While the Ibrox side gets it together, Celtic responds by doing…..absolutely nothing
Eric Knott 
(Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
I wrote an article earlier on today where I pointed out that if the Ibrox side could land their transfer targets, then why is it so difficult for Celtic to do the same?
Whether we like it or not, there are signs of life over there.
Already, some of their signings are starting to stand out.
Now, we often look at the Celtic transfer model, which at times is hit and hope.
Bring a player in on the cheap, and hope he can be molded into a superstar by the manager and sold on for mega-bucks.
At Ibrox, they’ve identified targets for the positions they were lacking in, and it seems as if they’ve filled those positions well thus far.
We all commented on Russell Martin’s outburst last Saturday.
It was either going to backfire spectacularly, or have the desired effect.
It appears to have been the latter rather than the former, based on last night’s Champions League performance against Viktoria Plzen last night.
Russell Martin seems to be genuinely attempting to build something over there.
There are early signs that it could be something that seriously challenges us.
In a scenario such as this, any board worth it’s salt would already have a contingency plan in place counter this challenge.
Our contingency plan at Celtic Park?
Do absolutely nothing.
In fact, I’ll go one better, our contingency plan has been to systematically weaken our squad since this time last year with the sales of Matt O’Riley, Kyogo Furuhashi, and Nicolas Kuhn.
Which netted us over £50 million.
We have to date spent just over £3 million in this transfer window.
Tell me that there’s nothing wrong with that picture?
While many will point out that we have seven signings in the door to date, it is safe to say that only two of those signings are first team ready in Kieran Tierney, and Benjamin Nygren.
At Ibrox last night, 6 of their newest signings lined out against Viktoria Plzen.
They all acquitted themselves pretty well.
The result speaks for itself.
They are 75% of the way there when it comes to qualifying for the final Champions League round of qualifiers.
And while Club Brugge or Red Bull Salzburg await them there, I’d say that based on our current status, they have as much of a chance as we have of qualification.
When we faced Slovan Bratislava in last year’s Champions League, we were substantially stronger than we are now.
If we end up playing against them, at least we have some inclination of what we’re up against.
As for Kairat Almaty, they’re pretty much an unknown quantity.
What we do know, is that Celtic will have to make an energy sapping trek to Kazakhstan if we end up playing them.
We all remember the shocking result against Kazakh side Astana back in 2017, and how we capitulated to a 4-3 loss on their patch.
We were lucky we had managed to get the job done and wrapped up at Celtic Park in the previous leg.
I would imagine that the managers of both sides examined closely our performance against St. Mirren last Sunday.
Both will know that to get a result at Celtic Park, they will need to be at their best defensively.
But they will have taken heart from St. Mirren’s performance, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw either side setting up in a similar way tactically.
The 14th of August is eight days away, then we will have to register our squad for the Champions League.
So in reality, we have eight days left to get some signings in who could have a similar impact to the new signings who played at Ibrox last night.
Based on the entirely limited movement I’ve seen in the transfer window thus far, I don’t see that happening.
What is becoming abundantly clear to me is that we are intent on gambling when it comes to qualification.
Which in turn means there will now be a hell of a lot riding in qualification for the Champions League.
Failure to qualify, as seen in the 2018 transfer window, could result in the following:
The sale of Daizen Maeda.
No more money forthcoming for transfers.
The likelihood of Brendan Rodgers signing a new contract will become, well, highly unlikely.
Opening the door to allow the Ibrox side to pose a serious challenge to us.
As I stated earlier today, if they qualify and we don’t, then the board has serious questions to answer.
Serious questions.
All of the above is the worst case scenario.
But it is a very possible scenario nonetheless.
The worst case scenario will come about as a result of doing absolutely nothing.
Absolutely nothing when it comes to Champions League qualification.
And criminally, absolutely nothing when it comes to the growing challenge from Ibrox.
The board, as things stand right now, are gambling with the future of our club.
It is an entirely unnecessary gamble with £100 million sitting in the bank.
We should never, in a million years, be in this position.
However, somebody has made a decision to place us in this position.
And that in itself, is the most worrying factor here.
Whatever way you want to look at it, that is sabotage.
And it makes you wonder, who would want to sabotage the season ahead for Celtic?
I’ll allow you to deduce that for yourself.
viktoria were absolutely garbage last night . pitiful.
almaty last time. had we not already beaten them 4-0 at home?
what relevance has it today.
if they qualify and we dont.
the big if in play.
Who told you Celtic are doing absolutely nothing? I am sure they are trying very hard to improve things, remember we are looking to sign a bit of quality not just spend money for the sake of it!
Paul, my thought on Viktoria
as is my morning routine nowadays, I decided to look back at 2ndRangers performance last night, taking my emotions out of it, and replacing with hard analytical and scientific analysis.
so reporting back, i have learned that the Viktoria defence , all of them, were absolutely pish.
The right back, and right midfielder, never got near Gassama, no strike that, they DIDNT GO NEAR Gassama.
They jogged around, never accelerating to make a block or a tackle, they gave him all the space required, making the boy look something special, but Motherwell were able to contain him.
The left side defender not much better, looked like he was towing a caravan.
Rangers conceded 51 sHOTS IN THE PREVIOUS GAME, vICTORIA MUSTERED 4.
They really were piss poor.
I am not subsciribing to the Rangers are coming hyperbole, again.
It’s more than an, IF! This is the biggest game of our season and we’re only one game into the new domestic campaign. I foresee everything Eric’s outlined here as a serious and likely possibility, heads should be rolling that Celtic have close to £100 million in the bank whilst the squad and starting eleven has regressed significantly since the start of last season. We’ve lost close to sixty goals from the sales of O’Riley, Kyogo and Kuhn and we’re relying on Johnny Kenny who’s not ready to be the back up to Adam Idah who’s still young himself. This board need to act fast as time is ticking and this pish about it being a difficult window is just more unadulterated bullshit so according to our board it’s difficult to buy in both windows, summer and winter. Here’s a novel idea why not pay clubs the actual value of the players they’re selling? Our club are the first to moan if someone lowballs us so although it’s fine to haggle don’t insult the intelligence of the selling club’s CEO with derisory offers. I hate this board with a passion as Celtic have the potential to be exponentially better than this board thinks, they’re selling us short but aren’t afraid to keep pumping us for more cash for merchandise. If we don’t get into the CL groups stages then we all have to walk out of Celtic Park right after kick-off of the next few home games, stop buying merchandise, food and drink and hit these arseholes in the pocket. Slovan Bratislava will have improved after last season where we’ve regressed and Kairat Almaty are an unknown quantity but they’ve got to have something about them to get this far in the qualifiers, we’ve lost to lower ranked teams than this but if we fail to make it past either there’s no hiding place for this board no matter how thick skinned Michael Nicholson is touted to be.
Martin O’Neill in the record seems pessimistic . He says Desmond will back Brendan but won’t be browbeaten into spending over the odds to finance a second splurge . The money is there to spend and is paid for by the fans . It’s not mr Desmond that’ll be financing the team
I believe Rodgers is on a big bonus just to play with the players that he has got in his squad and don’t buy any players so that the board keep all the cash there sitting on but it will be same old story it’s the only the green brigade that will shout it out the rest of the 450000 will just sit there and look like dummies like they do at every single game
Mr Vincent McSherry
says:
6th August 2025 at 5:55 pm
Who told you Celtic are doing absolutely nothing? I am sure they are trying very hard to improve things, remember we are looking to sign a bit of quality not just spend money for the sake of it!
————
Good wind up mate!
It was the McSherry part that gave you away though, after Gerry.
Anthony monaghan
says:
6th August 2025 at 9:55 pm
I believe Rodgers is on a big bonus just to play with the players that he has got in his squad and don’t buy any players so that the board keep all the cash there sitting on but it will be same old story it’s the only the green brigade that will shout it out the rest of the 450000 will just sit there and look like dummies like they do at every single game
———–
Ad this is why drugs are bad for you
walk out after kick off.
genius.
why not go in .
boycott Sheldon cooper.
Martin O’Neills “DD won’t be browbeaten into paying over the odds” Excuse me!!.We have insulted countless clubs with our lowball offers.MON turning into another shill.For a business to treat uts customer base this way is absolutely scandalous.ONE WEEK to get bodies in for this qualifier.No holding my breath,as per.
when MON left was he not given a shedload of shares in Celtic, as was the case when he was manager. Everyone after him was charged with cutting wage bills and not getting the kind of transfer pots he got. Is it in his interests for the board not to shell out the proper cost for buying quality players?
The board have one week to do their jobs and save Celtic’s season.
Could be too late to save our champions league campaign though.
Fecking misers.