If you aggregate the nods, winks and rumours around Celtic this week you might be inclined to think we’re in the market for a target-man striker with a few years’ experience under his belt. I agree with the principle that we need a target man and I’m also of the view that short-term deals are not nearly as desirable as permanent contracts, but as we know, it’s too easy to load the club full of squad players who cumulatively cost a lot of money but scarcely trouble the first team.
Hooper, Stokes, Samaras, Bangura, Rasmussen and Murphy are all under contract for next season and we cannot be confident of attracting bids for any of those Neil Lennon might want to move on. If we add a seventh striker, his name better be on the team sheet before Gary Hooper’s. Signing an exotic version of Daryl Murphy would add spice to our week but would only consume scarce resources. I’d rather not.
Co-opting a media partner works in theory. It’s always better to have good relationships with the media than the kind of relationships Celtic perennially have, but what happens when your media partner plays with a straight bat?
Rangers media partner, STV, today report Nigerian trialist, Michael Uchebo, boarded a plane out of Glasgow a few hours after arriving (Michael, they have taken you away….) as the VVV-Venlo striker with 8 career goals to his name had “a poor first impression of” Rangers.
Michael, you clearly have a rubbish strike rate but you’re a remarkably perceptive individual.
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The football industry is busy with its twice-a-year transfer jamboree this week but there will scarcely be a player, manager or executive in the country who isn’t daily checking on Harry Redknapp’s on-going court case into his alleged tax arrangements.
Harry, of course, is one of the game’s popular figures, everyone likes him, including me, but his evidence yesterday, that he’s been told “The problem with you is you’re named Harry and you have a cockney accent”, will have the nation pondering if he’s another victim of the systemic prejudice against white, wealthy, indigenous-named, senior and successful people from London. There must surely be a support group he can join.
I’m sure Harry’s innocence will be established but the law and tax authorities are right to pursue any doubt that exists in the running of the game, without fear or favour. Where appropriate, pursue the guilty through criminal, not just civil, courts. Only then will the innocent be sure of a level playing field. Lock ‘Em Up, as a Cockney may observe.
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Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
I like the below-radar way Celtic have operated this transfer window. Mikael Lustig arrived early without much of a murmur and Rabiu Ibrahim’s trial and signing went through with casual understatement, while Jaroslaw Fojut completed a pre-contract agreement before many of us had even reached his Wikipedia page.
Most of the headlines surrounding Celtic have been in connection with English clubs wanting our players, closely followed by public declarations of ‘I’m going nowhere’ from the players in question.
Compare and contrast with the situation over the city. Almost daily Nikica Jelavic has to deal with a completely different scenario his club have placed him in, today telling STV, “The manager appreciates me and likes me, but I know the club are in a difficult financial situation and if they decided they needed to sell me, I would accept it.”
If you bump into Nikica tell him he’s talking rubbish. His club were recently bought by a billionaire, they have no financial difficulties and they are reliably informed they are going to win their tax case. Rangers players telling the media that their club are in a “difficult financial situation” are miles off-message.
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