Summer '14 - '15 | Page 18 | Vital Football

Summer '14 - '15

I like O'Connell but is he ready to take a step forward? I guess he could be the back up and we sign either one new CB and sign Denayer or sign two new ones. I think the club will get Wanyama money for Virgil. So we can certainly get some players in.

Or....we could get six players on loan from Newcastle. :emoticon:03 :emoticon:03
 
It looks like Denayer will be off and back to City in the summer, which means we will probably have to rebuild the back line as I think Virgil will be sold. It's too bad because they are a great pairing. We have two CBs with the physical play of Bobo and the ability to bring the ball out. Alas, they will be off.

Wee Od, get to scouting!
 
I was having a look recently actually welch. One of my long time targets, Alexander Milosevic, was sold in the January window and Guidetti actually commented and said that he's a very good player. He moved to Besiktas for less than £1m.

It's all well and good Denayer saying what he wants to do, and he's said it since he joined us in the summer but it depends whether he's going to be in the manager's plans or not.......
I don't see why Pellegrini wouldn't want him to be honest though. Good back-up and will get some game time throughout the season even if not first choice and he will learn alongside the likes of Kompany.
I'm not sure if Demichellis will be at Man City much longer, he's getting on a bit so Denayer could take his spot in the team.

At the moment my list in order of most likely or my personal preference, I have:
Jonathan Mensah - 24 year old Ghanaian international playing for Evian in France. His contract runs out in the summer and he's probably the most experienced on my list as he's been in the Ghana squads for about the past 2 World Cups and 2 or 3 AFCONs. He's an athlete! He's strong, very strong but he's also athletic and fairly quick.
Cedric Mongongu - 25 year old Congo DR international and Evian team-mate of Mensah. His contract is also expiring in the summer and I believe we've shown interest in both players in the past, we were certainly sniffing around Evian a season or 2 ago looking at a few of their players. Experienced international although Congo DR haven't done as well in World Cups as Ghana have.
Kim Young-Gwon - 25 year old South Korea international CB and helped his country to the Asian Cup Final where they lost to Australia. I wasn't impressed by many of the Koreans in that game and Kim did not look great, but as I say, none of the Koreans looked good. I've seen other footage of him and I still think he'd be a good buy for the right price. He's big, strong athletic and has good technical ability.
Berat Djimsiti - 22 year old Swiss Under 21 international playing for FC Zurich. Can play anywhere in defence, including LB. A lot of the footage I've seen is actually of him playing LB. He's quick, really quick for a big guy! Strong, athletic, two footed and wants to attack. One clip shows him starting the move and continuing up the pitch and actually playing as striker because the strikers moved out to other positions to try and pick the ball up, so he just continued on and occupied the defence by playing as another striker and linked up the move and the team won a penalty.
Georgi Terziev - 22 year old Bulgarian international who plays for PFK Ludogorets in Bulgaria. A club which has proven to be very difficult opposition to beat in Europe over the last few seasons. We may struggle to get him from them, despite us seeming like the bigger club as I believe they now have a wealthy owner who is bankrolling the team or certainly helped them get to where they are. He can play RB or CB (not in an Efe sort of way) and while not the tallest CB, he's tall enough and has a very good jump to help win the ball in the air. He's quick and comfortable on the ball too.
 
There's just no way Denayer will start alongside Kompany. With the cash they have, City will go out and buy someone who is ready to dominate. They will be in an arms race with Chelsea in the transfer market. Denayer is good and probably has the quality to grow into the position with Kompany. But that's just not how they do business there.

I like the sounds of Mensah. Anyone in the SPL worth signing? Anyone from rangers? :emoticon:03 :emoticon:19 :emoticon:59
 
The big problem with CBs from the SPFL is that they all tend to be older and are very much still of the old style of play of hoofing it up the pitch! The exception is probably John Souttar from Dundee United, he's looked like the best young Scottish CB to come through but he doesn't seem to have played as much this season. I think he may have been struggling with injuries a little over the past year or so. He's still very young though and would still require a lot of work before he could come into the Celtic team.
Hearts have a couple of good young Scottish CBs. Brad McKay has signed a pre-contract with St Johnstone I believe, he's nearly 22. Jordan McGhee is only 18 and can play anywhere along the back line, he'd cost very little really but could be an option.

To be honest there isn't really anyone in the SPFL that is any better than our own young CBs, all they really need is game time and experience in the first team. We should be looking to get the likes of Findlay and I was going to say Marcus Fraser out on loan to clubs in the Championship at least however I have just discovered that we let Marcus Fraser leave on a free transfer to Ross County in January after he spent the first half of the season on loan at Cowdenbeath. Findlay is currently on loan at Cowdenbeath.

We don't have any other young CBs other than O'Connell and Findlay now then, the others are basically stillunder 18 age level, so they're getting good experience in the development squad but we need to figure out how to get them from there through to the first team.
 
Guidetti is now talking about returning to Feyenoord. This is the guy who talked about staying at Celtic long term and scoring a hat trick against rangers, what, three months ago. What a head case. Good riddance. Keep Stokes, Griffiths and Commons and see what Sceppo can develop.
 
Scepovic is going to have a very tough job trying to get back into this team. Even if Guidetti goes elsewhere in the summer I still think Scepovic will struggle because Griffiths has shown he can score, he'll run his socks off for the team and that the style of play really suits him. Scepovic has shown us........well nothing to be quite honest! If Guidetti goes we will also likely look for another striker to bring in, meaning yet more competition for Scepovic.

Part of Scepovic's problem is that he was brought in to give us something different up front, to be a bit more physical and challenge for the ball in the air, but as a team we don't really play like that and even when we did, he didn't show himself to be a very physical player. We have kind of cracked it in terms of getting the style of play to produce goals without needing that physical threat up front. If he doesn't change his style of play and start running a hell of a lot more, he won't get back in this team!

As for Guidetti and Feyenoord, the couldn't afford to even take him on loan last summer, how are they going to give him a big contract this coming summer? I think it's all out of context. I haven't read it but I bet Guidetti was probably talking about how fond he is of the place and the club because of his time there before.
 
I think Guidetti is a douche bag who shoots his mouth off. And he will be punted because we won't pay what he wants for an inconsistent forward with a 10-cent head.

Scepovic has shown lashes of quality. I think there's a player in there and maybe a year with the developmental squad is what he needed. We did pay some good money for him so we might as well see what he can do.
 
We've had a number of players here who have shown flashes of quality but still not made it. Consistency is the big thing at a club like Celtic.

I'm not saying he shouldn't get a chance but he's going to have to work really hard now to get that chance and then it's a case of maintaining that level or bettering it.
 
In other news, ingrate punk Islam Feruz has bombed out on another loan out and now may be shipped off. Maybe he wasn't good enough for the EPL after all. Actually, given that his loan spells have lasted a match or two in the Championship, he may not have been good enough for the SPL. Nice job, asshole.

:emoticon:90 :emoticon:90 :emoticon:90
 
Been looking through our squad and thinking about how many players Deila is likely to move on this summer and how many of them would need to be replaced.

Definitely leaving:
Wakaso and Tonev return to their parent clubs.
Denayer and Guidetti will go but working on keeping them.
Boerrigter (1 year left on contract), Zaluska (contract expiring)

Then we have those returning from loans who are also likely to be moved on:
McGeouch - good chance Hibs will sign him permanently
Jackson Irvine - Could be signed by a number of SPL clubs. Talented young lad but unlikely to get his chance with us now. I think his contract is up anyway.
Teemu Pukki
Amido Balde
Fridjonsson

John Herron is also out on loan, not sure what will happen with him.
 
That will leave us with:

2 GKs (Gordon, Fasan)
3 RBs (Lustig, Matthews, Fisher)
2 CBs (VVD, Ambrose)
1 LB (Izzy)
1 Utility player (Mulgrew)
2 CMs (Brown, Bitton)
3 AMs/CMs (Johansen, Henderson, Armstrong)
5 AMs/Wingers (McGregor, GMS, Commons, Rogic, Forrest)
3 CFs (Stokes, Griffiths, Scepovic)

That leaves us particularly short at LB and CB. Mulgrew could play either of those roles but it seems Deila sees him as more of a CM/DM.
That is also based on not losing VVD or anyone else we don't want to lose.

We could use Lustig as a CB and bring in another RB, Deila did try that earlier in the season and it's something that has been talked about even by Lustig as he gets older he mayhave to cut down on his runs up the pitch and instead stay back therefore it would make sense for him to play CB.

Matthews and Lustig have both been linked with moves away in previous transfer windows.

There's also talk of Johansen attracting interest from the EPL or Germany due to his performances this season.

One good thing is that we have players who can play a number of positions, but it's always best to play them in their best positions. For example I wouldn't choose to play Johansen as a CM anymore unless it was part of a midfield 3 where he was playing off the left of that 3. I would suggest we may need another CM/DM and possibly another striker as well.
 
It's interesting that Deila said Forrest is one of four players to build around. The other three are VvD, Johanson and Bitton. Brown is a curious omission from the list and VvD is a curious addition since he probably will be here for one more season.

Anyway, I think our big needs are at least one CB, cover at LB and a real, line-leading forward.

God, I forgot about Pukki and Balde. Where are they?
 
I think Brown's omission from that list is purely down to his age. He is still a very important part of Deila's plans but in order to build a team for the long term, you need to have talented youngsters...which those 4 undoubtedly are.

Depending on the Denayer situation, if we can find someone who can play as an attacking left fullback as well as a CB, that should be enough. We don't want to overload and then have someone constantly on the bench or not even making the bench. We've done that this season; Tonev, Wakaso, Berget, Scepovic......

I think the other thing is Deila is of the same opinion as I have been for some time. The majority of your back-up players should be from the youth teams. The youth team players should be good enough to stand in when necessary and enough of them should be at a stage where they need the first team football anyway.
Clearly we are not quite at that stage with our younger players but we're getting there.

Pukki is in Denmark with Brondby where he has scored 8 goals in 20 appearances.
Balde was in Belgium where he scored on his debut (fantastic strike) but then struggled so in January he moved on to Hapoel Tel Aviv in Israel where he hasn't scored on had an assist in 8 appearances.
Fridjonsson is also at Brondby, mainly used as a sub he has scored 2 in 14 appearances.
All 3 have contracts running until 2017 so we would need to sell or send out on loan again if we don't want them.

John Herron has made 5 appearances for Cowdenbeath since moving in January, he's 21 and can play CM, RM or RB. His contract is up in the summer.
McGeouch and Irvine also have contracts expiring this summer, I don't see either of them getting new contracts.
 
Wow. If Pukki and Balde can't score more often in those leagues, they truly are pish. Pukki really is awful. He might be prolific if someone told him you score be firing on either side of the net.

Is there really a chance VvD stays this year? I don;'t see it.
 
I think it shows that both had the potential to be good and both of them have blown it!

VVD.......I don't really see him staying, but it all comes down to who wants him and where he wants to go!

That said, we will be left with a big problem at CB. Especially if Denayer doesn't return for another season!
 
It leads to another interesting point. I was reading an article about the voting for the SPFL Young Player of the Year Awards and how difficult it is to choose someone as the winner.

It's not difficult because of how many choices there are, it's difficult because of how few there are! There are some talented young players making the bench but the award should be for a player who plays regularly.

St Mirren have 2 talented young players playing regularly but they're doing so badly this season it doesn't seem right that they should be worthy of an award.

The average age of the Celtic team is around 24 but we have no regular players 21 or under. McGregor may have been a contender had he maintained his early season form. Denayer is only 19 and has turned out to be a really good signing but he is not eligible for the award because he's not from Scotland and doesn't qualify as home-grown.

We have a number of talented youngsters but how many are playing regularly? Henderson hasn't played much, Fisher has only made a couple of appearances, O'Connell hasn't even been on the bench for MONTHS and we've just run out of players who are even close to making the first team.......

Deila came in with a reputation for getting the best out of young players.....yet we have nobody worthy of the YPotYA.......
 
I think Deila is trying to rebuild the youth system, hence looking in Scotland for home-grown talent. It will take time. Lenny was great, but he also looked to the likes of Pukki and Balde to replace Hooper instead of growing forward talent. For that matter, we don't really have good CBs coming up either.

Lenny and Strachan were midfielders and always recruiting or trying to sign midfielders. Both had success. We won and did well in Europe. But we still are rich in the middle of the park and basically trying to replace the strike partnership and CB pairing every stinking year.
 
O'Connell looks like he can play SPL but he's going to need a LOT more game time next season to tell whether he is going to be consistent enough to make the step up to European football.
Stuart Findlay is the other young CB we have who could make the step up. He's probably still behind O'Connell in terms of starting an SPL game but he's definitely got to be there as back-up. He chose to go out on loan this season to try and get some first team football and learn. 12 out of 13 games since joining in January.
 
In other news, Guidetti has pissed off Feyenoord by asking for huge wages and a big signing bonus. He's had one decent--and very inconsistent--season in the SPL and he wants a payday. He is talented and I think could really improve next year. But he is also an incredible jackass.
 
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