:faf: Definite contender for Best Apology That Isn’t Really An Apology 2022. :top marks
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Remember when we were all clamoring for Anthony Stokes to be brought "home" and that if we signed him we would be absolutely unstoppable. Then remember when we actually signed him and we were all saying we were going to be banging the goals in and we would be loving watching us pump teams because of the firepower we would have. Then remember how that went?
Aye, me too.
Without wanting to restart the Doidge debate again, I think LG would have scored more than him and finished some of the chances he missed. Then add in his ability at dead balls. All hypothetical of course but I think LG would have scored more than Nisbet too this season if he’d played the same number of games for us.
I’m like you, have a hope he’ll come home and flourish. Tbf none of the Celtic strikers have flourished this season, so I’m not reading too much into that and I think Lennon obviously had issues with him, deserved or not I don’t really know.
That us all very hypothetical as LG just doesn't seem willing or able to be fit enough to play a decent number of games. Also he wouldn't bring the overall game that Doidge does. If he is out the team and replaced with LG it means extra defensive duties for other members of the team
LG from a few years ago? Yes please, bite your hand off for that. LG of today? Not so sure, could be a very expensive bench warmer
Leigh Griffiths will always score goals its in his nature, Scott Brown is different, would he get away with his arrogant ways at any other club?
I don't think so!!!
We could go round in circles.
Leigh's capable of being by far our best player - maybe even the best striker Scotland has. The question is obviously whether he would be.
Don't get me wrong, if he signs for us, I'll forget everything I've learned about getting my hopes up over the last 50 years, and immediately start doing impressions of a teenage girl who's just been given One Direction tickets. 😁😁
I was like that when Deek resigned, but I almost wish he hadn't come back now because it ended up a bit of a damp squib.
Would be keeping those two things very separate.
2 year, £4k a week contract on offer if he can come to an agreement with Celtic about his current deal.
However, expect another season of more talk than action from Leigh at Celtic before the inevitable hot air up the faithfuls backsides "Hibs have always been my team and it would be great to finish my career there. I think I have 3 good years left in me. The Hibs fans are great and I would love to play in front of them again, I loved scoring goals for them against Hearts blah blah blah"
Don’t worry about it, this thread is a total troll fest.
Got to laugh, petty vendettas, “fans” that can’t spell the name of one of the most prominent Scottish players of the past decade, relentless creativity in making up hypothetical situations whereby Hibs are beaten to the signing of players we aren’t even interested in. Quality nonsense.
Gogic is a better pick for us right now than Brown. Very few Celtic fans wanted Brown to be playing for Celtic most weeks this season. He was there to be exploited when we played against them. Brown is 36 years old and his 5 yard pace has gone. Thats huge for someone in his area of the pitch. He will still have occasional good games but he is nowhere near the level we should be looking at as we look to improve our squad.
Fact that Hibs fans and maybe Hibs would like to see LG back at ER immediately makes him eligible for Aberdeen under their signing policy with money being no barrier ..... "If Hibs want him, we'll have him".
Has served them really well this season :greengrin
There’s no way that any of our midfield are better than Brown and I would say the same re Nisbet and Griffiths.
Brown especially is still streets ahead of Gogic and Newell and also better than Irvine imo. None of them would have got anywhere near the minutes at Celtic this season that Brown has.
Leigh on £18K a week and contracted to summer 2022. He aint budging for anything less which means a big payoff from
Celtic.
There’s clearly different shades of opinion re. Brown and Gogic, Newell and Irvine but there’s no doubt in my mind that our present trio are, by far, the better investment in our immediate short term progress and for the next few seasons.
Nah, he’ll start at Aberdeen next season. He doesn’t have to drop down a league.
I agree with your last point, he’s not the fantastic midfielder he once was. Madness, in my opinion, to think he’s dropped to the level of Gogic though. Brown, even now, can still read the game and get into the right positions, and is far better on the ball, than Gogic.
I’m not casting doubt but I does surprise me how porous the walls much be around players earnings across Scotland and the UK. Is it agents leaking pure unchecked speculation with pundits having a bash too or are players just big mouths?
Leigh to Hibs :hyper
Bring. Him. Home.
Leigh to italy😉
I really think we need a game and a defeat to pull the fans together again 😉
I'd like us to sign Lee, but I'd like to see the deal first before I could say if it was worth it or not.
All of the above.
If you think how many people are directly involved in the transfer of a player, plus agents wanting to talk up the value of their clients, plus players keen to know how their contract compares with their team mates, it’s no surprise that information leaks out.
Of course some of it will be wild speculation, and weirdly often ignores things like bonuses which could dramatically alter the size of a contract.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Leigh’s actual earnings have been a lot lower than speculated this season, because he’s not been on the pitch to earn those goal bonuses.
^^Agreed.
A colleague of mine is literally just off the phone to a Championship player.
He knows exactly what his earnings and outgoings have been over the last few years and what he’ll earn over the next 18 months or so.
He’s not about to go sharing that info on Twitter or anything but as you say, plenty people will know what players earn and some of it might end up on forums or the like.
For anyone who thinks Brown or Griffiths aren’t as good as what we’ve got - Brown is heading for 40+ appearances for Celtic this season. Griffiths has made 20.
Do people genuinely believe Newell, Gogic, Irving, Nisbet or Doidge would have played more than that?
I would be surprised if all 5 of them would manage 20 games for Celtic in a season combined. And on the flip side of that, does anyone genuinely think Griffiths or Brown would be sitting on the bench whilst these guys play at Hibs even though they’ve made plenty appearances for Celtic?
All the discussion about Brown, who will never play for Hibs again, and Griffiths, who is unlikely to play for us in the foreseeable future, appears to have sparked comparisons with our present players and painted them in a sort of negative light, which I don’t think they deserve. Ok, they don’t have the emotional and sentimental attraction that the two former Hibs players seem to have and, yes, Brown and Griffiths are very good players, but there is no need to talk down the players who have got us into an excellent position this season and who will hopefully take us into a new and successful season. Some of the very recent comments by so-called Hibs supporters on social media about our present players are unbelievable. For example, there are folk there saying that Gogic is garbage. C’mon.:rolleyes:
I’m sure they’ll not be massively offended at it being suggested they’re not as good as one of it not the most successful Celtic player ever and/or Griffiths who has had an outstanding career and is still only 30 years old.
Saying they’re not as good isn’t a put down when you’re comparing them to who they’re being compared to.
Griffiths maybe wouldn’t win as many headers as Doidge but, if fit, his all round game is far superior. Same number of goals this season despite 17 less appearances and a handful of starts as well.
But I do have my doubts that he’ll ever be fit and playing every week ever again.
I see where you’re coming from Calum and can’t really disagree, it’s just that I get the impression that the disappointment of seeing Brown and Griffiths going or possibly going to another Scottish club is grounds for questioning the quality of our players. If Griffiths does end up at Aberdeen, I think there could be a real backlash against the club, when realistically, we probably are/were never remotely in the ballpark financially to compete with others.
2020/21 - Played 31 Scored 6 - to put this in context Griffiths has hardly started a game this season but has come off the bench many times such that in the league he has actually scored a goal every 122 minutes. That is still VERY GOOD by any standard.
The main question for me would be can we get a regular 90mins out of Leigh over the course of a season? If the answer to that is yes then I would have no hesitation in signing him money permitting.
If Griffiths can’t get himself fit and motivated to get to the euros with Scotland this summer I’d have my concerned about how motivated he’d be playing for us when he’d be in his comfort zone.
Might be brilliant of course but I’d have a few alarm bells ringing if we spent a lot of money on him (including his wages)
I remember when there was another set of rumours about Leigh coming to Hibs on loan someone who works at the club laughed out loud that we’d be able to afford a player who makes ten times more than the highest earner at the club did at the time
Maybe the romance just hasn't faded for me but I'd bite my leg off to bring Leigh home - financially indeed it's up to Griffiths now to decide whether he wants to carry on picking up a high wage or get back into regularly playing; if it's the latter then I would like to think Hibs could offer something to him and that he'd be interested, especially given that there's clearly space in the squad for a first team striker (not to discount Gullan/Shanley but having 2 and a half strikers in the squad between Nisbet, Doidge and Boyle just isn't enough strength in depth IMHO). Agree it would be a risk and it's also quite possible he doesn't fancy the pressure/attention etc. of coming back to play for us - which would be understandable in all honesty but I would be lying if I denied that a part of my soul would die seeing him in a sheep top
The biggest thing for Leigh is his kids and being close to them, I think he still travels to Glasgow from Edinburgh(outskirts) to be near them, one reason why Hibs may be a better option than Aberdeen.
I'd bring back the Griffiths we had in a heartbeat, but that version was a long time ago and I'm wary of paying big wages to someone who allegedly has fitness issues and whose recent form is nothing special.
I have to admit to being impressed at some of the people on here who seem to have inside knowledge of Aberdeen's finances. Personally I don't see why we coudn't outbid them for Griffiths if we wanted to go for him.
Exactly one goal every three games.
Leigh is what 30? Brown is six years older and definitely at the end of his playing career.
I'd take Griffiths back as he's got at least a couple of years before age really makes it impossible for him to play (at least for parts of games) at the top level. If he's got another year at Celtic on top whack then he's be probably best to take that - if he can get back in the first team squad then he'll probably get a one or two year extension.
Provided his body doesn't completely fail him I'd see what he wanted to do aged 31/32 - once his Celtic wages were a thing of the past.
Having said all that I could see him going to Aberdeen on loan as they can almost certainly pay a bigger proportion of his wages than we could - and because of the Brown connection.
According to stats publicly available on the Internet, he makes 10 times more than most in our current squad.
"Celtic FC 2020-21 Player Wages - Football League FC" https://footballleaguefc.com/celtic-fc-player-wages/amp/
"Hibernian FC 2020-21 Player Wages - Football League FC" https://footballleaguefc.com/hibernian-fc-player-wages/amp/
Maybe yesterday’s Leigh Griffiths thread was a premature April Fool. Sadly, I fear not.
Ps ...... meant to post this in the AF thread.
On a direct comparison, Aberdeen don't really have a much higher (football) wage bill than us. The last pre pandemic accounts (18/19) show Aberdeen 46% higher overall but their numbers of employees are 29% higher. This really comes down to more of their commercial activities being in house, they have 97% more commercial, maintenance & admin staff than we do. Without having a breakdown between players, football management & commercial activities it's impossible to quantify the difference. You would also need to know the balance between salaries paid to senior players & young professionals to gauge whether we are competitive with Aberdeen. My guesstimate is, that on a like for like basis Aberdeen probably pay about 10-20% higher on average to players but it's quite possible that our highest earners, particularly in year in which they were signed, are more competitive with Aberdeen's top earners. That fits with info I was given going into 2018/19 season, where our wage bill increased by nearly 20%. I would hope we could always be competitive with Aberdeen where we really wanted a specific player And yes, I'm aware of Ojo (:greengrin) & McCrorie. It's yet another reason why European football is so important to our club.
On Aberdeen's finances. Cormack did the long awaited Q&A with their fans yesterday
Told them they spend £3m more than us on salaries.
If he's talking about player salaries, how would he know?
If he's talking about overall salaries, he's correct. But then they have a lot more commercial, shop and catering staff than we do.
Playing and coaching staff numbers are much the same. They have twice as many on the commercial etc side.
Just caught up with this thread, 10/10 would read again.
Don’t Ron Gordon and him have a decent relationship? Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they knew quite a bit about each club and how they’re run.
I’d also imagine most club owners have a fair idea of what others are paying, we’re competing in the same market in a lot of cases.
You’d have thought that after looking at the league table he’d want to keep quiet about it!
Cormack is under pressure from Sheep fans & is playing with numbers to try & keep them on side. He is correct that in 2018/19 their wage bill was just under £3m higher than ours. CWG is 100% correct, of course 😀, when he points out that their admin & commercial staff are double the size of ours. (69 versus 35) We have no idea of the cost of those staff but we can say with 100% certainty that Aberdeen's player wage bill is not £3m higher than ours.
Jaw just dropped.
So that appears to be pretty all-encompassing. That said viewing this with a critical mindset, there’s nothing that credits the author/source. Why is that?
Does anyone know of any other industry that would publish such extensive information? I can’t think of anything similar maybe the BBC did publish the salaries of their top earning talent - did Sky who were
Asking for it also do the same? Hmmm.
Im remaining healthily sceptical for now.