As the media focusses on arrant nonsense like Joey Barton’s venomous spewing they’ve either missed or decided to ignore one of the biggest stories in the Scottish game today; the continuing development of the Brendan Rodgers revolution, and the growing support of the Celtic fans for what they are seeing happening with it.
Today a look at Celtic’s official website reveals something extraordinary; the club has almost reached peak sales of season tickets. At the time of writing, there were only a small number of seats, of limited availability, left on the official site’s tracker, in section 416 of the Lisbon Lion’s Stand. They won’t be there for much longer.
Season ticket numbers are going to be approaching 50,000.
Many of our supporters thought those days were done, for good.
Many in the media thought the same.
Yet Brendan Rodgers’ appointment – bear in mind, 13,000 fans turned up just to welcome him – have changed the game significantly. The troops believe in this guy and faith in the club is partially renewed. (An announcement on Resolution 12 would shake up the dynamic of Scottish football and seal the deal with the fans for years to come.)
I’ve already written about the financial consequences for other clubs of us reaching the 50,000 ticket milestone. Now that appear on the verge of that, it’s time to start spending the money and there’s a story doing the rounds today that Danny Graham will be the first name to join Brendan Rodgers at Celtic Park. I’m not terribly excited about him, but then I felt exactly the same way about Chris Sutton, as I never tire of telling people.
Graham does tick a lot of the boxes; he’s known to the manager, which is hugely important as we don’t want to take a punt on some scouted prospect this time.
He’s a target man, which is a position we’ve not really filled since the departure of the aforementioned Englishman.
He’s got a similar goals to game ratio as Sutton did, which isn’t half bad.
Finally, he’s available on a free transfer so although he wouldn’t be cheap in terms of his wages he’s still worth a shot because there’s no fee to be paid to secure his signature.
The club is on a really strong footing at the moment.
We’re getting very close to seeing the Rodgers Revolution in full flow, with a deal for Wisdom still being mooted and now Graham apparently on the radar. These are two experienced players, at EPL level, and I think that’s as good a start as we could get.
There’s a lot that remains to be done and the clock is ticking but we’re undisputedly moving in the right direction.
All aboard the bus to the Brendanbeu!
He’s bringing back the thunder.