Might as well get the new season thread started and what better way to open it than with the news that our new manager has, at long last, arrived. Welcome back Tony Mowbray. (back when he signed for Celtic as a player from Middlesbrough) CELTIC Football Club is delighted today to confirm that Tony Mowbray has been appointed the new Celtic manager. Tony will be joined at Celtic by Mark Venus, Peter Grant and Neil Lennon in the new Celtic management team. http://www.celticfc.net/news/stories/news_160609145004.aspx
ugh...... Going through some serious, SERIOUS football withdrawal. *shakes* Ready for some Celtic football! Someone wake me when the season starts back up.
I think I am coming around to the idea of this set up, we will see in time however. Just hope the board give us a good transfer kitty to spend on strengthening the areas that badly need it. Peter Grant and Neil Lennon both being apart of the set up is great news as well, should keep the spirits up enough.
I Feel Honoured to Manage This Great Club (celticfc.net) Mowbray Appointed Celtic Manager (ESPNsoccernet.com) Emotional Ties Drew Mowbray Back to Celtic (ESPNsoccernet.com)
The Thriller: Mowbray's bold vision to entertain Celtic fans Tony Mowbray breezed back into Celtic Park yesterday and told his new Bhoys he wants them to play like Barcelona and Spain. The Englishman, paraded at a packed media conference on his return to the club he served as a player for four years in the 1990s, didn’t disappoint fans looking for a man willing to embrace Celtic’s penchant for attacking football. more: CLICK Welcome and good luck! Let's hope he'll bring success back to CP. However, I doubt he'll manage to teach the Bhoys the Barca & Spain style.
Mowbray had Hibs looking like Spain some days, he'll do just fine with the entertainment value. Entertaining doesn't always mean winning, but I'm sure there is plenty of money relative to everyone else.
I'm excited with the appointment and the upcoming campaign. I really hope we qualify for the Group Stages, we need to be there year in, year out. Oh, and do any of you remember Peter Grant as a player? How was he?
I’ll chip in here. Peter Grant is a Celtic die hard. Gave it his all on the pitch. The kind of player you love to hate if your not a Celtic fan. Yet for some reason a lot of Rangers fans have a lot of respect for him. I think it was because once games were over that was it and he’d always be the first one over to shake Ian Ferguson’s hand after they’d spent 90 mins kicking lumps out of each other.
Pedro pretty much summed him up. PG wasn't the most technically accomplished player to ever play for Celtic but he would run through brick walls for the club. He came up through the youth system and was Celtic through and through. ----------------- In other news, Paul Hartley is being mentioned with a move to Greek side Iraklis. I can't see Hartley getting a lot of playing time next season and I'll be surprised if he's still with the club when the new season gets underway. As for the two strikers we're being constantly linked with in the media at the minute - Marc-Antoine Fortune: His goal scoring record isn't impressive. For the money that Nancy would want for him, anywhere between £3.5-4mill, I think we could get a player that would hit the net with more regularity. Steven Fletcher: This was always going to come back to the boil again when the season ended, and even more so with his old manager now our boss. But again, does he score enough goals and would he offer value for money? A bid of around £3mill would probably be required to prise him away from Leith. I do like him, but I'm not convinced he would fill the gap up front for us either.
i dont think we should splash out all that cash for a striker. i dont know the situation about jvoh and samaras' contracts just now but i would give them both a chance under mogga. theyve shown at times theyre capable of a lot up front.
I want to believe that JVoH isn't finished but last season he was washed up. He was never the most mobile of strikers but he looked even more wooden last season and he missed quite a few chances, especially from headers, that he should be tucking away in his sleep. I still have fond memories of his goal at Old Trafford. He made a world class center half look like a pub team player for his goal but the chances of him performing anywhere near that level again look to be slipping further and further away. Samaras is a little bit more bewildering. He started the season like a house on fire... until he was injured. Then, when he returned, he'd lost that extra burst of pace and continuously drifted into non threatening areas on the pitch. The fact that Maloney picked up an injury didn't help him as I always felt he'd sprung up an excellent understanding with him and his best displays came with both of them on the pitch. Skippy seems to prefer to play with Jan, who is more a traditional set up man for him than Sammi but I think that Samaras will be given the chance to prove he can still be a consistently good performer for us. Our lack of goals, mainly from our strikers, hurt us big style last season. We failed to score in three of the five post split matches. A striker of proven quality needs to be brought in to ensure there is no repeat of that situation I feel.
First time poster, hail hail! Hope we play some attractive footie now that the Ginger genius is gone. Mowbray will hopefully give Crosas, Maloney, McCourt, Mizuno and others a shot now as they have bags of pace and fit into the new gaffers style. If Celtic can get rid of a lot of the dead weight, such as Samaras, JVOH, Hartley, Balde, then we'll have a lot of wages freed up. We're already losing Bobo off the wage bill so that's 28k or so there. Hope we get some better quality players instead of SPL dross. Looks like we're linked with Jancko of Red Bull Salzburg, Timouthy Atoubee of HSV, Silvinhio of Barca, Fletcher of Hibs, Fortune who was on loan at WBA, amongst others. Fortune looks set to sign from Nancy now as the bid Celtic tabled was successful. Welcome to Celtic Fortune! (Unless the Sun is wrong, which it usually is) http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/2492947/Deal-me-in-Tony.html [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lctLbPNtDt8"]YouTube - 1/16 Carquefou-Nancy 2-1 (a.p)[/ame]
Good to hear from you. Hoping to see more from all of the above. Mogga chased McCourt when he was at WBA so I'm sure he's looking forward to working with him now at Celtic. I'd also like to see Mizuno get a chance as well. I'm sure Crosas will become more important to our midfield this season. I think three of the four will leave. I still believe that Samaras may be given another opportunity. He showed at the start of last season that he is capable of producing for the club and he's young enough to warrant another chance next season. Jancko may be worth a punt but again it looks like a hefty £4mill offer would need to be tabled to get the move going. I worry that his agent will use us to drum up EPL interest. A young left back at Eintracht Frankfurt seems to be another possible candidate for the left back spot. Reports are suggesting that Milan Misun is coming along nicely and may see some first team time next season as well. If thats the case then I hope he does well for us but I'm not 100% convinced by him so I'm hoping it isn't a done deal yet. If we're going to splash £3-4mill on a striker I'd prefer Jancko.
IMO a left back should be our priority. unless o'dea can do the job this season? he did not bad when he was used instead of naylor. btw, whats the situation with wilson, perrier-doumbe, and kennedy? heard rumours of espanyol looking at jeal-joel but i havent heard anything about wilson and kennedy lately.
Darren acquitted himself well when played at left back but I'd rather seem him in his main position at center back. He's a capable back up but we need a proper left back for the position. Doumbe...? Never heard of him... Just kidding, god knows what the state of play is with him at this present time. He did get some reserve time last season but Hinkel pretty much has the right back spot sealed up. Mark Wilson is injury prone. Shame really as I like the guy but it's one thing after another and it doesn't look good for him. JK seemed to be doing alright with his loan spell at Norwich until he suffered yet another injury to his knee. Again, the long term prognosis doesn't look good. Even more of a shame than Mark Wilson as Kennedy had all the makings to go on and be one of the finest center halfs this country has produced in quite some time before the thug Ganea done him in a meaningless international friendly.
I hope Samaras can get back to first half season form. He looked great, and actually became one of my favorites, then that injury he got slowed him down a lot. Here's hoping that he becomes the best striker in Europe, and maybe the world!? (wishful thinking, I know)
A new left back for certain and possibly a new center back. Something like this - Hinkel ---- Caldwell ---- Loovens ---- (New LB) I think Big Mick might have a fight on his hands to hold down his position. After he was injured and Loovens replaced him in the line-up the Caldwell/Loovens combo looked a lot safer than the Caldwell/McManus one did. I'd also like to see O'Dea get some time at center back this season as well. Mowbray may feel he needs someone with a bit more experience in the middle which is why I think there might be a possibility of a new center back before the season starts.
Celtic have made an offer to sign Real Mallorca attacking midfielder Juan Arango, according to reports in Venezuela - and could secure the player for around €4million if they beat off competition from Borussia Monchengladbach and Trabzonspor. http://www.celtic.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=158451 Juan Arango. If he is an attacking mid with a bit of creativity then he could be a good fit for us. At 29, he's older than what we've been targetting recently but it pays to have players with experience in the team and he's still the right side of 30... just. Certainly a more interesting rumour than reading more rehashed stuff about Fortune or Fletcher.
apparently nakamuras off to espanyol.. http://goal.com/en/news/12/spain/2009/06/22/1339988/nakamura-set-for-espanyol-move-report
Yeah. It's sad to see him go but he's never hidden his desire to play in La Liga and we can't begrudge him his day in the sun. Good luck to him at Espanyol. I'll be looking out for them to see how they get on. He's sure to work well with De La Pena. ----- Reports are now suggesting we enter a bidding war with EPL clubs for Fortune. I'm fairly certain we wont entertain that idea, thankfully. It's hard to get the exact figures but if we tabled a £2.5mill that has now been superceded by about £1mill then it's time to bow out and look for someone else. ----- Something more worrying is the ankle injury that will keep Skoosh out for the next 5 weeks or so. Celtic midfielder Scott Brown is likely to be out of action for five weeks after discovering he needs to undergo ankle surgery - meaning he may miss Celtic's crucial Champions League qualifier first-leg at the end of July. http://www.celtic.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=158571 Being close to missing the first CL qualifier first leg is bad enough but also missing out on an important part of pre-season could hurt him even more so as the season progresses. Fitness is a big part of his game and with his former mentor taking over the hot seat I was expecting Skoosh to go on to bigger and better things this season. Here's hoping he's a quick recoverer.
Shame that Naka left us ... but well, that's business as usual in today's football. Thanks for great moments in the Hoops dress and good luck in Barcelona.
Reports still suggest we will pounce for Xabi Castillo, currently of Real Sociedad, once he becomes a free agent on Tuesday. Castillo is a 23yr old left back and it's been mentioned a few times that Celtic would be his favourite destination.
HULL City manager Phil Brown has rubbished speculation linking Celtic's Australian striker Scott McDonald with a move to the Tigers. http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/106443,hull-no-macca-move.aspx
Yep. Lot of BS if you ask me. Written by Keith 'jingle jangle' Jackson in the Record. It was always going to be a lot of cobblers and that certainly seems to be the case.