It is imperative Celtic do well in this season’s Champions League. Otherwise transfer spending of this summer’s magnitude will be short lived
Eric Knott 
Valerio Pennicino - UEFA/UEFA/Getty Images
Over the last few days, there has been much discussion about Celtic’s financial performance last season.
It was the best performance to date by the club, and if you were someone from the outside looking in, you’d be pretty impressed considering the environment we operate in.
£124 million in turnover in anyone’s language is a serious achievement.
£77 million sitting in the bank, with a squad that recently boasted £30 million of talent sitting on the bench, and things couldn’t really be looking any better, could they?
Peter Lawwell’s recent Chairman’s statement on Celtic’s performance was dripping in self aggrandisement.
I’m not going to go into it in detail as its been covered enough over the last few days, but it shows a very distinct inability on Lawwell’s behalf to read the room.
I’ll keep it short and sweet.
The below segment of his statement was the one that stood out most to me:
We are also firmly established as a European club from a participation perspective. Over the same 25-year period we have participated in either knock-out round or group stage European competition in 23 seasons, 12 of which were in the Champions League.
Put simply, for a club of our stature, participation isn’t good enough.
As the first British club to win the European Cup, the board is now just happy with Celtic’s participation in European competition?
Two wins in the Champions League in ten years is acceptable?
Not in my book, and not in thousands of other Celtic fan’s books either.
But Peter Lawwell and his board seem to be under the impression this is acceptable, and that to participate and take the money is enough.
That comment shows us just how disconnected from reality our board is.
Considering the size and stature of our club, we should be aiming for the heights the likes of Holland’s Ajax, Portugal’s Benfica, and Austria’s RB Salzburg hit.
All of those clubs play in leagues that are predominantly two horse races.
Unlike us, they have made Europe their bread and butter, with their respective leagues the platform to ensure consistent European participation.
However, that participation is not about making up the numbers, its about reaching the latter stages of European competition consistently.
To those clubs, I would imagine the knockout stages of European competition is a minimum requirement.
And it should also be the minimum requirement for a club of Celtic’s size and stature.
The reason it is not, is because up to this point, our board have been unwilling to invest in ensuring that kind of progress.
Until now.
I’ve discussed the late flurry of activity in the last transfer window enough times before now.
Despite the fact it seemed to reek of panic in the end, it appears the targets acquired were well scouted.
It appears the manager got exactly what he wanted.
The board like us to think they pushed the boat out, but we know they didn’t really because they exited the transfer window with a transfer surplus of £10 million.
The day we spend more than we receive in a transfer window is the day I’ll believe this board is really serious about taking this club to the next level.
Because believe me, while they’d like you to think they went the extra mile in the last window, there will be a caveat that comes with the recent level of spending.
That caveat will ensure its imperative we perform well in this season’s Champions League.
Because if we don’t, I can guarantee you we’ll see a return to the days of spending £3 million on projects in the hopes they’ll land us a windfall 2 or 3 years down the line.
The board’s attitude towards Brendan Rodgers now will be, we gave you what you wanted, its up to you now to ensure we progress in the Champions League.
When in fact, it is the board’s responsibility to ensure the manager should be well equipped for Champions League participation every year.
Bearing in mind, of course, it has only taken them 20 years to give the manager what he wanted.
How many times have we seen the club entering Champions League qualifiers completely ill-equipped to compete with clubs of a much smaller stature than us?
Simply because the board would not invest in the players required to compete?
Clubs with budgets that are miniscule in comparison to ours?
Clubs like Midtjylland, and Ferencváros?
This is why it is imperative Celtic do well in this season’s Champions League, and that starts tonight.
Because next season, we have to go down the qualification route once again.
If we compete well this season, and make it to the latter stages of the competition, this will then give the manager total justification next season to demand the players required to compete once again.
And there should be no hesitation on the board’s behalf, because the financial rewards from progression in the Champions League this season will be justification enough for Rodgers’ demands next season.
We have an excellent chance this season.
There are at least five winnable games in our group.
We have a squad that should be capable of competing.
I know its early days, but in Arne Engels, it looks like we’ve acquired the kind of player we need to compete at this level.
The core of our squad have also competed in the Champions League over the last couple of seasons.
That experience, combined with our recent player acquisitions, should provide the capability to compete.
Tonight is the litmus test.
For the first time in a long time, we are going into our first Champions League fixture as the favourites, not the underdogs.
But we cannot, and should not, underestimate Slovan Bratislava.
Why?
Because they qualified for this competition the hard way.
Through the qualification route, and who did they beat in their fourth qualifying round?
None other than FC Midtjylland.
A team we could not beat in 2021 in our attempts to qualify.
Granted, we were a side in transition then, but to underestimate Bratislava’s ability tonight could prove very costly.
They got there the hard way, you can rest assured they’re not there to make up the numbers.
We need to win tonight to ensure a positive start to our 2024/25 participation.
But its not going to be easy.
We have an opportunity this season, we need to grasp it with both hands.
If we fail to take it, I have no doubt our board will retreat into their conservative transfer spending shell again next season.
It’ll be back to loans and projects.
We’ll be informed we just can’t compete at that level.
We tried, but it didn’t work.
This line in Lawwell’s commentary on last season’s performance has an underlying tone to it:
This means that securing the best players is more challenging and we must work harder than ever to bring success.
You can bet your bottom dollar that next season it will become even more challenging, if we don’t do well in this season’s Champions League.
We need that opening win tonight.
If we can get it, it puts us in a great position going into our game against Dortmund.
It will be extremely tough to get something from that tie, but its a real opportunity to test ourselves against top opposition.
If we give a good account of ourselves in that and the Atalanta game, we will face RB Leipzig at home feeling confident we can get a result from that tie too.
We have to believe we can compete.
Remember a few seasons ago, when Ange Postecoglou was asked about Celtic’s chances in the Champions League?
He said, “we’re in it to win it”.
Now, I know he probably said that with tongue firmly in cheek, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but its the right attitude.
I’m pretty sure Brendan Rodgers has the same attitude.
You play this game to win, no matter who the opposition is.
If you believe you can’t beat the opposition before you ever take to the pitch, then you’ve lost already.
Go out and win tonight Celtic.
We’re in it to win it.
There are a lot of people in Glasgow and beyond , desperate for Celtic FC to fail tonight in the opening CL tie . The entire SMSM shall be wishing Celtic FC,nothing but disappointment in the game also …tacitly of course from every source and then some . A win tonight coupled with a fine performance would give Celtic the right to turn to all the ill wishers and doubters ,’ flip the bird ‘ and say , hey ,” spin on this “!
Eric you say we’ve got five winnable games, based on what? We’ve been CL cannon fodder for over twenty years and I’ll be happy if we can win six points. I know we’ve spent some money on the final day of the window but I think Brendan would’ve walked again if we didn’t. We can’t underestimate any team as we’ve no CL pedigree whatsoever and just because we’ve signed players it means nothing. Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with having aspirations to do well but we need to temper that with some realism, we’re not suddenly going to take the competition by storm that’s highly unlikely. I’ve seen some of our support saying we’ll get nine and ten points, again, I ask based on what? Let’s just see how we do, Slovan Bratislava are the champions of Czechia and are the only side to navigate their way through all four qualifying rounds, they’ll see this as as winnable a game as we do. Their group is much more difficult than ours so they’ll be looking to get off to a good start as much as we do, I think this will be a very difficult game and could go either way. Obviously I want to win but we can’t afford to take that for granted, a lot of our supporters have these three points in the bag already but we’ve got to earn it they won’t just roll over and let us tickle their belly. I usually agree with most of what you say but I’m nervous about tonight and the tournament in general because if we don’t get to the play-offs then the board will say to Brendan you had your chance and you blew it which is one thing I do agree with you on, maybe that’s why I’ve got some trepidation who knows.
After whinging all summer about not buying players you now use words like magnitude to describe our window 😂. It’s obvious this is now a change in direction driven by DD and BR. Engles will be sold after two seasons for 35 million.
I agree with being realistic but does realism have to equate to just being more negative. Like SMSM if you just look at the result, the Champions League has been poor, but in the last 2 years the performances have been on a much more competitive level, without carrying that wee touch of fortune. BBC at the weekend with awash with comments about ‘stepping up a level’ and overall quite negative, and fans saying ‘we need to be realistic because we’ve struggled in recent years’, however, that’s no pre-cursor to what will happen, most of the teams we face have come from nowhere to become so mighty we should be terrified! What’s to say we can’t grow again? European teams are automatically magical because they play in a different country, is the Slovak league better than Scotland? The Danish or Croatian? Killie almost done Copenhagen, and Killie aren’t great this year. Ignore that it’s the Champions League, it’s Celtic at home to a Slovakian team, who recently shipped 5 goals in a league game. Celtic should be winning that, and on a good day, quite comfortably. Rangers at home was said to be a tricky game, we breezed it, and if we play like that tonight the result will be no different.
We’re in it to challenge ourselves, NO GAME IS A GIVEN , just enjoy watching the game and hopefully we get off to a good start.