THE LOTW DIARY
Listening to Radio Tuecther's "Thru the Windae" program last night a sudden thought went through ma mind. I t was the thought that i was listening to a bunch of old farts reading oot rumours picked up of message boards and e-mithered to them.
Nae truth behind any of them but they were reading them and discussing them because sod all was happening. Absolute nano. Nothing. Business had been done and bar the Shaun Maloney deal nothing interesting was happening.
Now Maloney, we ended up getting a million quid, but this doesn't end ma questioning of the sharp suited pokerfaced man. In the fact it wasn't much of a gamble his brokering wie St Martin. I mean look at the contracts Martin gave oot at the Tic, WE all knew he would give us the dosh we were looking for.
Martin says aboot Shaun....
"Shaun is a conscientious lad and a very good player. What he lacks in height he makes up for in ability and character," said O'Neill. "He did very well for Celtic before and after I left and I am sure he will be a good acquisition."
Now, i hold no grudge against Martin. He knows the game and how it works. He saw a decent player that will improve his squad and offered him an acceptable contract. He won this battle but will lose others. Its the nature of the bosman.
All this wanting Shaun to fail and wanting Martin hung, drawn and quartered for what is seen a treason is nonsense. It's all doon to the fact we have lost a player and oor squad is worse of for it. The same as Stan P who has never been replaced- we signed two players to replace him and none have proved up to the joab yet- and oor performances this season have proven this. We are worried the loss of Shaun will bring the same.
The squad has been weakened all for the lack of a few dollars more.
I hope Shaun has every success as it will reflect well on oor youth system. Not too much though as Aiden could be next for a saga.....
But it's always a view of a fan to dismiss when players don't react the way we want them to. Same wie the Hibee (hunnie) twins.
Guid players before but now over priced- correct- and raw talent. There is better oot there. Even if we had signed them i would have said there is better out there but GS wanted them badly. He saw them as oor future. The fact we haven't got them hurts us due to the fact that they see oor rivals as maybe a better option. Or the r*ngers option has been sold to them better.
Selling a club is doon to the sharp suited man.When we can't match the money on offer elsewhere the gift of the gab should come in to play and East Kilbride should sound as great as the costa del sol. When contract and deal talks are on-going it's up to him to make oor club seem the best place in the world. In this window he has failed to come up trumps with any of the main targets set by the management and was left only with a get it right up ye deal to get one over oor rivals.
No-one can tell me if any one of oor main midfield targets- Broon, Thomson and the bhoy from Basle-had been signed then Hartley would be wearing the Hoops. His signing reeked of panic and brinkmanship not the longtermism that oor main targets had.
Stokes, Broon, Thomson and the bhoy from Basle were wanted but the suited man failed to deliver. It's no matter saying well we won't pay over the odds, which we shouldn't, but the suited man failed on the hard sell and now the transfer windae can be viewed as a failure due to the same man quoting after the CL draw that they would back the manager to the hilt.
Those can say that we didnae need to spend anything due to the fact that we won't beat Milan and we will win the double with the squad we have. Maybe they are correct but the plain facts are the club wanted to strengthen in this windae.
They felt that we needed some new faces who were part of the long term view. The signings of that have been made only one doesn't smell of being bought for cover only. Even then he was an after thought due to us being shafted by Hibs, Wullie McKay and R*ngers.
So we will have to go with what we have and hope the coaching staff get the balance right.
Forza the slightly less fraught hoopy hoops
Nae truth behind any of them but they were reading them and discussing them because sod all was happening. Absolute nano. Nothing. Business had been done and bar the Shaun Maloney deal nothing interesting was happening.
Now Maloney, we ended up getting a million quid, but this doesn't end ma questioning of the sharp suited pokerfaced man. In the fact it wasn't much of a gamble his brokering wie St Martin. I mean look at the contracts Martin gave oot at the Tic, WE all knew he would give us the dosh we were looking for.
Martin says aboot Shaun....
"Shaun is a conscientious lad and a very good player. What he lacks in height he makes up for in ability and character," said O'Neill. "He did very well for Celtic before and after I left and I am sure he will be a good acquisition."
Now, i hold no grudge against Martin. He knows the game and how it works. He saw a decent player that will improve his squad and offered him an acceptable contract. He won this battle but will lose others. Its the nature of the bosman.
All this wanting Shaun to fail and wanting Martin hung, drawn and quartered for what is seen a treason is nonsense. It's all doon to the fact we have lost a player and oor squad is worse of for it. The same as Stan P who has never been replaced- we signed two players to replace him and none have proved up to the joab yet- and oor performances this season have proven this. We are worried the loss of Shaun will bring the same.
The squad has been weakened all for the lack of a few dollars more.
I hope Shaun has every success as it will reflect well on oor youth system. Not too much though as Aiden could be next for a saga.....
But it's always a view of a fan to dismiss when players don't react the way we want them to. Same wie the Hibee (hunnie) twins.
Guid players before but now over priced- correct- and raw talent. There is better oot there. Even if we had signed them i would have said there is better out there but GS wanted them badly. He saw them as oor future. The fact we haven't got them hurts us due to the fact that they see oor rivals as maybe a better option. Or the r*ngers option has been sold to them better.
Selling a club is doon to the sharp suited man.When we can't match the money on offer elsewhere the gift of the gab should come in to play and East Kilbride should sound as great as the costa del sol. When contract and deal talks are on-going it's up to him to make oor club seem the best place in the world. In this window he has failed to come up trumps with any of the main targets set by the management and was left only with a get it right up ye deal to get one over oor rivals.
No-one can tell me if any one of oor main midfield targets- Broon, Thomson and the bhoy from Basle-had been signed then Hartley would be wearing the Hoops. His signing reeked of panic and brinkmanship not the longtermism that oor main targets had.
Stokes, Broon, Thomson and the bhoy from Basle were wanted but the suited man failed to deliver. It's no matter saying well we won't pay over the odds, which we shouldn't, but the suited man failed on the hard sell and now the transfer windae can be viewed as a failure due to the same man quoting after the CL draw that they would back the manager to the hilt.
Those can say that we didnae need to spend anything due to the fact that we won't beat Milan and we will win the double with the squad we have. Maybe they are correct but the plain facts are the club wanted to strengthen in this windae.
They felt that we needed some new faces who were part of the long term view. The signings of that have been made only one doesn't smell of being bought for cover only. Even then he was an after thought due to us being shafted by Hibs, Wullie McKay and R*ngers.
So we will have to go with what we have and hope the coaching staff get the balance right.
Forza the slightly less fraught hoopy hoops
posted by Keving at Thursday, February 01, 2007
6 Comments:
In reply to the last thread……
Ian- I know clubs make their main plans in the summer and that no many deals are done in Jan but as I have said WE wanted to add to the squad in Jan.
Oor public chase for targets said we wanted to bring players in.
I now expect McGeady to be under intense speculation from now to the end of the season to sign a new deal……
As you list oor midfield thou we do have quality there don’t we…..?
Seven- in reply to yer text at 12.30am last night!!!!!
We had agreed a deal for Stokes which was no were near the figure Sunderland paid. I think it maybe went up to close to the 2 million figure quoted but a lot depended on clauses getting meet.
The figures that r*ngers have paid for broon and Thomson are over the top. The reason being they are two of the best talents in Scotland and are on long contracts. Hibs bluffed and got the money and ARE LAUGHING.
Our bid of £4 IMO was too high but market forces were at play with WBA willing to offer more.
Hibs are the only winners oot of this.
But means I can start my campaign to sign ma 1st choice we buzzbomb midfielder now who’s loyalties are not in question……..step forward Patrick Cregg.
Kevin - don't think Hartley was an 'after thought' as we had already been in for him before.
We seized a new opportunity thanks to mad Vlad (again).
I think he is a different type of player than what we've got and maybe wih him in the mix we can find the right balance in midfield & at least gives us more options (although not for Milan unfortunately).
One thing is sure he will give 110% for the Tic and he no' a bad player.
At least we know how they huns are setting out their stall - we even have a good idea how they will line up next August.
But our horizons are wider, our ambitions are bigger and we WILL spend big in the summer, which is when it matters.
I still have faith in the man in the suit - I prefer to look at Boruc, Naka, Naylor and even TG, JJ, Majic, and even steals like KM, GC, Elvis rather that harbouring regrets about the twins.
If signing Thompson is enough to get the huns feeling good, they're hellava easy satisfied. Don't forget they HAD to sign in this windae - cos they are rebuilding for the SECOND tile THIS SEASON.
That's why they are raging at Hartley.
As for shaun - don't feel as bad about him going as LMiller. At least we got some dough for him.
There's still some healthy competition for his place anyway - guys that actually want to be here.
Six- maybe after thought was a bit strong but i still think he had slipped doon the pecking order in terms of targets.
Just spoke to a fellow hoop and he said that it seemed almost like he was plan C.
But yer right thanks Vlad and Fc Kanus of Embra:-)
The suited man needs to deliver in the summer make no mistake.
Time to boost on.....better than the twins oot there and maybe in the summer we will look back and be glad we were shafted.....
Don't look back in anger some manc said once......guid call that.
TPB- Welcome back...was worried you were maybe scared to visit due to the orcas swimming up and doon the forth:-)
Have the IT bullies been restricting yer internet time?
Anyway if anyone can give me a reason in what Mr O'Neill done wrong then i would like to hear it...i mean it's not as if he tapped up Maloney is it?????
Well he could tap him - he's got plenty of cash now !
sorry about the late text i was out with work.
we may have agreed a fee for stokes but would u have paid him 14k a week?
how much would u have went to a week to keep greedy arse maloney?
u can't just say nae bother shaun name your price or u know wot, aiden would be in the next day saying if he is worth 20k+ a week then so am i and so on.
i don't blame oneill one bit, its nothing to do with him and getting £1m for someone who wants to leave and only has 4 months left is a masterstroke by our board.
brown and thomson are good players but transfer fee wise it was getting ridiculous and i believe we were right to pull out.
outwith us do u not think hartley has been the best midfielder in scotland over the last few years. gs enquired about him last year as well but was told no but when the chance came up this year we quite rightly took it same as we did with big elvis so he was never a panic buy.
why are people so negative all the time, its unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
lawell is doing a brilliant job, we are 19 points clear and have milan in a few weeks in the last 16 of the champions league.
ok we missed out on kevin thomson but who cares.
hail hail.
p.s. cregg is a good player i agree.
Seven yer ying to ma yang mate.
Opinions and views is what makes the world go round.
But can you look me in the eye in view of the facts that PL has had a guid transfer windae?
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