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Signing Brendan’s Italian Boy Is A No Brainer. It’s The Kind Of Deal That Makes Sense.

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For a club like Celtic there are two types of player whose signing is a no-brainer.

The first is the young up-and-comer, whose talent is obvious to everyone, and who could go anywhere and accomplish anything in the game. In recent history we have become astonishingly adept at ferreting those players out and bringing them to Parkhead.

Virgil Van Dijk, Victor Wanyama, Moussa Dembele … all players who’s potential was spotted by the club. We sold the first two for major profits. We might well sell the third for a massive one, one that shatters the Scottish record and gives Brendan more money to spend than even Dick Advocaat had. The signing of Scott Brown, and that of Stuart Armstrong, also fits into this category, players we were able to develop and make first team regulars.

These signings were simple ones. The decisions were so clear, so obvious, it would have been a crime not to. Other signings require taking a shot in the dark, but even then there’s something about them, from the start, which makes them easy ones to take if you trust in the faith of the manager. Scott Sinclair is an obvious one, but so too were the signings of Chris Sutton, Henrik Larsson, John Hartson and Alan Thompson.

Fabio Borini is one of these; a player with immense talent who never quite accomplished what his early career seemed to portend. A guy with everything to prove. A player who would have to make financial sacrifices to sign for Celtic, and prove that he still had the hunger to win trophies. If he was willing to do those things, then a big question is answered and his signing goes from being one that has promise to being an absolute must.

The reports linking him to Celtic Park may have something, and they may not, but he is the exact sort of player we should be looking at, somebody who was once feted and talked about and rated very highly but who never scaled the heights. I like players like that, those the media thinks have left the best years of their lives behind, those who burn with unfulfilled ambition and unrealised potential. They make great players if they join clubs who can bring that out.

Celtic does. Brendan can.

A Sunderland fan site has already tried to knock down the idea that Borini will move to Scotland, based in part on money. Celtic “can’t afford him”. As I said above, the wages would not be as much as he gets in England; he’d need to take a substantial cut. But he would be well compensated nonetheless. If he’s a player motivated by money, then of course he will go elsewhere, but Brendan can sell him on greater things than that.

The article further suggests it’s a non-starter because the two no longer talk. It uses a quote from Borini to accentuate the point;

“We don’t speak anymore. It’s sad. It ended badly between me and him, it’s not what I wanted.”

I get the general point the writer is trying to make, but that quote doesn’t suggest that Borini hates our manager; quite the opposite. If there was an issue – as clearly there was – it’s something that can be fixed, something that can sorted out.

If Brendan really is interested in the player, I would suggest that this isn’t a breach that’s impossible to heal.

If he decides it’s time to bury the hatchet, and Fabio Borini wants to get his hands on trophies more than on cold, hard cash only the transfer fee would act as a barrier, and Brendan has already hinted that this could be the window where he shatters our transfer record.

It would be a controversial move … but I trust the manager if it’s one he wants to make.

Borini was once an explosive talent, capable of magical things.

He still is.

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