With a title on the line this week, it’s no surprise to see that “interest” in our players is ramping up. According to “reports” Dembele is now on the way to Spurs. Last week it was Chelsea. Wasn’t it Mourinho’s Manchester United the week before? Or Arsenal?
What are they doing in those media offices, playing transfer market bingo?
The winner is the guy holding the name of the club he next ends up at.
Whoever has Toulouse, you’re in with a shout.
Moussa will be 34 by then!
In all seriousness, it was a tiresome quite some time ago, and it’s even more annoying when you add rumours about Kieran to the mix. Now Armstrong is being linked with a move on top of it all. This is hardly unexpected; it was the Celtic sites who flagged his contract situation earlier in the week, with a view to hurrying the club along with the talks, and we hope to see them concluded pretty quickly, with Stuart committing his long term future to us.
But none of us really thinks that’ll be the end of the speculation.
This is what we’ve gotten used to, and summer will not bring respite but a firestorm of this. We’ll go into every Champions League qualifier with it hanging over our heads. There will be no let-up. If it’s not Moussa it’ll be Stuart, if it’s not them it’ll be Tierney, if it’s not him it’ll be one of the centre backs, if it’s not them it’ll be the keeper and if it’s not him Scott Sinclair’s name or that of Forrest will come up. This is all absolutely certain.
The difference is, this time we have a manager who will not countenance selling these guys. Even Dembele won’t go unless a suitable replacement is already lined up. We ought, never again, to wind up in the absurd situation we did in Lennon’s final year, when we went into every Champions League qualifying round with a weaker team than the round before it, and under Brendan that will not happen. The club will back this guy to the hilt.
The media will ignore any positive steps we take to avoid a summer of this, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take some. This isn’t like previous Celtic teams; there’s nobody angling for a move. Nobody is banging the manager’s door demanding to talk to other clubs. Even Craig Gordon didn’t make waves when Chelsea were sniffing. Dembele has his head screwed on and has said, repeatedly, that he will be at Parkhead for the duration of next season.
Brendan should get the players together – those he wants to keep; that’s an important distinction to make – and get a solid pledge from every single one of them that they will be at the club for the whole of the next campaign. That should then be relayed to the fans, through the club’s own media channels.
There’s no point doing it through the press; they will ignore it as it will deprive them of a long summer of writing speculative guff.
Once that pledge is in the public domain it will be the reference point for the fans every time one of these atrocious stories rears its ugly head.
It would set everyone’s mind at ease, into the close season and beyond.
We can’t stop the press from writing lies and stirring up trouble.
They will do whatever they are going to do. But we can limit the fallout from any of their stories by getting a declaration from the team that the players want to stay together and focus on bringing further glory – and another Champions League campaign – to the club.
Neutralise them Celtic. Give us the certainty that team will continue to evolve.
Get all the players on record with the 2017-18 pledge, so that when the press does run with one of these fantastical tales we’ll be able to call it exactly what it is.
A pure pack of lies.