Celtic has completed the signing of Manchester City’s promising midfielder Olivier Ntcham on a four year deal today. He is 21, but has played over 40 times in Serie A. This is a move of startling ambition and intent. He has cost us a reputed £4.5 million.
This is clearly the signing Brendan has been alluding to for a few months.
There were numerous red herrings along the way, including our reputed interest in Chelsea’s exceptional young midfielder Charley Musonda. That interest was real, but it appears to have been a loan offer rather than a permanent bid. Ntcham actually comes with more pedigree.
He joins the bloated midfield area. One of the players in that spot will be going; nothing is surer. Nir Bitton seems the most likely candidate, although a lot of worrying rumours are going around in relation to Stuart Armstrong; as I said last week, that’s a simple acknowledgement of reality on our part. We can’t afford to let anyone walk away from our club on a free. If Stuart isn’t signing a new deal it’s better to cut him loose whilst we can.
Ntcham is a French Under 21 player. He is exactly the kind of signing an ambitious club wants to make. He comes to us at a point in his career where he’s already good enough to play in one of Europe’s top leagues and he is only going to improve.
This is the move that shows up how far ahead of everyone else we really are. Whilst other clubs scramble for spare change to get signings over the line, we’ve worked away in the background and made our moves in near secrecy.
We’ve got a big one done, and I hear there are others in the pipeline if we make the Groups.
With this signing we’ve just spent more on one player than any team in Scotland will spend on their entire squads. We’ve probably beaten the SPL’s combined transfer total in one swoop. Today the media wants to focus on how we’ve slipped in the European rankings. Well, of course they do. But I’ll let them in on a wee secret; it wasn’t our club which disgraced this country just a week ago with the worst European result in the nation’s history.
This is the kind of signing that will enable us to move forward, resolutely, in the knowledge that Brendan is getting the backing he wants and which he deserves for last year’s incredible campaign. We’re now just a few days from our first competitive game of the season, against Linfield on Friday night, and young Olivier will play in that one.
This is a tremendously exciting time to be a Celtic fan.
Welcome to the club, Olivier.
We can’t wait to see you play.