"Blue-chip" Celtic

Where are the "blue-chip" signings that Peter Lawwell was quoted as saying that the club will always possess?

There's not a single one. McGeady is homegrown, and with form more up and down than Lily Allen's knickers, you could hardly claim him as one. Boruc? A £600k punt that we got lucky on, I'll pass there.

Fortune then? He's hardly got a pedigree. What about the price tag? What, you mean all £1.3 million per season of it? I don't fucking think so.

But what about the loss of the CL revenue? Well firstly, that's hardly the fault of the support, is it? Strachan, for all his faults, would have seen us over the line with two decent signings in January. Instead we got Willo Flood, the constant reminder, the insult, of the board's fiscal policy. For that reason alone his career is finished at Celtic as far as I'm concerned. I don't need reminding of that, thank you.

Furthermore, Lawwell also stated that both transfer windows in 2008/2009 were dissapointing in terms of the players brought in. I agree. There should have been plenty left over to be spend by Mowbray then? No fucking way.

I should state that Lawwell received a substantial cash bonus at the end of the 2008/2009 season. £200,000, actually. That's 4 Willo Floods! Yes, the year Celtic surrendered the league title and massaged some CPR into the hardly beating heat of our closest rivals in their hour of need, Peter was handsomely rewarded for our failures.

That brings me nicely to the "Balance Sheet". The oft lauded phrase banded around like it was the Larsson of the year 2009. This season this "Balance Sheet", as previously stated, may suffer a catastrophic loss of form due to the loss of CL revenue. Hmmm, yes, well, maybe. Let's however, take into consideration that we've removed Nakamura, Vennegoor of Hesselink, Donati, Hartley, Balde, Doumbe, etc from our wage bill, and even got a decent fee for Donati. Let's also take into consideration that in Balde, Donati, VoH, and Nakamura we've likely removed four of the top five earners of the club from the wage bill, is the "Balance Sheet" really in mortal danger, or is it set to net Peter another bonus in 2010, irrespective of League placing?

Still, there's always Willo Flood.