Season 15/16 | Page 11 | Vital Football

Season 15/16

Well VVD is away, £11.5m which makes Southampton's payments to us for players now a whopping £34m over 3 years! Haha!

I haven't actually heard that the Ryan Christie or Simunovic deals have finally been done but I believe they are as good as!

Scepovic is off on loan to Getafe, I believe there is an option to buy for a cut price £1.5m next summer.

O'Connell has left on loan, he has joined Oldham until January.

I've seen reports suggesting we are not after Steven Fletcher, that's good news!

I think we'll still be working on a deal for a striker but not sure who, that's perhaps the worrying part!

In other news, Islam Feruz is back in Scotland. He has signed on loan with Hibs.

Correction. Christie deal has bee finalised and will be unveiled at 6pm Celtic Park time.
 
So Simunovic did sign, £5m plus add ons I think

Christie signed too. He's away back to ICT though.

We failed to get a striker in as we couldn't convince Fletcher or Michu to join us and I think part of the problem between the club's was the wages.

Stokes was nearly off to Bolton on loan but our failure to get another striker meant that one didn't happen.
 
If Simunovic is good and Blackett can play at left back, we might have a pretty formidable back four. Blackett did start a few times for Man U last season. How bad can he be?
 
I'm a little surprised we didn't manage to get a striker in, apparently that's why we didn't let Stockes go. I can't believe we didn't have a back-up to Michu and Fletcher.
The other thing is we don't even really have the option of signing a free agent because the Europa League deadline has passed as well, meaning any free agents we do sign can only play in domestic competitions, that immediately reduces the number of players who'll be interested in signing, IF we wanted striker back-up for the SPFL that is.
 
Interesting piece on the Daily Record website today about our striker signings since 05/06 and whether we're getting it right.

05/06
Maciej Zurawski
Joined: July 7 2005
Reported transfer fee: £2m
Left: February 1 2008
Sell on price: £300,000
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 53 (19)
Goals: 30

Dion Dublin
Joined: January 30 2006
Reported transfer fee: Free
Left: September 20 2006
Sell on price: Released
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 3 (9)
Goals: 2

Derek Riordan
Joined: June 23 2006
Reported transfer fee: £170,000
Left: September 1 2008
Sell on price: £400,000
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 13 (19)
Goals: 8

Kenny Miller
Joined: July 1 2006
Reported transfer fee: Free
Left: August 31 2007
Sell on price: £2.25m
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 28 (18)
Goals: 11

Jeremie Aliadiere
Joined: July 1 2005
Reported transfer fee: Loan
Left: August 23 2005
Sell on price: End of loan
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): (2)
Goals: 0

06/07
Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink
Joined: August 25 2006
Reported transfer fee: £3.4m
Left: September 2 2009
Sell on price: Released
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 89 (19)
Goals: 44

Chris Killen
Joined: May 31 2007
Reported transfer fee: Free
Left: January 14 2010
Sell on price: Released
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 8 (32)
Goals: 3

07/08
Scott McDonald
Joined: July 30 2007
Reported transfer fee: £700,000
Left: February 1 2010
Sell on price: £3.5m
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 117 (11)
Goals: 64

Ben Hutchinson
Joined: January 31 2008
Reported transfer fee: £250,000
Left: June 1 2011
Sell on price: Released
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): (6)
Goals: 0

08/09
Georgios Samaras
Joined: January 29 2008 - on loan / July 15 2008 - permanent contract
Reported transfer fee: Free
Left: August 22 2014
Sell on price: Released
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 165 (84)
Goals: 73

09/10
Marc Antoine-Fortune
Joined: July 9 2009
Reported transfer fee: £3.8m
Left: August 27 2010
Sell on price: Undisclosed
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 30 (12)
Goals: 12

Greig Spence
Joined: August 15 2009
Reported transfer fee: £100,000
Left: May 2012
Sell on price: Released
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 0
Goals: 0

Diomansy Kamara
Joined: February 1 2010
Reported transfer fee: Loan
Left: June 1 2010
Sell on price: End of loan
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 9 (1)
Goals: 3

Morten Rasmussen
Joined: January 26 2010
Reported transfer fee: £1.5m
Left: August 1 2012
Sell on price: £250,000
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 4 (9)
Goals: 3

Robbie Keane
Joined: February 1 2010
Reported transfer fee: Loan
Left: June 1 2010
Sell on price: End of loan
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 17 (2)
Goals: 16

10/11
Gary Hooper
Joined: July 27 2010
Reported transfer fee: £2.4m
Left: July 26 2013
Sell on price: £5m
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 127 (10)
Goals: 82

Daryl Murphy
Joined: July 16 2010
Reported transfer fee: £800,000
Left: June 1 2013
Sell on price: Free
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 9 (14)
Goals: 3

Anthony Stokes
Joined: August 31 2010
Reported transfer fee: £800,000
Left: -
Sell on price: -
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 146 (45)
Goals: 76

Tony Watt
Joined: January 4 2011
Reported transfer fee: £80,000
Left: July 28 2014
Sell on price: £1.5m
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 13 (21)
Goals: 8

11/12
Mohamed Bangura
Joined: August 30 2011
Reported transfer fee: £2.2m
Left: January 31 2014
Sell on price: Released
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 3 (13)
Goals: 0

Pawel Brozek
Joined: January 31 2012
Reported transfer fee: Loan
Left: May 14 2012
Sell on price: End of loan
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 1 (2)
Goals: 0

12/13
Lassad Nouioui
Joined: August 31 2012
Reported transfer fee: Free
Left: June 4 2013
Sell on price: Released
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 10 (9)
Goals: 3

Miku
Joined: August 31 2012
Reported transfer fee: Loan
Left: June 1 2013
Sell on price: End of loan
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 8 (6)
Goals: 2

Bahrudin Atajic
Joined: July 1 2012
Reported transfer fee: Undisclosed
Left: September 2 2014
Sell on price: Free
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): (4)
Goals: 1

13/14
Amido Balde
Joined: June 13 2013
Reported transfer fee: £1.8m
Left: June 28 2015
Sell on price: Released
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 3 (20)
Goals: 3

Teemu Pukki
Joined: August 31 2013
Reported transfer fee: £3m
Left: June 19 2016
Sell on price: £500,000
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 19 (18)
Goals: 9

Leigh Griffiths
Joined: January 31 2014
Reported transfer fee: £1m
Left: -
Sell on price: -
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 42 (24)
Goals: 34

14/15
John Guidetti
Joined: September 4 2014
Reported transfer fee: Loan
Left: May 31 2015
Sell on price: End of loan
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 23 (12)
Goals: 15

Michael Duffy
Joined: February 1 2015
Reported transfer fee: Undisclosed
Left: -
Sell on price: -
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 0
Goals: 0

Stefan Scepovic
Joined: September 1 2014
Reported transfer fee: £2.2m
Left: August 31 2015
Sell on price: Loan
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 8 (18)
Goals: 6

15/16
Nadir Ciftci
Joined: July 9 2015
Reported transfer fee: £1.5m
Left: -
Sell on price: -
Total appearances in all competitions (as sub): 4 (2)
Goals: 0
 
That's a total of 30 strikers in 10 years. Only 3 of which are still with the club.

Total outlay: £27.7m

Total amount recouped (excluding undisclosed Marc-Antoine Fortune sum): £15.9m

Total apps including subs apps: 1413
Total goals: 511
That means an average of a goal ever 2.77 games

So is that good enough?

One other key thing to note, how many home-grown strikers have we had in all that time? Atajic and Watt don't technically count because we did buy them from other clubs before putting them through our youth teams. But how many have we had all the way through from a youth player, given them a senior contract and actually got them into the first team? 3!

Paul McGowan - 8 apps, 1 goal
Cillian Sheridan - 17 apps, 4 goals
Craig Beattie - 30 apps, 8 goals
 
It's a mixed bag. There are also cheap stats in this analysis. Including some of these players like Killen and Murphy who were signed as cover is a bit of a manipulation. Samaras wasn't always used as a striker. Same with Stokes. Zurawski, JVoH, McDonald, Hooper and Griffitjs have very good scoring rates. Same with Keane.

Sceppo and Pukki were absolute busts. Bangers even worse. Fortune was asked to be a striker but was really a target man. He was ok
 
Yes that is true welch. But regardless of what a striker is brought in to be, whether it's first choice or back-up, they have to score!
Riordan actually had an OK record. A goal every 4 games, even though most of his appearances were as a sub.

Chris Killen and Ben Hutchison were 2 of our worst signings. Fortunately Killen was free but we actually forked out money for Hutchison, he could score for the reserves without a problem but couldn't get that form over to the first team. However he was only ever given 6 sub appearances to try.

Fortune actually had an OK record as well, I think his problem was the number he missed, he could have had far more! Lol.

Murphy was a bad one for us though, clearly he's gone on to be better now but we just got an unfortunately out of form version.

Stokes actually has a fantastic record for us! If we play him as part of a front 2, he will get us goals! I think it's time Deila noticed that. Perhaps Stokes up front with Ciftci will get goals from Stokes but he's also good at setting others up so he might get Ciftci scoring as well!

Bangura and Balde have been our worst because of how much we forked out to bring them in!

Pukki was actually not that bad, a goal ever 4 games. If we'd persevered with him and played to his strengths then he could have been decent for us! Was never going to be outstanding like some of our better strikers but would have been good back-up.
Scepovic is currently worse than 1 in 4 for us, doesn't look like he'll be able to improve that either!

Currently Ciftci is looking a flop, he's going to have to start scoring soon!
 
Stokes would score goals if played up front with Griffiths. They were very effective together under Lennon. The problem is Stokes is a bit of a ned. Lenny is great at taking players with personal issues and getting the most out of them like he did with Stokes and Samaras. Managers like Strachan and Deila don't want to play psychologist. They expect you to come to the park free of a hangover, eating healthy and ready to work hard. Sadly, I think Stokes will eventually be off.

Pukki was a big misser, too. A goal every four games isn't awful, but I bet his shooting percentage was awful. I bet worse than Fortune. I actually think Fortune would have been good alongside McDonald, who I really liked. Skippy did great with a target man like JVoH holding up the ball. Marco could have been that guy, but Mogga send McDonald packing.

As for these cover strikers, I think it's hard for a forward to get any kind of momentum without regular play. It's tough to ask a player who has sat the bench for two months to come out and start pumping in goals. It's a different position in that sense.
 
I think Deila can deal with players with issues, the first thing he asks of them though is that they work hard, eat right, sleep right, drink right etc.
I think Stokes would have been off this summer if we had managed to get another striker but it was too much of a risk to let him go and be left with just Griffiths and Ciftci! I honestly think that with the right confidence boost, Stokes is more likely to get us goals, even as the lone striker than Ciftci is!

A goal every 4 games is good, for a back-up striker! That's essentially what Pukki was for us. You also have to remember that we sent him out on loan at a point in the season where he was actually our top scorer. Guidetti hadn't joined us, Griffiths was being used out wide and Pukki was actually scoring, he was playing more to his strengths and getting in behind the defence.....and that's when we chose to let him go!

Of course it's difficult for a striker if he's not getting regular game time but you want them to come on from the bench and at least cause problems and put in a performance. Pukki to his credit usually tried to do that, Scepovic on the other hand doesn't seem to do that at all! That's why sometimes it pays to use younger players as back-up strikers. You use them as subs and it gives them experience but you don't mind if they don't score as it's all about experience. Obviously you hope they do score and take opportunities and they will get a few.
 
Sceppo just had no balls. He seemed averse to physical contact and tried to shoot from wide angles. Pukki just missed too many sitters, though I agree that for the money we paid we didn't really give him a long enough look.

Stokes is a pretty good box poacher, but he needs a partner. He was great with Griffiths the last season they played together under Lennon. But as we know, Deila is wedded to his 4-2-3-1.
 
Could Stokes be used in the Johansen role? In behind the striker? Perhaps more ideal to have a second striker on the pitch and pushing further up the pitch, forgetting about the defensive responsibilities, especially in games where we expect to dominate?
I think that would be a good idea! All too often we see Johansen winning the ball back after tracking back, but then only having one outball who is then up against at least 2 if not 3 defenders. Stokes likes to link the play, he's good at it, so tell him to press the defence and help Griffiths or Ciftci and when they break he obviously has to get back and help in some way but don't be too keen at the same time, give us that second outball when we do win it back. We'll then be able to cover more of the pitch!
 
So what do we all make of Carlton Cole training with the club?

31 year old became a free agent after leaving West Ham this summer. He's experienced and he is a proper, big and strong target man! His big issue over the years has been fitness and staying injury free! Although I do believe he has been injury free for a while now. I think that is likely to be factored in to his contract.
He wouldn't be able to play in Europe unless we got through to the next stage.
I think he's still got something to offer, experience being one very important part! He could be great for some of our younger strikers, including Ciftci!

I don't really see a downside to this move, but it depends on how much we're going to pay him and how the contract is done with regard his possible injury problems.
 
I guess if it's cheap, then why not? I don't really rate him very highly. He wasn't a prolific scorer in his prime. But he does not fit into the 4-2-3-1. So if it breaks Ronny out of that formations, bring him in!
 
Seen a lot of reports saying that Celtic fans aren't exactly happy about the move. I understand it but at the same time, Stokes is clearly not one of our first choice strikers and we only have 3! We don't even really have any youth strikers to bring in if 1 or 2 got injured! So I think he could be a useful addition. If his ambition is set at a decent level, ie he's not expecting to play every game and every minute and be the top striker....then he's a good addition! I think he has to be realistic, he's nearly 32 and his part in a team is more limited than before, but also more important for us will be his experience and how he helps both the first team players and our younger players.

He was born in London and even the clubs he's been at, he's not spent much time out of London.

A Chelsea youth graduate, he had loan spells at Wolves, Charlton and Aston Villa before moving to West Ham in the summer of 2006, where he has been ever since! Although his contract did end in 2013 and he became a free agent, before West Ham signed him back again.
 
I'm not in love with the move, but I bet he can put his head to a ball in a tight match like Saturday's.

The answer here is a Griffiths-Stokes partnership, but it will never happen because Ronny enjoys banging his head against brick walls.
 
I was going to say in the match thread that Deila said after the game that Cole could make the difference in a game like that. We had nobody on the pitch who could really get up and header it when in against big defenders like that. Hearts allowed us to get wide and play around the box but the box was full of players. So they basically said "OK, you go cross the ball or try to pick a pass through and we'll just cut it out every time" and we obliged because we had no target in the box. Ciftci is clearly not that player and it makes me wonder why we thought he was the right sort of striker to bring in.....

I agree, Stokes and Griffiths probably is the best combination of strikers we could go with right now. With Deila not willing to give up on his formation, Carlton Cole should be a very useful weapon!
 
Cifti showed much better work for the Tange last year. He was good over the ball, knew where he needed to be and was shooting much better. He is lost in this system, which is really only good for wide men and Griffiths. But even Griffiths would be much better with a partner.

COle would have made a difference. So would Virgil. At one point, it seemed like we missed a dozen straight headers in their box.
 
welch47 - 28/9/2015 20:31

Stokes scored a goal every other game in his career at Celtic. Might we want to give that a try?
Click to expand...

I think most of the fans would........but apparently Deila will not! :emoticon:26
We don't know what is going on with Stokes, either on the training pitch or in his personal life and maybe that's what's going on in this situation. It's either that or we're going to see Stokes do what Griffiths did last season. However, the fact we would have let him go if we got a striker in before the close of the transfer window, suggests that may be unlikely!

It comes down to the same old situation, when a manager comes in, does he stick with what he has and change slowly, or does he change quick and disrupt things.
Deila changed things quickly and is still looking for his best players for his system. Normally the rule would be to play your best players and work your team around them and their best positions. If Deila had done that, Commons and Stokes would have featured far more!
 
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