Ryan Jack. Forever in the news this week.
McInnes apparently faces “the biggest choice of his career.” Seriously. I read that somewhere.
Does he play the allegedly Sevco bound midfielder or not? Does he start his “best team” regardless of what other factors he’s considering, or does he risk losing the Scottish Cup by showing petulance and dropping the guy who was the captain until this week?
Absolute rot. But it’s everywhere.
And my feeling on it is, “Why does anyone care one way or the other?”
Celtic will be confident whether Jack starts or not. Most of us wouldn’t even be able to pick him out on the street, that’s how little consideration we give him in a season where we’ve swept everyone else aside. He’s a decent player, for an SPL club. Had he not been a product of the Aberdeen youth system, playing over 400 times for them, I wonder how many of their own fans would think he was that big a loss? I wonder how many would be bothered.
This is not a young Pirlo we’re talking about here. If Ryan Jack had more to his game than his limited skill-set there would have been a queue of clubs at his door and he’d have had a genuine choice to make here. There isn’t. From what I can gather, there’s one. Not even a particularly good one. I agree with Willie Miller; if he wants to challenge for honours he’s at the right club for it at the moment, at least in terms of Scotland.
If he wants money, well you’d have thought a top player would have better options that Ibrox.
With all the cash sloshing around England, no-one’s made him an offer?
Funny that, isn’t it?
Aberdeen will have to play exceptionally well, almost absurdly well, to beat us at the weekend with the momentum we have on our side and all the history that surrounds this moment in time. They aren’t just playing against a Celtic team on the day, they’re playing against the weight of all that, and to an extent against ghosts. It must be daunting.
What the club didn’t need was a ridiculous distraction like this on top of it, and McInnes would do well to declare, right now, that Jack isn’t playing and end it at a stroke. There ought to be no faux emotional farewell to the fans for a player who’s dropped this bombshell on them prior to a game of this importance, and why should there be? This is nothing to do with the team he’s going to – I could care less where he ends up, him in a Sevco top will not give me sleepless nights or even a bad case of indigestion – it’s about the disloyalty of it, the timing of it, the self-centeredness of the decision and how it has been handled by him.
Aberdeen will move past this.
Come next season he’ll be yesterday’s man. A lot of their fans would already rather the matter was put to bed, prior to kick off. For Celtic fans, we don’t care one way or another. Put eleven Ryan Jack’s out there and we’ll still be pretty confident of getting the win. He’s simply not that important, not that big a threat.
This weekend will be about two clubs who are moving forward, not a footballer who’s decided to take a retrograde step backwards in pursuit of money. That the press are focussing on it does the rest of his team a huge disservice, and Celtic a huge favour.
That’s not why they’re doing it of course. The media wants the chance to write about how a player who looks to be Sevco bound stands between us and history; they want a shot at writing the story that they hope will define the close season.
They are dreaming.
The poor quality of their ambition shows how little else they have to cling onto.