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Celtic’s “Interest” In Steven Taylor Is A Sheer Fabrication

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Today I can 100% categorically dismiss one of the more annoying transfer stories of the summer so far, the one that says Celtic are about to “lose” a battle with Sevco over the signing of ex Newcastle defender Steven Taylor, currently available on freedom of contract and, if you believe the press, coming to Ibrox for signing talks later this week.

Steven Taylor isn’t a terribly great player for a start.

He’s experienced, but not particularly special.

He is known, in fact, more for being injured than he is for being out on the pitch. His entire career thus far has seen him spend weeks on the side-lines, year in and year out, for one reason or another. A list of the injuries he’s suffered would be long and extensive.

Let’s look at it this way; he started nine games for Newcastle last season, so even when he wasn’t injured he wasn’t getting in the team. You know, the one that ended up with one of the worst defensive records in the history of the EPL and which got relegated.

There is literally nothing Brendan Rodgers will not know about Steven Taylor and we’ll have been sufficiently spooked by the injuries to Simunovic so far to be ultra-cautious about this kind of thing. The big Croatian has been dreadfully unlucky, but he’s 21 and already has nearly 100 career starts. Taylor is 30 and has managed just 270.

The stories today in the papers suggest we’re going for Andre Wisdom from Liverpool.

Now, I don’t know how I feel about that exactly, because I haven’t seen nearly enough of him to be sure, but Brendan will know his qualities and I trust that. He gave Wisdom his first Liverpool appearances and although he was sent out on loan to Derby (where he played every game) to aid his development the manager clearly believed he had real quality. He stalled last season whilst on loan at Norwich, and that’s a slight concern, but this really comes down to how you value Brendan’s judgement and I’m happy to wait and see.

That we’re prepared to move for this kid, with real money, whilst Taylor is available for nothing shows you exactly what Celtic thinks of the former Newcastle player.

We’re not even remotely interested in talking to him about a deal, and why would we be?

This is a Sevco target, for obvious reasons, part of the patch-work over 30’s club they’re trying to build across the city.

Barton has been in touch with Taylor, so we’ve heard, doubtless to tell him how much of a canter Scottish football will be.

Big rewards for doing not very much.

Well, if they’re happy to get that kind of reputation as a club – operating as a sort of charity fund for crocks and guys on the downslide – that’s entirely up to them.

But their fans don’t like it, as evidenced in the outpouring of anger over on Rangers Media and elsewhere, where some said they’d rather have Elizabeth or Dennis Taylor instead. They know this isn’t what either they or the manager were promised.

Which is why he’s being linked with us too.

Part of it is his agent trying to leverage a better offer out of the mugs across the city, but the papers are happy to run the nonsense because they know if they can create the appearance of his having “snubbed” us to talk to them that some of the furore over the deal will abate ever so slightly amongst the gullible horde.

It’s typical of the press to think we’re going to swallow this.

The feel-good factor at Celtic right now has blown away all the cobwebs, as I said last night in my piece about the total change we’ve seen in the seven weeks since the cup semi-final.

That change was highlighted beautifully by the pictures of queues around the block at the Celtic ticket office when it opened this morning for general season ticket sales. The renewals flooded in, and now those precious few remaining ones are up for grabs.

The sight of so many of our fans flocking to buy them is absolutely inspiring.

I guarantee you that not one person standing there under the summer sun this morning was thinking about Steven Taylor and how we “missed out” on his signature.

That’s because we’re in a very happy place right now, looking forward to life under Brendan Rodgers.

The future’s bright. The future’s green and white.

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