[Football]Celtic
 

Kura/Deffeh this one is more for you guys than anyone else.

I'm watching the Man U/Newcastle game atm and am being impressed by Boumsong (although he's just slipped and was therefore partly responsible for the first goal but up to that point had been a one man defence) and Ferdinand (who although he has had **** all to do seems to be doing it well).

Anyways i started thinking about creating (in my head) "the ultimate defence" for celtic and decided to include those two.

Then i thought "what's the ****ing point ... celtic will never get them".

This is where you guys come in.

Just random "pub talk" but "Who (if anybody*) do you think Celtic could get to shore up their defence?"

I mean attack-wise i think celtic will be able to compete in Europe next season.

Defence-wise i think we're gonna get ****ed.





















*i doubt O'Neil will get any funds if he manages to keep Bellamy (please God let him keep Bellamy)

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

the ultimate defence is what AC Milan has.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

well, while you ponder your predicament you could give us Agathe and Laursen back for our european campaign maybe?

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

I am very "unimpressed" with both those players.

Agathe never seems to take players on any more (and his crossing is STILL shite).

Laursen is a liability.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

excellent! see, thing is, gary smith is..well, gary smith and rangers are poaching ian murray, meaning hibs have 3 competent defenders total (murph, caldwell and whittaker). therefore, agathe and laursen could come back to the fold and then we might actually stop haemorrhaging goals!

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

TBH , your defence at the moment is made up of a Psychopath , a Journeyman , and a couple of premiership wannabes/rejects. Thats not going to get you anywhere in Europe next year. Unfortunately, the players that you need simply arent available in your price range, although the addition of Steven Hammell from Motherwell would be a brilliant choice at Left Back, however at Centre Back, i really think you have to start thinking the same way Burns and Janssen did, and thats to look outside of the EPL for players that have great potential but are maybe just not at the right level for the Premiership.

I remember when you signed Stubbs for £3.5M and i thought "Hang on , hes been chased by half the premiership, but they wouldnt take a risk because hes a Division 1 player. What a fantastic signing". I think thats the route O'Neill should be taking. That, and continuing his scouting networks overseas to bring in talented players from the lower leagues of Europe.

One thing that has disappointed me is that hes not found any youngsters outside of the Celtic youth setup. Id like to see him getting a setup with other European clubs to move talent around and perhaps give Celtic some younger players that have real potenitial to be world class (McGeady and Beattie are excellent, but theyve actually been around Celtic since they were both 13 or 14). Buy a small club in Belgium and have them import talent from Africa , the same way big clubs in the EPL do.

Better still, why not just get a setup with smaller scottish clubs to farm out your kids to? Partick Thistle just dropped into division 2 , theyre a reasonable sized club within a few miles of you, and an agreement with The Bunnet to have Celtic kids play 20-25 games a season for him would do wonders for both teams.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

Caldwell

Competent

Defender

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh **** me, i have to go lie down after reading that.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

Alas that cannot happen in a couple of months :(

Also the central defender we need won't be back until next year.

To compete in Europe we need one now (so we only have to play Balde when he's gonna have his good game and we play another defender the other 50% of the time).

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

i've never seen a centre half improve as much as caldwell has this season... i know its in div 1 but he's a good player, marked ellington and roberts out of the game last week both of whom i think would score goals in the spl. Try watching him against west ham (its on sky next friday) and then pass judgement

Btw, does anyone know if martin o'neill is a sunderland supporter? i heard today he was

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

nonono. his brother, GARY Caldwell. Plays for us.

edit: and he isn't bad. He's spectacularly inconsistent, particularly at Easter Road, but he's by no means a bad player.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

i guess you changed your opinion after the game :confused:

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

Boumsong played well.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

no.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

yes.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

Boumsong was the only Newcastle player to come out of that game with any credit.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

the first goal and the third goal were both his mistake. it is debatable if he is guilty for the second goal but without a doubt loosing the header duell against little scholes didnt make him looking good.

several false passes, generally unsecure this is how i saw him.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

He slipped for the first - hardly his fault, and if you look closely you'll notice that a) he wasn't the person supposed to be marking scholes and b) Scholes cut in front of him so there was nothing he could've done there either.

There were few positives for Newcastle to take from that game but Boumsong's performance was one of them.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

Newcastle were toss. Thank god we sold Faye if he's deciding to play like that.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

It's extremely hard to mark Scholes, as he comes into the box late and gets in front of his man. Same reason Lampard is dangerous when they're not counterattacking.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

quoted for truth

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

I thought the general lack of effort and countless misplaced passes pretty much sealed Faye's fate at half time. Butt wasn't much better mind. Let's face it, Newcastle's flair players didn't shine, their effort midfielders were really poor and that's why they got overrun.

Faye's job (in any team) is to tackle, get blocks, and pass it simple. He did nothing of that. Ever since he got injured a season ago he's been poor and looked disinterested. Gimme Smertin and O'Neil any day.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

slipping away happends but still he doesnt look good (i agree that this wasnt his main fault)

from a defender you can expect flexibilty. he was the closest newcastle player to the ball but in the end he let scholes goal, he didnt even move.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

God Lupin i wish i could neg-rep you again twice in one thread (can someone do it for me* for his above comment).















*preferably MM

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Dace again.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

:) my bad

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

Boumsong is appalling. Some of the money Newcastle paid rangers quite clearly went into a "Graeme Souness retirement fund" because he's not worth £1 million. Which just makes me more pissed off at how good a deal the huns got.

As to celtic, i don't ****ing know. I think signing players from the SPL is embarrassing, usually, it shows an incredible lack of ambition if we're to attempt to achieve anything in europe. Valgaeren was good when he came, so was Mjallby, so was Balde. We need more signings like them, from nowhere etc. Unfortunately Celtic have a scouting network that resembles my local Cubs. Dib-dab-dib.

For now i'd like to see us concentrate on getting Bellamy. Without him, we wouldn't have a chance of winning the league, he's by far and away the best player in Scotland, (and much better than almost all of the forwards in england for that matter too). Atm we're scoring more than we're letting in usually, its not ideal, but without Bellamy we'd lose games to nil at the moment, which is much more worrying

Also, Great to see Quinn and O'Neill arguing. Just what we need, an argument to push the best manager we've had in my lifetime out of the club.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

Celtic financially aren't secure. A realistic budget would be to max. of 1.5mill. However, O'Neil is looking for youth defenders as Balde is a very good and experienced centreback to mould many players around.
When searching for talent i think O'Neil has made agreements with American and Belgic clubs (i read this in a article so very dubious...) that he will buy players from them if they are of good enough quality thus he has a "academy" in his pocket for other countries. When naming players that he could prize to Celtic......i can't think of many or one... i suppose he may be looking at championship players and such but realistically i can't see how a new back three (or four when replacing balde) can be brought with the quality and experience required to survive in the SPL.

My 2 cents.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

Mark Hughes might have something to say about that depending on how much he gets to spend in the summer. Could Bellamy resist coming back to the Premiership to play for a manager he reportedly enjoys playing for? I think he is a right dick, but he's a great player when he wants to be.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

I heard rumours bellamy might go to villa...

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

Villa have looked at Alan Smith, Saha and Bellamy as replacements......"apparently".

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

Pigs might fly ;).

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

If we have the money the lure of playing 6 games in Europe might be enough to make Bellamy consider staying me feels.

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

doesnt work on ian murray though does it :(

Re: [Football]Celtic
 

I dont know whether Bellamy will stay or not, i'm just happy we had him for as long as we did even if he does go, because he's given us a real chance of the retaining the title in a season where it felt like we were going to get nothing.

(I say all this, i think the furthest behind we've been all season is 2 points.. or 4 or 5 points with us having a game in hand, but thats scottish league football for you).

If he can provide us with a bit of magic next week, and we could SOMEHOW win at Castle Greyskull (Ibrox), i couldnt even see us managing to **** it up.

I advise all english folk to watch next weeks old firm btw. **** arsenal chelsea midweek, this is the biggest game there is till the champions league semi finals.

Also on the wages situation id have to say whoever's right, and whoever's wrong, Celtic have some serious ****ing issues to sort out. We bought Didier Agathe from hibs for what, 90k? I heard he gets something like 25-30k a week. How can a ****ing hibs player possibly command that amount of money at celtic, especially given his performances?

Balde only signed a new contract because we probably did give in to his 40k a week demands.

Players like Sutton, Petrov, Hartson, Bellamy - i have no problem paying them over the odds because any of them are good enough to slot into most good premiership teams, so we have to give them an incentive to travel to Caledonian stadium rather than Anfield.

it amazes me, we're one of the biggest clubs in the world, with an unwaivering support, we're about as merchandisable as it gets thanks to the distinctive colours, the irish connection, etc etc, and we don't have a dime to spend, a team worth talking about, training facilities to meet the 21st century... Rangers are in so much more debt than us, are a smaller club than us, but every season they sign, sign sign. It doesnt matter who wins the league each year, when the new season starts, celtic are always the underdogs - we field the same old clapped out players against the new foreign legion of 8 or 9 stars Rangers bring in every season.. if we win this year, we've ground out another year out of nothing.