Among the list of excuses for failure one of Phil Clement’s favourites is the Injury List.
Apparently it is unprecedented, something that he has never known about in his career, a constant drain on his managerial brilliance to put out a winning football team.
Over the final 10 SPFL Premiership matches just 15 points were picked up, typically every defeat has been followed by nod to the problems created by this incredible injury list.
At Hampden yesterday the Belgian was at most two players short of his strongest side, there are NO INJURY excuses for yet another failure against Celtic where Brendan Rodgers is getting by on the back of a 13 or 14 man core squad.
Like the wage bill he can call on Clement’s side yesterday was much more expensive that the victors.
JACK BUTLAND: Up until last weekend he was apparently a contender for the England squad at the European Championships. Signed by Beale last summer as a free agent his four year contract will be on wages similar to those he was used to in the EPL at Crystal Palace.
JAMES TAVERNIER: The highest scoring defender in world football, a captain, first pick and serial loser under eight different managers.
LEON BALOGUN: Not a first pick but signed as a free agent by Micky Beale, Clement restored the veteran defender to the Europa League squad that lost to Benfica.
BEN DAVIES: Finishing his second season at the club he cost £4m from Liverpool, like Butland he will be on EPL wages.
RIDVAN YILMAZ: Like Davies he is finishing his second season at Ibrox, signed for £4.5m from Besiktas he was playing for Turkey at the end of March. His transfer fee is way more than Celtic have ever paid for a full-back
NICO RASKIN: A year ago he was the future for Next Season FC. Outstanding in every match since his January move from Belgium, part of the player trading model and destined for a big money move to the EPL.
MOHAMED DIOMANDE: Rather than sign Lawrence Shankland, Clement opted to commit £4.5m to bring in the midfielder from Danish side Nordsjaelland. Celtic’s midfield trio yesterday cost less than £3.
TODD CANTWELL: Like Raskin he was destined to drive the title to Ibrox this season. Not quite on EPL wages but he won’t have come cheap, unlike Micky Beale his current manager can see straight through the third rate social media ‘influencer’.
DUJON STERLING: Signed in the summer as a former Chelsea star, he worked with Beale in Chelsea’s u-10 Academy and had been closely tracked. Clement has made him virtually an ever present.
CYRIEL DESSERS: Scored 22 goals in his first season at Ibrox including a winner away to Real Betis in the Europa League. A £4m fee brought him to Ibrox from Cremonese, a similar fee to Kyogo Furuhashi.
FABIO SILVA: Clement’s first signing, brought in on loan from Wolves and accompanied by the headlines of being a £35m striker. Has played in almost every match since moving to Ibrox.
Other than in central defence Clement had virtually his first choice team on the pitch at Hampden. John Souttar and Connor Goldson have played in plenty of matches under Clement and taken plenty of criticism, it would be hard to state a case that they are better than Balogun and Davies.
Clement was able to leave John Lundstram on the bench, another player on top wages, arriving as a free agent from the EPL and now bound for Turkey.
Abdallah Sima cost Brighton £7m three years ago, he came on at half-time for Dessers, like Silva he arrived with all the EPL hype and will be returning because he is too expensive.
In contrast Celtic’s team was much less expensive with Joe Hart at £1m, Alistair Johnston £3m, Cameron Carter-Vickers £6m, Liam Scales £500,000, Greg Taylor £2m, Callum McGregor and James Forrest from the Celtic Academy, Reo Hatate costing £1m, Matt O’Riley £1.5m, Daizen Maeda £1.5m and Kyogo costing £4m.
Clement had a more expensive squad costing more in wages but lacking in every other area with just one dead rubber win over Celtic in two years to cling onto.
CLICK HERE for two faced Keevins makes remarkable Rodgers u-turn
CLICK HERE for Santa Ponsa celebrates Celtic’s victory in the Glasgow Derby.
CLICK HERE for SPFL Premiership table.
1 Comment
by Johnno
Forgot to add in the massive cost of failure, and all without any form of player trading model in sight to help cover the costs of the failure policy at the scum?
We still didn’t need to win the league to have the resources available to strengthen for next season?
But we deprived the scum from getting there filthy cheating hands upon such riches, which stands to keeping the scum looking on with envy upon how and what a proper successful club should be looking like?
We still have possibly more available in money terms from players who don’t or won’t feature within the plans of Rodgers, than the scum could generate, and that’s without the possible sell of Oreily imo?
Yet it still remains the secret within Scottish football for every team, especially ours, as to just how wisely any available budget money is going to be spent?
Believe that we have possibly the biggest ever budget available to ourselves upon spending this summer, which should be sustainable with offloading so many upon the wage budget who aren’t going to be within the future plans of Rodgers?
The transition between Ange and Rodgers hasn’t went as smoothly as expected with the amount of changes involved this season imo?
Yet still in a much stronger position than a year ago where we had so much uncertainty surrounding the club with individuals within it?
This summer we can go into the summer at looking for the quality required in numerous positions available within the squad, moreso than throwing player numbers at the problem that was in existence when Rodgers returned?
We know now that many within the squad that Ange assembled weren’t really in the plans of Rodgers upon the bigger picture for the club, so change has taken far longer than expected imo?
Yet the structure of the squad and club in general has been addressed, especially with a potential pathway for the younger players forming better than in many previous seasons imo?
Squad depth with additional quality is still required for ourselves, but far easier now to identify them areas now, where we were so short within overall squad size, that is becoming more of a requirement within todays game, as this season showed ourselves?
Still remains a good few short for ourselves in CL terms, but we are starting to see that forming a decent team to start such matches still isn’t enough when we need to be getting better squad numbers to compete at such a level?
Never an easy task for ourselves to achieve with the restraints that we face in being able to achieve the likes, but still believe that we are in the strongest position ever for potentially getting closer to the overall squad that’s required for such a challenge imo?
As for the scum they remain at trying to stop ourselves at SPFL level, but that ship has sailed for the scum, as we have much bigger fish to fry, as them tiddlers within the frying pan have already been well and truly burnt to a crisp by ourselves?