FM14: Celtic FC - For it's a Grand old Team

[Sean1967]

[video=youtube_share;3J3slFJLAOo]

Football Manager 2014: Celtic FC

Firstly, welcome to my first team guide on Celtic. I've been playing FM for over 10 years now and regularly post on SortItOutSi, so I like to think I know what I'm doing. Hopefully you find this guide helpful and I appreciate any feedback.

Why play as Celtic?

Celtic is one of the world's most popular clubs with one of the largest and best fan bases in modern football. Scottish football is at a low point in its history. We cannot compete with the spending power of clubs in England or mainland Europe. Your goal is, ultimately, to progress in Europe on a budget that some clubs would laugh at. Can you repeat that of Jock Stein or Martin O'Neill and put Europe's mightiest to the sword?

The ins and outs

There was a lot of movement at the club in a summer which seen, arguably, our two best players leave. Pukki , Bitton, Boerrigter, Mouyokolo and Balde all arrived to ease the pain of losing Hooper and Wanyama. Can they replicate their importance to the squad? Only time will tell. Overall the squad is weakened but still more than capable to dominating the reformed SPFL.

Season Expectations

As expected the board wants you to bring the League Trophy home where it belongs. They also want to see the club in the Champions League Group Stage on a regular basis.

Champions: £2.2m for transfers / £400k for wages (currently spending £380k)

Finances

The clubs finances are very good as you can see. With no debts and a projected profit this shouldn't be a worry anywhere in the near future. If you requested more wages/transfer funds after qualifying for the Champions League Group Stage I don't see any reason it being rejected.

Stadium and Facilities

Celtic Park is one of the UK's biggest stadiums with a capacity of 60,355. The board are unlikely to agree an expansion at present, but after a few years once attendance's have improved then they should agree.

As for the training facilities Lennoxtown is excellent. Pair that with a good coaching set up and you should see some good results. The youth facilities are also good and should see you produce some good regens. The board are likely to upgrade both, providing you maintain a healthy balance.

[Sean1967]

Squad Analysis

Goalkeeper

This is a position you can look at one of two ways. You can either try and keep Forster happy and look for a very young keeper. Or you could sell Forster and look for a new first choice. As for back-up Zaluska will be good enough for the league matches and a cup run, but I would look for someone more permanent.

Potential Signings: David Marshall, Alex Smithies, Tomas Vaclik, Jason Steele

Key Player:

Full Back

Right back looks set from the go. You have Matthews who if you play will become excellent. There is also Lustig who I'd recommend using in the Champions League as he is better defensively.

This is another position that is pretty solid. You have Chalmers coming through the ranks and a good attacking threat in Izaguirre.

Potential Signings: Stephen Hendrie, Paul Dixon, Aaron Cresswell, Kieran Trippier

Key Player:

Centre Back

This is a position that could use some improvement. I'd recommend going with Mulgrew and rotating Ambrose and van Dijk as my first choice. Muyoloko should provide decent cover but you should look for a young homegrown no nonsense centre back.

Potential Signings: Danny Batth, Sean Morrison, Craig Dawson, Danny Wilson

Key Player:

Centre Midfield

Here you have club captain Brown who will be the heart of midfield. I'd recommend looking for a long term replacement for him. My first choice partnership would be Brown and Ledley.

Potential Signings: Franco Zuculini, Andre Gomes, Lewis Milne, Henri Lansbury

Key Player:

Wingers

This is a position that desperately needs strengthened. I'd recommend looking for someone experienced to contrast the pace and flair of Forrest. Although Forrest doesn't look great he plays very well.

Possibly the clubs strongest position. You won't have to even think about it for a few seasons. When Samaras and Commons leave I'd make sure I have a youngster at the club to back up Boerrigter.

Potential Signings: Ryan Gauld, Gary Mackay-Steven, Robert Snodgrass, Wayne Routledge

Key Player:

Attacking Midfielders

Although Commons is naturally a wide midfielder, I found he plays best behind a lone striker. I'd suggest bringing in a creative player or maybe in an older player to fill the tranquiesta role as a sub.

Potential Signings: Keisuke Honda, Fernando Forestieri, James Morrison, Yossi Benayoun, Ceslo Borges

Key Player:

Forwards

The squad has plenty of strikers including Bangura and Watt out on loan. However I think we lack a 25 goal striker, someone who's deadly inside the box. That would be my number one target.

Potential Signings: Stevie May, Jordan Rhodes, Adam Le Fondre, Richairo Zivkovic

Key Player:

Tactics

With Celtic I'd go for either a classic 442 or a variant of the 451. Just stick to what Neil Lennon does and you should be ok. For Champions League matches I'd scrap the attacking midfielder and play Efe Ambrose in front of the centre backs.

[petauk]

looks good sean1967, good work

[DKB]

yeah nice work Sean

[Sean1967]

Thanks lads. I'll finish it tomorrow, pretty busy this weekend.

[Sean1967]

Right that's me finished. Hope you enjoy and look forward to any advice/feedback.

[Larsson1888]

Looking good mate.

[S2008]

Excellent work- I've completed a season already as Celtic and what a season it was. Semi Finals of the CL after some ridiculous results away from home against Arsenal and Man City in the Last 16 using a Rigid 4-5-1.

Balde was my top scorer and caused havoc as a DLF with an emphasis on Direct Passing- he was sold on for a package of £10m at the end of the season and replaced by Jordan Rhodes for £6m. I was also able to sign a striker called Zaza from Sassuolo in Serie A for £2.5m (£1.2m for each 50%) and he has some great stats as a poacher.

Keeping hold of Van Dijk is a must- he is the bedrock of my defence and was a real standout in my European campaign.

Also a word of warning- you might need to sell Ambrose at the end of the first season as I tried to sign him up to a new contract and he had his work permit turned down

In terms of youth I found Stuart Findlay and Jackson Irvine to be the most promising youngsters on my save and frequently gave them starts in the SPL.

[Sean1967]

Thanks guys!

I've only played a season as I want to wait until the full game comes out before starting anything long-term. I found Danny Batth and Stevie May to both be bargains. May netted 7 goals in 16 games (most as a sub).

Amido Balde was a bit of a super sub for me. If I needed a goal I'd throw him on and he'd score (like the game at the weekend). Great piece of business selling him for that much and brining in Jordan Rhodes. I always like to have as many Scottish players in my squad as possible. It does wonders for the national team.

Bahrudan Atajic looks to be the most promising on mines. He is causing havoc in the reserve league and scored a few in my cup run.

[michealhill]

youve been busy on this sean, i checked on friday and there was barely anything there.....good work!

im only into january in my first season, but ive managed to put together a pretty strong team so far i think.

summer window;

out - sammy, ambrose, stokes, kayal

in - tom ince, capauno, buttner

it was difficult to let sammy go but it was either him or derk and i wanted to give derk a chance. in hindsight, i maybe should have kept him as i left myself with 2 strikers in pukki and balde and had to use atajic as cover in some matches. luckily i play a 4-2-3-1, so it wasnt so bad! i also had to train rogic as a cm as i had left myself a bit bare in that department too (maybe shouldnt have loaned irvine out). ince was a revelation and really weighs in with goals and assists but capuano was the better i signing i think, him and virgil at the back are just immense. buttner is very good too, but he got a holland cap and now hes on 28k so may need to move izzy on in january. managed to qualify top of a CL group that had barca, milan and man city in it (barca finished 3rd) and still unbeaten on the league. asked the board for some funds in november and they gave me about 6.5mil. spent that on some reinforcements and then they gave me another 5 to spend in january (hope there this kind to neil in a few months)

january window;

out - zaluska (released), mouyokolo (leaving on a free in the summer, moved to reserves)

in - danny wilson, youri tielemens (kids gonna be special), and everyones favourite CFC transfer saga.....finnbogasson

havent got round to playing finnbo or wilson yet, but tielemans is ready for first team football in the league despite being 17. drew juventus in the first knockout of CL so hoping to get some revenge on the handsy ba$tards. izzy may go this window and if he does then looking to bring in grimaldo from barcalona b (had him in fm13 and he went on to be world class, looks similar in this one)

might look to move derk on at the end of the season, just dont like him (although at least hes fit in fm!). any suggestions for a left winger with a bit of experience would be appreciated. mark gonzalez is available on a FT at the end of the season, seriously considering him

[Sean1967]

Good work on the Champions League, bet you would have taken 3rd place when you seen the group draw? How much did Finnbogasson cost? Wages and transfer. He always cost an arm and a leg last year.

If you move Boerrigter on I'd recommend looking at Craig Conway or Ibai Gomez if they don't sign new deals? Or retrain Tony Watt as an inside forward? He done wonders for me there in FM13.

I'll post up my transfers after the full game is released.

[michealhill]

i cant remember of the top of my head, but i think he cost about 4.5mil with add-ons up to 1mil and 20% of future profit. 4 yr deal on 20k a weeks and 4k on bonuses (app, goal, sub).

conway is a good shout, might have a look at how hes doing. pilkington is on the transfer list, but im managing ireland too and hes a fair bit off a starting role with them so not sure on him. dorrans may be available too. not sure what im gonna do with tony, hes doing nothing out on loan and he give me a bit of attitude when i had a chat with him. he needs to stop thinking hes gonna live off his barca goal if he wants to get in my squad lol!

and yes, i would have jumped at 3rd place when the draw was made!

what do you think of pukki? seems to be a confidence player in my game (bit like real life i suppose)

[Sean1967]

Thats slightly cheaper than last year. He looks worth it though, especially for the CL.

I had a game with Cardiff last year and he was my stand out player in the Championship. Lots of assists and a few goals. You could get what? 2/3 seasons out of him while you train up a youngster. As for Watt I think that has to do with, this is me assuming, you not having Belgium selected?

As for the loan in real life. I've got a feeling it might have been down to getting him away from the Glasgow night life? Just a feeling. After all look at that Michael Johnson lad at Man City.

I tended to use Stokes upfront alone and that done the trick. Pukki doesn't seem to score for me. I'll see how he does in the full game before I decide what to do with him.

[petauk]

again great work sean....ok here we go lol

In my 2nd season so here's the first season Update first..

First Season Update!!!

Ok the first bit of business i did was bring in a new Reserve Assistant Manager and to me there was only one guy i could go for and that was the King Of Kings himself...

and if am going to get Henrik then i gotta try and get Jordan also, and i did, add to that i got him on a free and was well happy(I have the Swedish leagues unlocked hence how i was able to get them both..

Transfer's In

Jordan Larsson - Free - Hogaborg: as above looks a good wee prospect for the future, Ripped up the reserve league's with his goal scoring.

Cody Cropper - £165,000 - Southampton: Young upcoming GK who i think could challenge Forster in a season or two.

David Bentley - Free: Know he's had a bad history of injuries but thought he would be a perfect player to keep young Forrest on his toes and boy did he, outstanding first season where he was hardly injured at all.

Chris Johnston - £600,000 - Killmarnock: Touted as the next Jimmy Johnstone just had to bring him to paradise, he's young and a AMR/AMLC/ST and for only £600,000 a bargain in my view

Thomas Reilly - £500,000 - St.Mirren: Again another young attacking midfield/Striker, Bought him then loaned him straight back to St.Mirren, looks good and hoping he does the job for us.

Enda Stevens - Aston Villa - The 23 year old Irish man and former St.Pats & Shamrock Rovers Left Back came in as a Loan Deal with a £1.1 Million Future Fee Clause. Never took the clause up though as Villa where interested in signing Kris Commons so i managed to do a Straight Swap deal for him in Jan after an amazing first half of the season where he kept usual 1st choice Izzy out of the team for most of it. Well worth a look.

Transfer's Out

Lukasz Zaluska - £250,000 - Kalmur FF: Happy to see Lukasz go as felt he had been at celtic for just to long and so no future for him here at all.

Beram Kayal - £875,000 - Torino: Again felt Beram's best season were possibly behind him and for the formation i play he was behind Broony & Super Joe so felt better if i got the cash for him.

Kris Commons - P/EX - Aston Villa: See above..

Basically Spent £1.27 Million and recuperated £1.12 Million which for a first season was good.

Season Review

Season went really well apart from the fact of when i qualified for the Champion's League Group Stage's was dealt with a Killer group of which was myself, Real Madrid, Schalke & Ajax. Pretty bad campaign in that which saw me only win once with a last minute 2-1 win over schalke thanks to Balde. Lost forster for the home game against Ajax where cody cropper came in and had a good game even though we lost 2-0, Some good progress though when it saw us lose 1-0 to Real Madrid at the bernabeu thanks to a 32 Min Bale goal. We hit the woodwork 3 times and sammy had a goal disallowed also.

Domestically We romped home in the league with 32 points ahead of Ross County and well ahead of 3rd placed St.Mirren. In the cups we won both beating Motherwell 3-1 in the League Cup Final & coming back from two down to beat Relegated Hearts 3-2

As seen above Hearts Went down to The Scottish Championship where they will meet The zombies, should be an interesting Championship this season considering both Hamilton and Falkirk all already looking strong this season. Hibs managed to beat Hamilton 4-0 in the Playoffs and keep there own safety in the SPFL, would of been interesting had both Edinburgh sides been relegated to the Championship.

Manager Changes

Jackie McNamara Lost his Position with Dundee Utd after a very poor season which saw them finish just above hibs, His Replacement was Former Hearts Manager George Burley

Pat Fenlon was fired from hibs which saw his Position been taken over by Inverness Caley Thistle Manager Terry Butcher, His old job was taken on by none other than Roy Keane who within a day of taking on the job ripped me a new one in the press lol

[Sean1967]

Good season overall mate, shame about the CL. Nice touch the Larsson thing haha.

Think the game might be jumping the gun touting Johnstone as the next Jinky but I'll probably sign him for that reason alone. I just started a new game tonight. I'm currently looking at Bentley, he could be a real coup.

What have you done for likes of the coaching set up? I've improved my fitness, goalkeeping and tactical/defensive were already ok.

[michealhill]

managed to play a few games with finnbo now. he looks good but coaches dont really rate him any more than pukki which is disappointing since i paid 4.5 upfront for him. think he has 3 goals in 4 games presently, so if he keeps that kind of ratio up ill be happy.

i mentioned above that i was thinking of shifting derk at the end of the season.....changed my mind on that now after he got a hat-trick in the lge cup semi against aberdeen. looking at his overall contribution, i think hes definitely earned his place in the squad next season as he is on almost a goal every two games from the wing and a fair amount of assists too.

had a look at some of my players info screens and capuano is touted as the new franco baresi, tom ince is touted the new chris waddle and danny wilson is touted the new richard gough (eeessh!). bit dissapointed with wilson though as he only has a 3 star rating from my coaches and close to full potential, did get a goal on his debut though.

kind of wish i had loaded swedish leagues as would have like to bring the prince of princes home to paradise, but think ill do this when the full game is released. might have a look at chris johnston which petauk mentioned above, would love to have the new jinky!

[michealhill]

oh, and on a potentially controversial note.....is anyone else planning on moving celtic to the BPL and playing their game like that? its something ive done maybe the last 3 yrs, i just find it more exciting than playing ross county and inverness 3/4 times a season and its nice to be able to build them up to a truly european giant. does anyone else tend to this or am in a minority of one?

[D0bi]

I've started a game with Celtic, I'll be keeping them in the SPL though, I enjoy trying to build up the Scottish League as well as making a profit buying unknown players before selling them on to larger teams.

I keep getting offers of ~£3.5m-£4m for Lustig, is there anyone that can replace him fairly easily. Part of me is tempted but I want to do well in Europe. I've also had offers for Samaras (£2m) and Kayal (£800k).

In terms of transfers i'm looking at Souttar, Honda (I can dream!) and Erazo, although Erazo always seems to choose Olympiakos whenever I try and sign him.

[michealhill]

i dont think you would be able to bring in someone of the same quality for what you get for lustig, you may have to spend a bit more but i think for about 5mil you could get coleman or torosidis. you could also use matthews as first choice and bring in someone like mark o'hara to develop, but to be honest matthews struggled with fitness and injuries up until october/november on my game so that could be a bit risky.

i would keep lustig until january at the very least, youll still get at least the same amount of money for him and hes pretty solid at rb or as a ball playing cb

id definitely snap up souttar if you can. i missed the boat on him, but some of the screens ive seen of his stats after just one season are enough to make anyone randy marsh, seriously immense.

[petauk]

Good season overall mate, shame about the CL. Nice touch the Larsson thing haha.

Think the game might be jumping the gun touting Johnstone as the next Jinky but I'll probably sign him for that reason alone. I just started a new game tonight. I'm currently looking at Bentley, he could be a real coup.

What have you done for likes of the coaching set up? I've improved my fitness, goalkeeping and tactical/defensive were already ok.

Am gonna start changing my coaches this season as rather have my own choices, Forgot to add that i had signed Jelle Vossen in the jan transfer window also, god how could i forget that lol sign him every year i get fm lol

[Sean1967]

I've just got a game up and running. Now that it's been updated to the demo level it should be ok.

I've not done much in terms of transfers. I brought in young Richairo Zivkovic for £600k and David Bentley on a free, I missed out on Keisuke Honda. I'm looking at Franco Zuculini but I need to free up some wages first after tying down Joe Ledley and Gorgios Samaras. Nothing major outbound. Only a few youngsters on loan to get some first team experience.

My dilemma is, I don't know who to sell.

Next season I'm thinking of raiding the Scottish u21/u19 squads for their best players and also bring some good Scottish players in. As for tactics I went for a bit of a change. I opted to go for short passing and more pressing. The results have been much better.

[ryanstormm]

I usually go Celtic as well and have done 1 and a half seasons on the beta, just to try out some things. Balde was my best striker in the first season scoring 29 goals overall in about 40 games. Virgil Van Dijk is class at the back as well. Stokes and Pukki had poor seasons, rotating them in the pocher role, Pukki improved a bit the second season. Signed Finnbogason though, as mentioned before he was around 4.5mil and around 22k wages. He's done well since he came in, worth the money I would say. I always like to try and bring through the youth as well, Paul George who plays on the right does a good job. Seems to play better than his stats suggest. Tony Watt was good to play in the cups I found, always scored in them. Didn't really give him much starts in the league.

I started a thread on this but do you change your tactics away from home? since the pictures are usually a lot narrower I usually have a narrow tactic set up.

[Sean1967]

If I'm playing in a extremely narrow pitch then I tend to play through the middle and have my wingers cut inside. The structure stays largely the same though.

What do you do? Could you link the thread?

[D0bi]

I've just beat Kalju of Estonia 8-0 on aggregate (4-0 home and away) to set up a tie with Maccabi Tel-Aviv in the Third Knockout Round. Impressed with Balde in particular as a Target Man, he currently has 4 goals in 2 games, also impressed with Darnell Fisher, the 19 year old Right Back who's played in our 2 competitive games so far due to Matthews injury and an unfortunate injury to Michael Lustig that's put him out for 3 weeks.

Managed to bring in Stefan Sandberg in defence, and also hoping to sign Frickson Erazo although I'm not hopeful as there's 20+ teams in for him. Trying to sign Souttar but Dundee aren't for selling at the moment, may have to wait until January/Champions League funds come in in August.

[donnelly67]

I am in February of my first season as Celtic and I've taken the approach of building a young Scottish side.

I went a bit nuts with this idea, selling the following :-

Samaras

Ledley

Kayal

Stokes

Ambrose

Lustig

Izaguirre

Commons

With the cash gained I have signed :-

Gauld

Souttar

Andrew Robertson

GMS

Hendrie

Stevie May

Darren Fletcher (on loan).

Finished bottom of CL group even though I beat both Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid. However the future is bright!

[Sean1967]

How've you coped domestically with all the youngsters?

Here is a link to my game - http://sortitoutsi.net/careers/story/8100

[McGougan33]

Good start to this years thread

Antonio Adan was on a free at the start of my first season in the beta, will be keeping my eye out for him in the full game.

My first priority when i start a new save, will be trim the excess fat off the squad, tie down our better players to decent contracts, and sign some decent coaches. In my first season in the beta i was losing money hand over fist every month again.

[McGougan33]

So new game has started.

Transfers in:

William Gallas Free

Antonio Adan Free

Decided i was also going to bring in my own coaching staff and physio team:

Everyone was offered a mutual termination and im glad to say they accepted. The only staff i have kept is the scouting team, that will change however.

Andy Renshaw - 5 star fitness coach

Darlan Schneider - 5 star fitness coach

Danny McGrain - 4.5 star tactics coach

Jose Mario Campeiz - 4 star ball control coach

Johan Mjallby - 4 star defending coach

Angel Vales - 4 star attacking coach ( offer him a coaching role instead of a scout and max the wages out )

Chico Fraga - 4 star shooting coach

Fernando Miranda - 4.5 star shot stopping coach

Oscar Rodriguez - 5 star handling coach

Altamiro Bottino - Physio

Mario Augusto - Physio

Wanted Alexandre Ceolin in for head physio, but for some reason my board didnt put the transfer through, and now he isnt interested in negotiations.

Beat TNS 9-1 on aggregate and Leading elfsborg 3-1 from the home leg, if i beat them in the return leg, I then have to beat legia to qualify for the group stages in my first season, which will see a significant boost to the clubs finances, irregardless if i win a game or not.

[S2008]

From my first season- Derk Boeriggter does his best Nakamura impression

[video=youtube;FBo3KzHQeLU]

[McGougan33]

He is the only one so far that has scored any freekicks for me!

[McGougan33]

So my CL group consisted of SLB, Juventus and Olympiakos, very difficult group.

However i am pleased to report with fortress parkhead providing some great results, and a last game away 4-3 victory against SLB, I have qualified for the 1st Knockout round.

Results:

Olympiakos 2:0 Celtic

Celtic 3:2 SLB

Celtic 2:2 Juventus

Juventus 2:1 Celtic

Celtic 4:1 Olympiakos

SLB 3:4 Celtic

Juventus on 14 points

Celtic on 10 points

SLB on 5 points

Olympiakos on 4 points

Absolutely buzzing to see who i get in the next round!!

[donnelly67]

How've you coped domestically with all the youngsters?

Here is a link to my game - http://sortitoutsi.net/careers/story/8100

Very inconsistently for a few months. I couldn't run away with the league until out of Europe. Now in March and 14 points clear but I have 3 defeats to my name this season.

[S2008]

Very inconsistently for a few months. I couldn't run away with the league until out of Europe. Now in March and 14 points clear but I have 3 defeats to my name this season.

I wouldnt worry about the domestic defeats- there have been many games I've played that could have gone either way even with the upgraded squad I now have.

Second Season finished and Jordan Rhodes was the star with 36 goals in 51 appearances, Zaza got 23 in 46 but I felt he was too hit or miss. CL I got to the quarter finals beating Barca 4-1 at home and drawing 1-1 at the Nou Camp. Arsenal stood in the way of another semi final appearance and we secured a backs to the wall 0-0 at the Emirates to put us in contention but a mix up at the back in the home leg left us 0-1 with a mountain to climb and despite Samaras late goal we went out on away goals.

The league was coasted quite easily with a sloppy defeat at St Johnstone the only major blot on the copy book, though there were times we rode our luck especially away from home. We were made to pay for some poor finishing as we were dumped out of the Scottish Cup 3-2 at an Inverness side managed by Roy Keane but we secured the League cup to complete a mostly successful year. The Scottish Cup was won by Partick Thistle and their fans were understandably thrilled.

This summer with the zombies back in the SPL alongside Hearts (who beat Motherwell in the relegation playoff), I feel like I need to up my game and I think this has to go down as the best transfer window yet. Zaza was moved on for £6.5m to Fulham and a number of players including McGeouch, Rogic and Yassine El Ghanassy were all trimmed from the squad. In their place I bought a couple of 4-5* regens and splashed the cash on Dutch Left winger Lerin Duarte for £7.5m. I was also able to use the proceeds from selling Biton for £8m to bring in Seydou Doumbia on a free, albeit for £30k wages. That was going to be all I did but then a certain Denys Garmash became available at a cut price £3.9m. Managed to fend off interest from Man Utd and secured the long term successor to Scott Brown.

Hopefully this season will see Sevco taught a lesson

[McGougan33]

Here`s a question for you lads, anyone using an amc? Im using a dm, 2 cms`s and 2 wingers, however im thinking i would like a tactic at some stage that used an amc, as Rogic is perfect for that position.

[S2008]

Here`s a question for you lads, anyone using an amc? Im using a dm, 2 cms`s and 2 wingers, however im thinking i would like a tactic at some stage that used an amc, as Rogic is perfect for that position.

I can only speak for myself but I've been using a slow possession based 4-4-2 and mixing it up with a 4-1-2-2-2 away from home or against big teams.

I would have loved to have created a tactic that worked with an AMC but I've found that I've had more success by playing the ball into the wide areas.

[celtic1967]

Usually go Celtic, currently managing Hibs. Going to try and make them a title contender! Unfortunately no Hibs thread

What good youngster could I snap up from Celtic then ?? Players that Celtic might not need but who would do a great job for a team like Hibs ?

[petauk]

SEASON TWO UPDATE

So just finished season two and what a tough season it was Aberdeen challenged me all the way through the season even leading by 6 points at one time, Again got a tough Champion's league group which saw me get Arsenal, Valencia and Ajax again, once again failed to qualify from the group and narrowly missed out the europa league spot on goal difference.

Board of Directors also decided that the club should link up with Manchester Utd, Hoping to end the link soon!!

My Player of the Season

Teemu Pukki - Outstanding season that saw him score 31 goals in 42 matches. He was also the fans player of the season.

Transfers In

Nick Powell - Loan In - Manchester Utd - Young Mid Centre/AMC brought in to help strengthen up my central midfield

Anthony Knockaert - £5.5 Million - Leicester City - AMC/M/AMR/ST brought in to be more a AMC to play just behind the stikers, had an amazing season scoring 5 goals, 1 of which was in goals of season

Chris Wood - £4.2 Million - Leicester City - 23 year old striker that had hit 18 goals the season before, looked a good prospect but failed to settle and score in 6 months at parkhead before demanding a move away. Shame had high hopes for him to.

Jordan Willis - £500,000 - Coventry City - 20 year old DRC/DR another prospect who looks good for the future, spend most of the season on the bench but when comes on seems to play well.

Paul Gazzaniga - £200,000 - Southampton - a 23 year old GK brought in as backup for Fraser Forster, Looked good the games he has played in.

Stephen McManus - Free - At one point in the season my defence was leaking goals and then was hit by injuries to mulgrew and Fraser so brought Big Mick back to the club, Played really well considering he's 32.

Robbie Keane - £29,5k - LA Galaxy - even though he's 35 strikers were miss firing at one point so thought robbie would maybe help coming off the bench, has scored a few goals.

Shaun Kerr - £250,000 - Motherwell - 17 and a real prospect for the future, He's a DR/DC and allready a mainstain in my reserves/U-19's

Kenneth Omeruo - Loan in - Chelsea - 21 year old DC/R looks awesome, reminds me of big vic and has made an instant impact in my side, hoping to get him back in for a 2nd season and even see if can get a permanent deal for him at some point

Elliot Hewitt - £25k - Ipswich - another good prospect for the youth team and reserves, Hopng he does well for us in the future.

Total Spending: £10.86 Million

Transfers Out

Lewis Toshney - Free Transfer - Now playing with Carlisle Utd

Jordan Hart - Free Transfer - Now playing with Greenock Morton

Luke Donnelly - Free Transfer - Now playing with Ross County

Jackson Irvine - £725,000 - Wolves - got a good offer so had to take it.

Leo Fasan - £12K - St.Mirren

Mohamed Bangura - £825,000 - Al-Itthad (KSA) - From the moment he came back all he did was moan, even when i gave him plenty first team action was never happy so he had to go.

Nir Biton - £4.5 Million - Ajax - Great offer for a player the club had payed £725,000 for the season before, add in the add-ons and could get least £6 Million for him

Joe Chalmers - £40,000 - Preston NE - Was 3rd choice behind Enda Stevens & Izzy, so gave him a chance to play else where

Amido Balde - £4 Million - Espanyol - The big man had hit 6 goals the season before that and when Espanyol offered £4 Million with clauses felt was a good deal

Bahrudin Atajic - £135,000 - Al-Fateh

Efe Ambrose - £3 Million - FC Twente - was refused a visa for his new contract twice and with it due to run out the next season took the money option when i could

Virgil Van Dijk - £5 Million - Inter Milan - again tidy profit for a player bought for less, also add-ons in deal so could make more out of it.

Emilo Izaguire - £1.5 Million - FC Lorient - Izzy had been making moves to goto a bigger club for a while so last day of the transfer window accepted this offer from Lorient

Chris Wood - £4 Million - Hannover - Finally accepted defeat and let him move elsewhere, didn't see the point of keeping him here any longer upset and mis-shooting, so he also left last day of Transfer window

Callum McGregor - Free Transfer - Now Playing at Stevenage

Dylan McGeouch - Free Transfer - Now Playing at Inverness Caley Thistle

Patrick Twardzik - Free Transfer - Has Since Quit Football

Total Incoming: £22.41 Million

Jordan Larsson Update

Spent the season on load at Falkirk in the Scottish championship, Did quite well playing 22 Games, Scoring 6 & 5 Assists to his name

Domestic Update

In the championship the zombies managed to win the league by one point over hearts, Hearts then lost out on the playoff spot to Hamilton who were beaten by 11th placed St.Johnstone.

St.Mirren were the team to be relegated to the Championship.

Met The Rangers in the cup twice this season, Knocking them out of the League cup in the 3rd Round 4-1 at Ibrox, and in the 5th Round of the Scottish cup 3-0 at Paradise.

Failed to win any of the domestic cups this season being knocked out of the league cup by my bogey team Aberdeen on penalties after a 1-1 draw and beaten in the final of the Scottish cup by Dundee Utd also on penalties after a 3-3 draw.

Managerial Changes

Terry Butcher left Hibs to go become manager of Stoke, Peter Houston was promoted up to manager

Inverness Caley Thistle sacked Roy Keane and brought in Chris Powell as there new manager

Stuart McCall was fired by Motherwell and brought in Dougie Freedman

Derek Adams left Ross County to become manager of Brighton and was replaced by Bury Manager John Collins

Tommy Wright left St.Johnstone by Mutual Consent and was replaced by Former Inverness manager Roy Keane

Danny Lennon was sacked for his bad run of 20 games without a win and was replaced by Stevenage manager Graham Westley

[McGougan33]

Usually go Celtic, currently managing Hibs. Going to try and make them a title contender! Unfortunately no Hibs thread

What good youngster could I snap up from Celtic then ?? Players that Celtic might not need but who would do a great job for a team like Hibs ?

Lewis Kidd and Paul McMullan if you invest time in them, Liam Henderson also.

[McGougan33]

Season 1 update:

Tranfers In:

Antonio Adan - Free

William Gallas - Free

Simone Pepe - Free (Came in towards the end of the season, spent a good deal of time injured)

Transfers out:

No first team or Reserve players worth mentioning sold, quite a few loans out.

Using a modified 4-3-3 with a v shaped midfield, the results were mixed in my first season.

Won: 38 - 19 home wins, 19 away wins

Drawn: 8 - 5 draw at home, 3 away

Lost: 15 - 5 at home, 10 away

Won through my CL qualification games, with 2 away losses, however my home results were strong enough to see me through.

Group Stages ended up like this.

1st: Juventus - 14 pts

2nd: Celtic - 10 pts

3rd: SLB - 5 pts

4th: Olympiakos - 4pts

So qualification was assured thanks to parkhead being an absolute fortress in game aswell as IRL, however my 1st Knockout round opponents were the most successful team to ever play in the Champions League, and they showed again, why they were a class apart - a 3-1 win in Paradise and a 5-1 win at Santiago Bernabueu ensure we were knocked out of the competition for another year.

Domestic competitions were closer fought than I would have liked, the league was won by 8 points eventually, however it was a close run race all season, with the top 4 interchanging often.

The Scottish League Cup was won after a 3-1 victory over Greenock Morton, this was a relatively safe competition with a nice 2-1 win over our now reborn rivals at ibrox.

The same was not to be repeated in the Scottish Cup however, once again this newly reformed rivalry was renewed, this time with the light blues, securing a penalty shoot-out victory at the national stadium, suffice to say myself and the board were not happy with this, and fully intend to make up for this next season.

Will be looking to control the wage budget again and manage what small transfer budget i get at the start of the season, undecided if I am going to shake the club to its foundations by getting rid of a few big names, and bringing in some new faces.

Parkhead is on tenterhooks!

[MichaelBrown]

How have you guys played Scott Brown? I've just signed him on a free for Bolton, third season. Whilst his technicals aren't the greatist, his mentals are superb abd that's the reason I signed him really.

[McGougan33]

Rotated him between an advanced playmaker and a box to box midfielder, with his mentals he could also be an excellent ball winning midfielder though, depends how he fits into your tactic

[MichaelBrown]

Rotated him between an advanced playmaker and a box to box midfielder, with his mentals he could also be an excellent ball winning midfielder though, depends how he fits into your tactic

Been messing around with a 5-3-2 with wing backs. Normally I go for a CM (d) and a DLP (s), quite defensive you could say but I allow my wing backs the freedom to roam so I like them to cover. Last season I had Keith Andrews and Spearing there, but I've released and sold them respectively, so the new pairing will consist of Brown and Rodolph Austin.

[c.ronaldo7]

Just started my first long term save with Celtic. I've never played as them before but I was strangely drawn to them this year as it was something different.

Players in so far:

Leigh Griffiths - Wolves - £1.1million

Yassine Brahimi - Granada - Season Loan

Ciprian Marica - Free Agent - Free

Kasper Schmeichel - Leicester City - £1million

Players out so far:

Giorgios Samaras - Lille - £4million

Chris Commons - Aston Villa £2.5million

(Too many players to name out on loan at various clubs)

Quite enjoying the save as I've sadly struggled to "get into" a save so far on 2014.

[fayon]

I started my first save with Celtic too, and i am enjoying it so far.

I like to keep my saves as close as possible to real life so i only target players that fulfill the philosophy and ideocincracy of my team (as far as my knowledge allows) and if possible were real transfer targets in the past or former players. Therefore I targeted players that were cheap and not always from the most powerfull leagueses. i.e. players from denmark, norway, sweden, iceland, finland, ireland, wales, north and center america, africica and asia. I noticed that Celtic players were very tall so i added that on my own transfer policy (over 180 cm)

I'm playing 4-2-3-1

2013/2014

IN (Winter)

Alexander Milosevic -400k

OUT

Youngster Loans

2014/2015

IN

Aron Johansson -4,5M

Ki Sung-Yong -3M

Buttner -2M

Steele - 2,5M

Tyton -Free

Mariga -Loan

Fletcher -Loan

*Winter

Snodgrass -Loan

Coleman -Loan

OUT

Forrest -3,5M

Balde -9M

Commons -Free

Stokes -3M

Forster -7M

Kayal - 3M

Zaluska - 250k

Mouyokolo - Free

*Winter

Matthews - Loan

2015/2016

IN

Mariga -Loan

Snodgrass -Loan

Coleman -Loan

Helenius - 2M

Shane Duffy - Loan

Stefan Strandberg - 2,5M

OUT

Matthews - Loan

Tony Watt - Loan

A. Milosevic - 12,25M (profit!)

1st season: won treble, got out on round of 16 in the UCL

2nd season: won double, got out on the group stage in the UCL

3rd seson: welcomed Rangers to the SPL with a 8-0, but the team is playing poorly and lost the 3rd qualifying round of the UCL.

I don't think i can hold onto Van Dijk after this season, i rejected a 10M offer from Arsenal and ManU :C

[S2008]

So I've been playing my 3rd season and I have reached regen day. I was worrying about my homegrown players and the lack of quality when this guy pops up

Hes so good that I put him in the team for his debut against Sevco and he aquitted himself very well creating lots of chances for his team mates. We won 3-0 but it could and should have been more.

[Ant26587]

Anyone else finding the Celtic player valuations as far too low? I'm thinking its probably related to the low league reputation and no Rangers to atleast make it through the qualifiers in europe.

As soon as you sell someone, look how his valuation jumps up by about 25% even if its to a championship or league 1 team.

[S2008]

Anyone else finding the Celtic player valuations as far too low? I'm thinking its probably related to the low league reputation and no Rangers to atleast make it through the qualifiers in europe.

As soon as you sell someone, look how his valuation jumps up by about 25% even if its to a championship or league 1 team.

My most valuable player at Celtic James Forrest is valued at £5.25m in 2016 after some recent success- I recently turned down a £15m bid for my £4.5m rated striker Jordan Rhodes so despite the lower valuations you can still get good money for your players if you play it right.

[Ant26587]

My most valuable player at Celtic James Forrest is valued at £5.25m in 2016 after some recent success- I recently turned down a £15m bid for my £4.5m rated striker Jordan Rhodes so despite the lower valuations you can still get good money for your players if you play it right.

I'm only in my first season on my new save but I constantly get bids for Sammy and Lustig well below valuation (which itself is terrible, Lustig is under 2 mil and Sammy 3), I got a bid of 900k for Lustig, despite just giving him a new long term contract. Annoying, I've had crazy low bids for Ledley too. Frustrating.

[fayon]

I agree with that, of course you get offers around their value, but if you play hard ball you can get at least double of that.

[largejohnknew]

What are the u19,s like