Hibs style) that I have a big problem with. If half your starting line-up is made up of other people's players you have nothing to build on and improve from, you're almost starting from scratch every summer transfer window. Hyndman and Toral would have cost us far more than people realise, but that money has not made 10IAR less likely it's made it more likely because the money is gone and so are they. We should be spending our limted money on players who are capable of winning the league in 2/3 years time, not a squad of players who can maybe get within 10 points of Celtic now but will be long gone or retiring in 2/3 years time.

Agree with that, Rodgers' has gone short term and non-profit with most of his signings. He'll most likely make a big profit on Ajer and Dembele, whilst Kouassi, Ntcham, Morgan and maybe Hendry will likely be sold for some kind of profit. Sinclair, Gamboa, De Vries, Musonda, Hayes, Commper, Benyu, Edouard, Roberts won't make the club money and in the case of the loan signings were very much large sums of money thrown away in search of short term success.