Strachan: Love Him or Loath Him?

It's a matter of economics at the moment; the signing may cost £6m but we then need to look at the wages. Players who cost more (because they are better players) are looking for higher wages. £25K per week is £1.3m a year so a 4 year deal costs another £5.2m and if you get 2 or 3 players a year on those wages (Gravesen and Bobo) we end up spending £5.2m over 2 years on players who haven't kicked a ball for us! WGS was right - £10m for Andy Johnston? I don't think he'd get a game for us to be honest - he's no more than an average Premiership player.

I think Strachan is right in his approach to attempt to build a young team who will last for a 3 or 4 seasons, bring success and be assets in the future should we sell them on (which we may have to do at some point).

The purchases of Mizuno, Hutchinson and Crosas tell us that's where we are going; brining Caddis and McGowan through along with McGeady, Brown and O'Dea will be IMHO a return to the way we approached the game in the halcyon days when we always brought our own players through. Dalgliesh and McGrain anyone? I know at the moment we do not have anyone of that standard, but I honestly think it's the way forward and will be TB's legacy to us; remember he fought for the Lennoxtown idea for years.

So let Lawell do his job and only buiy a £6m player if he is a £6m player and not some foreign also-ran who isn't as good as what we already have. We're not that bad a team to be honets; the stats tell us that for the last two season we have been in the top 16 teams in Europe (if we take the CL as the benchmark).

Couldn't agree more and if you can believe GS he doesn't read the rags, which is prolly why he is semi-polite with them.

Fully agree, one of the biggest difference between GS & MON is GS is more youth and future oriented. I think he's made a lot of mistakes with his "bargain buys" IE virgo, du wei and a few more who have just not paid off, but then the return we got from skippy last season is a marvellous bit of work in todays market.

Its a catch 22 really, he brings in young players he reckons he has potential, his record shows that most of them don't work out and he takes the flack for it but he has had more of his share of success with it too.

I think the crosas deal was a stroke of genius, it looks like a win win situtation but no doubt of he doesn't work out it will be more flack for GS.

I said in an earlier post that all the big names he signed have not worked out and its been all the bargain buys that have paid dividends. The bargain buy way is all about gambling and i think as a fan you either support it or you don't. I'm all for it, just wish we could offload them quicker if they don't work out.

The point is we don’t need to spend 6 million on better quality players. For example

Gilberto Silva went to Panathanaikos for 1 million surely we can compete with a Greek side in regards to wages.

Tamas is 3.5 mil plus 16k a week in wages hardly breaking the bank, he was an obvious target for us. Maybe a reason as to why we pulled out of the deal will be explained with another target coming in but at this moment it makes little sense as to why he’s not a Celtic player.

Currently available is Kezman he is looking to move from Fenerbace and is quoted around 3 million. He played at PSV with Jan and formed a productive partnership, so wouldn’t be much of a gamble. These players could/would have improved us. if it´s true that we can’t afford them then we are in danger of being looked upon by Europe’s clubs as we look upon teams like Inverness within our league.

Those are just three players we know about, I am sure agents and clubs are on the phone daily to Celtic pitching players within our budget. For me it should not be difficult to improve on a number of positions without breaking the bank.

I think all this speak of gambling as we are not in the market for 15 million pound players is a smoke screen. IMO all players are gambles from free transfers to the most expensive. What is needed is a clever manager to identify players who will fit into the system he wants to play that will improve the team. That goes for any manager at any level, from my point of view for three seasons now WGS has failed to do this player quality has not improved each year and neither have performances. This summer is the opportunity to improve we have money (you would think) lets see if WGS can bring in talent to take us a on to a higher level in terms of quality.

Yes his record is un-questionable and some performances have been truly fantastic, however for every fine performance there are five inept ones. From my point of view it is not always about bringing players in it is about using the players you have to the best of their abilities something in the majority of cases I think WGS has failed to do, i.e.to many players over his tenure past and present being used out of position.

in a nutshell.totally agree

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"..we'll never give up till we win the cup and the scottish football league.."

Actually, it isn't tripe. It's a fact. There are a large number of fans out there who openly admit that they don't like him because he tortured us. Sure he is snotty. But we are playing better football today than at any time since the days of Tommy Burns. Strachan has proved himself. You cannot take that away from him.

you must be joking, TB had us playing better football than MON or GS.

playing better football.you are havin a laugh.this teams football can be torture at times more like.

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"..we'll never give up till we win the cup and the scottish football league.."

That's why he said SINCE TB. ie, from Tommy's sacking in '96 to now (so excluding Tommy) now is the best football. His statement not mine.

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This mob play better football than feckin nobody right now and haven't for a good 20 month check the posts from then and you will see the first rumblings of playing guff fitba..Last time we played well was v Benfica...even then only for an hour and we have sold those that created and scored the goals that night...replaced them with Deek,Gravasfeck,et al.

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I dont give a feck about yer pro or anti religous sigs pish