According to uncomfirmed reports, Celtic are about to flex major financial muscle, by spending a reputed £2.5 million on a young Ivorian player, plying his trade in Russia. Kouassi Eboue, who plays for Krasnodar, is 19.
He is tipped as a rising star, but this is a significant sum to be paying for a kid.
We’re three days out of Ibrox, where we showed our quality and won easily, in spite of the garbage some of the Sevco players have been spouting and which the media has published without contradiction. This is what we expect.
But this is a show of power which no-one will be able to ignore.
No other club in this country could spend that kind of money on a first team regular, far less what amounts to a punt.
This is a terrifying example of how far in front of everyone else that we are.
There was a day when Rangers could do things like this, although I cannot honestly recall when they spent this kind of money on a teen. Those days are gone, but they were built on debts and tax avoidance. This is wholly susitainable, and it comes before a reputed £6 million bounty from Southampton’s sale of Virgil Van Dijk.
We are also said to be keeping tabs on Ajax’s Thulani Serero.
I have no doubts that we’ll bring in players and I have total confidence in the manager’s ability to spot top tier talent. But a move like this is a message as much as a piece of team building. It sends out the word that we’re not messing about, that we’re on top and staying there and that the long term plan is to keep on doing what we do.
Obviously there’s one eye on re-sale here, and to spend this kind of cash indicates a belief that it will be substantial. This is not an Accrington Stanley player or someone who’s done the loanees tour of the English lower leagues. This is a top class talent with European experience, and who’s costing us more than Sevco has spent on its entire squad.
So as 2016 ended with a dose of reality, 2017 is opening with another.
And what a sobering reality it is for the fans of Glasgow’s third biggest team.
By way of an amendment, I have to say it really is something when a story about a new signing breaks and a national newspaper (guess which one?) already has footage up on its site of him getting a red card. They really are incredible, aren’t they?