Post window - A more positive outlook

If we don’t have the funds to sign someone on loan for four months even after making it to the last 16 of European competition for the second year in a row and losing four squad players for the second half of the season we are in genuine trouble.
Well it would be a bad use of fund anyway, wouldn't it?
 
Righting the wrongs of what has manifested the last 3 years will take time.

There is no right time to pitch in the kids and give them a chance but bizarrely we'll probably never have a better opportunity. Sadly, all the pressure for the remainder of the season will now fall onto very young shoulders but it will be the best test we could hope for to see how many are truly up to it.

I've high hopes for Rice.
 
Lots wont mate. The ST's will sell out as always. Even if a few decide to chuck it, they will be replaced by those who want one. As someone who has a son on the waiting list, if anyone wants to chuck it and free up a seat then so be it :))

Personally, and it really is just a personal opinion as people's situations/finances differ, I buy my ST regardless because I want to watch the club I love play. As I always have done. Not just when everything is rosey in the garden off the pitch and we are winning on it.

Attendances are clearly starting to fall this season maybe not the actual number given out by the club perhaps but in terms of people actually in the stadium it’s been visible at a lot of games this season.

Only so many times fans of any football club will continue to pony up thousands of pounds a year in costs going to watch the same people make the same mistakes over and over again without learning from them.

Taking fans for granted and thinking we’ll just continue to buy season tickets no matter what is a dangerous road to go down.
 
Let's see what happens.
Let's see if this youth model is indeed serious and progressed or if we will really only use them when injuries force things or we are 3 goals up with 10 mins to play.

Lawrence is going to be a testament to how serious we are. He's been perma injured and he's gone in the summer ( we think). Be interesting how much game time he sees in the remainder of the season Vs what we invest in youth over the same period. Big Clinton...When Souttar, Balogun and Propper are ALL fit...will we keep turning to Big Clinton or does he start to sit on the sidelines more and more and become one for the future instead of an option for the now?

That aside, you mention season tickets. Not sure if there indeed will be cancellations.
For me, we can't downsize, cutback and reduced the quality on the pitch but expect fans to keep paying top dollar. We are gonna face another season ticket price increase no doubt. For me, we are paying too much for our football and for the quality of team on show.
 
We beat celtic in effectively a dead rubber, we’ve not beat them in a meaningful game since the Scottish Cup win.

Kyogo peaked 2 seasons ago, both Khun and Maeda had way more goals than him this season, Idah was one behind Kyogo. I fully expect Jota to get double figures between now and the end of the season. Getting £10m for a 30 y/o and getting Jota back for the same was a great bit of business.

I suspect Clement was told weeks ago he better start using youth and until he proves he knows what he is doing he was getting no more money.
That was like a Brenda post match interview.
 
After sleeping on it, it’s probably a reasonably sensible window.

We don’t need to spend anything to finish second, just as they don’t need to spend anything to come top.

We’ve got a decent chance at the Scottish Cup with some luck on the injury front, and Europe is a bonus.

You don’t rebuild in January.

However, the negative is that it now forces the club, the board and Koppen into a situation where activity towards to summer window must kick off today. Start working on the younger Bosman signings, start seeing who’s available from our pool of targets with only a year left and get working towards having them in straight away.

Having a lacklustre summer window where we’re not prepared for the CL qualifiers and we’re still rushing about last minute trying to sign players would now, in my opinion, be considered unacceptable.

A lot of our summer business will depend on getting players out the door.

We need to hope Matondo, Davies, Dowell, Cifuentes all get sold and don't return otherwise it will probably hamper our business in summer.

We also will need to look to move on some of the other big earners like Butland, Tav, Dessers, Danilo etc as we don't get VFM from them. Butland and Tavs wages alone could probably cover 6 or 7 players under this new wage structure we seem to be going for.

Lawrence replaced by Cameron for probably half the cost at most. We need to know about Hagi ASAP so we can decide what to do with his wage if he doesn't stay as well.
 
Put this in the transfer thread but:

The success of the window will be determined by how well the young lads do. If Nsiala continues to develop and Fernandes looks good and signs then it’s good we didn’t bring in a centre back. If Rice looks better than Barron then it’s good we didn’t bring in a central midfielder. If Curtis gets more time and looks like he belongs at this level then it’s a good thing we didn’t bring in a winger. It’s a lot of pressure on the young lads though because if any of those things DON’T happen we’re very thin.

Excellent post, Andy. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. The only caveat I would add is that we were kind of desperate for a player that could cover Raskin specifically, because I think we saw in Nice that that definitely isn't going to be Rice.

I also agree very much with the OP. This season isn't the kind that any of us relish, but looking back in years to come I hope we'll look at it as vitally important.
 
1. They tried and failed to sign a winger.

2. Cameron will still cost a fee in the summer, he is a Connor Barron level player that will only be good enough as a squad player.

3. See point one, they tried and failed.

The euro squad will depend on fitness what changes he makes to the 3. Hagi is a cert.

Last January we good Diomande and then Cortes and silva on loan. 3 good players.

This January we have signed a centre half on loan, who despite having a good profile, has hardly had minutes this season and will take time to get up to speed.

We have a real chance to win this next euro tie and then see what happens.

The board cost us over 5 million for a terrible and slow start to the summer window getting beat off that Kiev team. Another thing people have just given them a pass for.

Some of you are clearly okay with lowering the wage bill and being sh*te on the park.
Absolute nonsense first one

And second, are you blind to how well we're playing well on the park, just now?

Just need to sort out the away games.
 
How can a 30 year old one season wonder who can’t be relied on in a mediocre league be sold for £10m?
I find it hilarious how easily people are fished in by this £10m nonsense. They effectively swapped him for Jota who has been an entire flop since leaving them. The £10m figure is nothing more than an FFP accounting aid and yet people treat it as if they actually recieved that money for him.
 
There’s a difference between finishing second strongly and finishing 25 points adrift.

Our current away form suggests the latter, and we haven’t given ourselves any strength in depth in the middle of the park, or wide areas.

An injury to Dio, Raskin or Cerny right now would see us really short.

Trying to paint the window as some sort of accomplishment or success because we managed to get a couple of non playing high earners out the door doesn’t help. We are arguably weaker now than before the window opened.
It does help because the club was in a financial nose dive. Before we can start climbing again we need to pull out of the dive.

I'm not happy that we're in this position, but having put ourselves in it I'm at least happy that the right things are now being done to sort it.

Our problems were far too big to sort in one window or two but we're on the right path.
 
So you're hoping celtic start to crumble and we have a 100% success rate with our signings in the summer?

Seems easy enough.
I haven’t seen much evidence that Rodgers can handle a transfer budget.

If two of Maeda, Kuhn and Hatate leave in the summer then I don’t think a Celtic crumble is beyond the realms of possibility.
 
I haven’t seen much evidence that Rodgers can handle a transfer budget.

If two of Maeda, Kuhn and Hatate leave in the summer then I don’t think a Celtic crumble is beyond the realms of possibility.
I don't think they'll crumble, but I like what I see happening there overall.
 
They cheated for a trophy but they’re still on for another treble ffs
They did and they are, but a lot of that at a footballing level is down to the squad momentum that Brenda inherited from AP. Others can draw their own conclusions, but I see that gradually dissipating,

The cheating is a different matter and it's up to our board to deal with that, we can't take that into our assessments of our own footballing department because they have no control over that whatsoever.
 
Absolutely insane isn’t it. Cantering to 3 in a row and a probable treble, but here we have fans happy with that and others back slapping each other on an apparent ‘positive’ transfer window. Strangely I don’t know anyone in real life who thinks like this, only seems to be on here

100% mate not a single person in my group chats or who goes to games feels this way.
 
From positions of unassailable financial advantage. He's left every single club he's managed in a much poorer state squad wise.

Not defending the plastic faced weirdo but since coming to Scottish football he’s won 11 out of the 12 trophies he’s competed for so far and only lost 2 out of 21 games against us.

How much we we genuinely give to have a manager with that kind of record?
 
I think the thing with Kyogo was it wasnt so much the amount of goals he scored but the importance of the goals he scored. He tended to score goals against us and in cup finals etc. That's why it is laughable when that wee guy on here who is always defending Dessers on here when he hits his purple patch each season starts comparing their respective goal tallies as a means to talk him up when its largely irrelevant when you compare their medal hauls.

I'm delighted he is gone, even if he wasn't scoring his movement and general play was a pain in the arse for us.

Idah is a decent enough player but he isnt a £9m striker and is also completely different to Kyogo. Sadly he has also developed a knack of scoring against us in big games right enough. We can only hope that whilst we have to get our own recruitment spot on in the summer that this is hopefully the start of Rodgers yet again undoing someone else's good work. I think some of his signings since his return suggest that so far.

Unbelievable you bringing up purple patches

When was the last cup final Kyogo scored in ?

I think Idah has scored as many against us as Kyogo in the last half dozen games. As I said a one season wonder.

Kyogo has 3 goals in his last 21 European games stretching over 4 seasons. Idah has 3 already this campaign.
 
We are so far off a title challenge that there’s no point spending money in Jan, coming second doesn’t require any squad boosts

We are not spending money because we either can’t, or don’t want to back a manager as he might be gone by the summer, whilst the squad is wafer thin and there are 2 trophies to be won

I mean…. There is absolutely nothing there to be positive about ffs.

You know when people scoff at people saying the support aren’t being conditioned to be 2nd best? You just have to look at this current situation being spun in a positive light, to see that a lot of them are already there
I think it's more realism than conditioning, with respect to this season.

In my mind, it's more important to set ourselves up as well as we can for the summer so we can be prepared to challenge for the league next year, than it is to bring a couple of extra bodies in now when it's only the Scottish Cup where they could have a meaningful impact (on the assumption our 3 euro adds are Hagi, Danilo and Nsiala/Fernandes).

We came into this season in a state and it has predictably been a disaster; doing what we can to be better prepared for next season is a must and hopefully this window will help us to do that.
 
You're enjoying watching them stroll to yet another league title?

Of course I'm not enjoying watch them win another league title, but I do take encouragement from watching Brenda gradually making a mess of what AP had built.

They have a huge - huge - financial advantage, which means that for us to beat them we need to work hard and be very clever and they need to do things badly. It's not going to happen overnight, but at least there are finally signs that in both respects the direction of travel is right.

We may have a way to go to catch them yet, but difficult as things are right now we're a lot closer to doing it than when Beale was throwing money around like confetti two summers ago.
 
If we don’t have the funds to sign someone on loan for four months even after making it to the last 16 of European competition for the second year in a row and losing four squad players for the second half of the season we are in genuine trouble.
We have the funds, but do you want to just waste it if the right player is not available for the right price?
Just plump for a Fabio Silva or a Aaron Ramsey because you can't handle the lack of excitement of a new signing on deadline day?

We are being sensible and signing players that make sense, the kind of attitude to signing players for above what they are valued, even if they're not a good fit for various reasons is why we are in this position as is and why it's taking a lot of work to correct the wrong.

To me this is a sign we're finally being run correctly, after years of absolute wastage and poor decisions.

The players we got rid of, the 4 "squad players" were that in name only, they were contributing absolutely nothing. It's not as if we've sold players who were in any way contributing, we've got rid of wasters who were a drain on our already tight finances, a blocker for young prospects getting game time and most likely due to not playing adding a negative to the atmosphere around the club (think the face tripping on Dowell when he wasn't brought on recently).

Getting rid of them stands us in better stead for the future.
 
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Not defending the plastic faced weirdo but since coming to Scottish football he’s won 11 out of the 12 trophies he’s competed for so far and only lost 2 out of 21 games against us.

How much we we genuinely give to have a manager with that kind of record?
Dude, look at the advantages he's enjoyed during that period. For almost the entirety of his first stint he was against invisible opposition and this time around we've handed it to him by giving two years worth of budget to Walter Mitty in one summer.
 
So any new signings are bedded in and can kick on. At some point we have to gamble.
No need, money is tight I would rather keep it for the summer.
As I said second place is it this season, we have a few loans that are going back to parent clubs, the summer is crucial to get right and I believe we have 7 players who are the core that clement thinks will still be main players next season, the rest are open, ie wingers and attacking midfielder.
You never know, we actually may make money off some player sales in the summer and buy a few.
 
Absolutely insane isn’t it. Cantering to 3 in a row and a probable treble, but here we have fans happy with that and others back slapping each other on an apparent ‘positive’ transfer window. Strangely I don’t know anyone in real life who thinks like this, only seems to be on here
Why are some people unable to make the perfectly simple distinction between being happy with where we are and being happy that something is finally being done to sort out the mess? It really isn't hard.
 
As a fan, I would obviously have loved us to sign loads of players because thats what we do. However, i have seen people on Twitter talking about apathy and potentially not renewing their S's etc so thought I would share a counter view.

We have been a mess for the last couple of years due to poor board decisions and dreadful recruitment. We now have an over qualified CEO who is conducting a proper review into the football department and have continued to shed the deadwood from the squad which has been like a financial anchor round us for the past couple of years, saving millions in the process. We are finally getting to a position where we have young and hungry saleable assets rather than older and non-contributing diddies. Guys like Igamane, Jefte, Dio, Raskin along with prospects like Nsiala, Cameron etc. We are finally in a position where we can see if our youth players can cut it and, while I would obviously rather be in a place where we are romping the league and had a team full of stars, we do need to see if our Academy is capable of producing the next generation of saleable assets.

I understand people being annoyed at us not getting at least 1 more in January however, I am realistic enough to know we are now actually trying to improve the foundations of the club for the future rather than panic paying an expensive loan like Silva/Ramsey etc.

The season isnt over so, yes, strengthening out wide or in midfield would have been nice. But, by the time we play our last 16 game and the later stages of the SC, our bench could be Kelly, Ridvan, Barron, Bajrmai, Cortes, Danilo, Balagoun, McCausland, Nsiala, Rice, Curtis. All on top of a starting 11 that has managed to match and pump celtic (with several players missing) and get to the last 16 of the europa, with even more players missing!

January, whether we like it or not, is a difficult window. Look at the mob across the city with their 100m in the bank. Even they have only managed to bring back a winger they had before and sign a 32yo sub as cover from Palace. Despite selling their best striker and arguable talisman.

All in all, I had accepted this season was going to be a rocky road. But, we will hopefully now have more finances to add quality in the summer and, most importantly, have better foundations as a club to actually build sustainable success rather than constant botch job repairs.

Finally, and I can only talk for myself here, I will be renewing 100% next year and am actually intrigued, and a little excited, to see what we are able to do. Learn to beat the dross, as I think we have celtic's number at the moment tactically, and who knows.
Fair points but anyone not renewing, out with personal financial or health reasons , is no longer a supporter. It’s as simple as that.
 
Let's see what happens.
Let's see if this youth model is indeed serious and progressed or if we will really only use them when injuries force things or we are 3 goals up with 10 mins to play.

Lawrence is going to be a testament to how serious we are. He's been perma injured and he's gone in the summer ( we think). Be interesting how much game time he sees in the remainder of the season Vs what we invest in youth over the same period. Big Clinton...When Souttar, Balogun and Propper are ALL fit...will we keep turning to Big Clinton or does he start to sit on the sidelines more and more and become one for the future instead of an option for the now?

That aside, you mention season tickets. Not sure if there indeed will be cancellations.
For me, we can't downsize, cutback and reduced the quality on the pitch but expect fans to keep paying top dollar. We are gonna face another season ticket price increase no doubt. For me, we are paying too much for our football and for the quality of team on show.
Correct, but this Board will
 
We don’t have to sign anyone to finish second, our Europa run is just a bonus.
Why waste money in January to finish second?

If a player we wanted was available then it would be good to bed them in and get them settled before what is likely to be two huge champions league qualifiers.

Other than that point I agree with you so if there was no one we considered a longer term option or we think we can get better in the summer then I’m fine with no one signing.
 
I’m happy enough no moaning from this bear we’re starting to get our act together Nsiala is getting better with each game Souttar back Rice looking good Hagi brilliant Raskin and Diomande doing the business big Proper looking a lot better Dessers and Igamane superb Jefte looking the part brought in another centre half that we needed so I’m happy get some more back from injury and we’re really starting to look like a really good squad.
 
Why are some people unable to make the perfectly simple distinction between being happy with where we are and being happy that something is finally being done to sort out the mess? It really isn't hard.
You said you were happy with what’s going on over there! Don’t bother replying
 
To be honest, as much as I hate it as a fan, being so far behind Celtic and having a half season to focus on rebuilding and not competing with them is something we've needed for a while. I fear next season will be the same.

We don't just need to get a little bit better at player trading, we need to completely overhaul our approach. We saw what selling Bassey and Patterson for 30m+ and making the final of the Europa League did for the trajectory of the club - nothing.

We need at least 2 Bassey's, Pattersons, Jefte's or Hamza's most seasons. Our recruitment needs to be mainly under 23 players bought for under 5m (ideally much less) and we need to accept for every Bassey (and hopefully Jefte, Hamza and Nsiala) transfer that does work out with a big profit, there will be transfers like Ridvan and Cortes where everything looks great on paper (those two both arrived with much bigger reputations as top prospects than anyone in the first column) but it just doesn't work out, we need to be able to make a profit whilst covering those losses - every season. (Hopefully it does work out for those players, there's still plenty of time.)

It's clear that the injury to Barron has forced Clement to play Rice, and he's now the academy player that we're building into the first team, we need to do that every season. Hopefully something clicks for Curtis, Fraser, Nsio or Stevens over the next 5 months and one of them can take that slot next season.

We have the following selling points we can use to get players here:
  • Huge global fanbase
  • Historic stadium
  • Proximity to England
  • Play in Europe every season, often after Christmas
  • Play in a team that wins most of it's games (if you play in a team that wins more than it loses, then it's likely that your individual stats will be better than if you played for a team that loses more than it wins, improving your visibility on the various algorithms most teams use to find players these days.)
We are on paper not that different to Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord, Porto or Benfica - it's time we started competing with these clubs, in terms of the way we operate, instead of trying to go toe-to-toe with Celtic and losing because they have more resources than us.
 
We don’t have to sign anyone to finish second, our Europa run is just a bonus.
Why waste money in January to finish second?
The Europa League is not a bonus - we came within a penalty kick of winning it less than 3 years ago and that was when you had Champions League teams dropping down.

We also have a Scottish Cup to win.

Some fans have such a defeatist mentality nowadays.
 
For me ,it's a poor 'window'.
Mostly because no one actually wants the shite players we have at their mad wages and our over-evaluation of them.
So we're left with a load of crap most likely seeing out their contracts again.
As for our puchases, Fernandez has only marginally more first team appearances than me
Cameron looks a decent player and hopefully stays fit until he gets here.
This became a 'transition' season at some point around late Aug rather than kicking on, so nothing surprises me about Rangers these days.
End of season review will need to be strong and sound.
 
To be honest, as much as I hate it as a fan, being so far behind Celtic and having a half season to focus on rebuilding and not competing with them is something we've needed for a while. I fear next season will be the same.

We don't just need to get a little bit better at player trading, we need to completely overhaul our approach. We saw what selling Bassey and Patterson for 30m+ and making the final of the Europa League did for the trajectory of the club - nothing.

We need at least 2 Bassey's, Pattersons, Jefte's or Hamza's most seasons. Our recruitment needs to be mainly under 23 players bought for under 5m (ideally much less) and we need to accept for every Bassey (and hopefully Jefte, Hamza and Nsiala) transfer that does work out with a big profit, there will be transfers like Ridvan and Cortes where everything looks great on paper (those two both arrived with much bigger reputations as top prospects than anyone in the first column) but it just doesn't work out, we need to be able to make a profit whilst covering those losses - every season. (Hopefully it does work out for those players, there's still plenty of time.)

It's clear that the injury to Barron has forced Clement to play Rice, and he's now the academy player that we're building into the first team, we need to do that every season. Hopefully something clicks for Curtis, Fraser, Nsio or Stevens over the next 5 months and one of them can take that slot next season.

We have the following selling points we can use to get players here:
  • Huge global fanbase
  • Historic stadium
  • Proximity to England
  • Play in Europe every season, often after Christmas
  • Play in a team that wins most of it's games (if you play in a team that wins more than it loses, then it's likely that your individual stats will be better than if you played for a team that loses more than it wins, improving your visibility on the various algorithms most teams use to find players these days.)
We are on paper not that different to Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord, Porto or Benfica - it's time we started competing with these clubs, in terms of the way we operate, instead of trying to go toe-to-toe with Celtic and losing because they have more resources than us.
You make a lot of strong points about the club's need to shift its approach, and while it’s frustrating to be in this position, it could be an opportunity to finally make those necessary changes. The reality is that competing with Celtic in the short term is going to be tough unless we fundamentally rethink how we operate. A half-season of rebuilding, painful as it is, might be what’s needed to lay a foundation for sustainable success.

Player trading is at the heart of this. Selling Bassey and Patterson for big money was a step in the right direction, but as you said, it didn’t change the club’s trajectory. One or two successful sales every few years isn’t enough—we need a constant pipeline of young, talented players coming in, developing, and moving on for profit. That means committing to an under-23 recruitment strategy, understanding that some transfers won’t work out, and ensuring that the ones that do more than cover those losses.

The emergence of Rice is a positive example of how academy players can be integrated, but that needs to happen every season. Having at least one young player break through each year should be a minimum expectation. Hopefully, one of Curtis, Fraser, Nsio, or Stevens steps up next.

The selling points are there—history, a massive fanbase, European football, proximity to England. The club should be looking at Ajax, Benfica, and Porto as models. Outthinking Celtic rather than just trying to outspend them is the only way forward.
 
As a fan, I would obviously have loved us to sign loads of players because thats what we do. However, i have seen people on Twitter talking about apathy and potentially not renewing their S's etc so thought I would share a counter view.

We have been a mess for the last couple of years due to poor board decisions and dreadful recruitment. We now have an over qualified CEO who is conducting a proper review into the football department and have continued to shed the deadwood from the squad which has been like a financial anchor round us for the past couple of years, saving millions in the process. We are finally getting to a position where we have young and hungry saleable assets rather than older and non-contributing diddies. Guys like Igamane, Jefte, Dio, Raskin along with prospects like Nsiala, Cameron etc. We are finally in a position where we can see if our youth players can cut it and, while I would obviously rather be in a place where we are romping the league and had a team full of stars, we do need to see if our Academy is capable of producing the next generation of saleable assets.

I understand people being annoyed at us not getting at least 1 more in January however, I am realistic enough to know we are now actually trying to improve the foundations of the club for the future rather than panic paying an expensive loan like Silva/Ramsey etc.

The season isnt over so, yes, strengthening out wide or in midfield would have been nice. But, by the time we play our last 16 game and the later stages of the SC, our bench could be Kelly, Ridvan, Barron, Bajrmai, Cortes, Danilo, Balagoun, McCausland, Nsiala, Rice, Curtis. All on top of a starting 11 that has managed to match and pump celtic (with several players missing) and get to the last 16 of the europa, with even more players missing!

January, whether we like it or not, is a difficult window. Look at the mob across the city with their 100m in the bank. Even they have only managed to bring back a winger they had before and sign a 32yo sub as cover from Palace. Despite selling their best striker and arguable talisman.

All in all, I had accepted this season was going to be a rocky road. But, we will hopefully now have more finances to add quality in the summer and, most importantly, have better foundations as a club to actually build sustainable success rather than constant botch job repairs.

Finally, and I can only talk for myself here, I will be renewing 100% next year and am actually intrigued, and a little excited, to see what we are able to do. Learn to beat the dross, as I think we have celtic's number at the moment tactically, and who knows.
Excellent post and would add the players we have are not on salaries like Matondo that make selling them extremely difficult.

That is key have to get the overall package right if you want a good player trading model.
 
You make a lot of strong points about the club's need to shift its approach, and while it’s frustrating to be in this position, it could be an opportunity to finally make those necessary changes. The reality is that competing with Celtic in the short term is going to be tough unless we fundamentally rethink how we operate. A half-season of rebuilding, painful as it is, might be what’s needed to lay a foundation for sustainable success.

Player trading is at the heart of this. Selling Bassey and Patterson for big money was a step in the right direction, but as you said, it didn’t change the club’s trajectory. One or two successful sales every few years isn’t enough—we need a constant pipeline of young, talented players coming in, developing, and moving on for profit. That means committing to an under-23 recruitment strategy, understanding that some transfers won’t work out, and ensuring that the ones that do more than cover those losses.

The emergence of Rice is a positive example of how academy players can be integrated, but that needs to happen every season. Having at least one young player break through each year should be a minimum expectation. Hopefully, one of Curtis, Fraser, Nsio, or Stevens steps up next.

The selling points are there—history, a massive fanbase, European football, proximity to England. The club should be looking at Ajax, Benfica, and Porto as models. Outthinking Celtic rather than just trying to outspend them is the only way forward.
We can also offer players the opportunity to show they can handle the weight of expectation in front of big crowds at a club where you are expected to win.

Also worth noting that one of the reason we could shift Patterson and Bassey was they were on contracts that made them attractive to a lot of clubs.

We don’t need a big sale like that every season, many of the sales will be for much smaller fees. But they all add up.
 
The right player was available though, hence why we were still after them until the last hours of the window.
Think that through fully mate.

Do you think we chased a player to the end, and then pulled out if it was possible, at the right price?

This isn't FIFA or Football Manager, there can be many reasons a deal isn't possible for the right player at the right time and price. Be it the selling club couldn't find a replacement or have sold someone else so the player becomes unavailable, other clubs offering more, a change of mind from any of the parties, contract issues, agents and all manner of other variables.

Consider all the variables and not just the over simplified pay a fee get a player people seem to have.

It astounds me that people get so blinded by rage that they've not got the excitement of a new signing that they can't apply a bit of logic and sense and over simplify things and get even more wound up.
 
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Put this in the transfer thread but:

The success of the window will be determined by how well the young lads do. If Nsiala continues to develop and Fernandes looks good and signs then it’s good we didn’t bring in a centre back. If Rice looks better than Barron then it’s good we didn’t bring in a central midfielder. If Curtis gets more time and looks like he belongs at this level then it’s a good thing we didn’t bring in a winger. It’s a lot of pressure on the young lads though because if any of those things DON’T happen we’re very thin.
Rice is injury prone and barring a good 45 minutes against Man U hasn't shown much else.

Curtis by all accounts looks promising but it's a huge ask to expect him to step up and fill in on the wing. Just look at McCausland for example. Looked good initially then hasn't looked anywhere near first team class thereafter.

At the minute it's all rosy in the garden as we are getting results. This season has proven that the next slip up is just around the corner. The mood music around the success of this window will change then.
 
Not defending the plastic faced weirdo but since coming to Scottish football he’s won 11 out of the 12 trophies he’s competed for so far and only lost 2 out of 21 games against us.

How much we we genuinely give to have a manager with that kind of record?
The bare statistics look impressive.

In his first spell he was up against Mark Warburton, Graeme Murty and Pedro Caixhina before Gerrard came in and we got our act together against them. Unfortunately we were as inconsistent then, initially, against the rest as we still are today.

In his second spell he has had the benefit of pretty much every contentious decision going in their favour in games against us. While we continue to suffer from the same old troubles when playing the rest of the league, especially away.

Rodgers has had unprecedented success in his time here. I'd suggest it's not all down to his tactical acumen but more a case of being there at the right time.

It will be interesting to see how he reacts and how long he sticks around for if/when we get out act together. As we eventually did under Gerrard.

It's up to us to raise our game and put the pressure on that he's not used to up here. We threatened it initially under Clement and they stumbled until we collapsed in March/April time(though given where we were when Beale left it's some sort of miracle we got back in to the race at all)
 
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