I think about this time last year we had had a very successful tour of America, beating Manchester City and Chelsea in the process, incidentally, Chelsea have just become Club World Champions by beating PSG 3-0 in the final. This competition is another money making vanity project by Gianni Infantino and his cronies at FIFA. Chelsea finished sixth in the EPL last season, but because this competition will run every four years, Chelsea were involved. For me the competition was an absolute joke, played in half-empty stadiums, watching some teams who aren’t even involved in full-time professional football, like Auckland City from New Zealand, it’s way past the time when players started saying, enough is enough, between International Tournaments like the Euro’s and World Cup, the top players are getting little or no free time to recharge their batteries.
This year for us has been a bit more low key and relaxed, we have beaten Queens Park and Cork City, and lost to Estrela. We now play the Portuguese Champions Sporting Lisbon on Wednesday, then Newcastle on Saturday, and finally a game against Ajax. The next three games will definitely be a step-up in class, and give us a pointer to where we are at right now. The team is obviously weaker just now than last season, with losing Kyogo and Nico Kuhn, I know we have brought KT back, and brought Benji Nygren in, but we are nowhere near where we need to be. I firmly believe there will be more additions before the Champions League Qualifier, but time is getting on now. I understand how the transfer market works, the selling team wants to hold on until the last minute hoping to get a better deal, that doesn’t help us, but if we identify a player who we are very confident will improve the team from day one, then go and get it done, it will cost a bit more, but losing out on the Champions League would be a disaster, and cost us a lot more money.
Another thing we need to sort out is the Managers contract. I have always said that Brendan Rodgers is an “Elite Manager”, he’s just as important as an elite player, we wouldn’t let the player run down his contract without trying to get him to sign an extension, ok sometimes it won’t work and the player will leave, like Greg Taylor, but most times that a player has left we have been in control of the situation because they still had at least a couple of years left on their contract, and they left for a lot more than they came in for. I believe it will be a serious distraction if we go into this season without Brendan clarifying his position, every press conference will be an opportunity for the anti-Celtic media to stir the pot. We have lost a couple of managers in those circumstances, most recently Big Ange, Brendan himself, and even going back to Vim Jansen. Having a manager on a long contract doesn’t guarantee he’ll stay, but it protects the club, and doesn’t deter players from signing because they’re not sure if the manager who is convincing him to sign is staying.
