Stuart Armstrong signed a new deal with Celtic today.
It’s short.
That’s the first thing you’ve got to know about it, and because it’s short it’s possible we’ll be facing the same sort of situation at the end of this season as we have all through the summer. It’s equally possible that Armstrong wants to commit long term and that this deal will be subject to revision during the current campaign.
Either way, I have to think that both parties have a long term plan, and know how this ends. Celtic have covered the bases for any and all possible outcomes.
The news has delighted me, actually.
Would we have wanted a longer term deal? Yes, but as everyone now clearly knows what’s what the club’s position is now covered, and we can now get back to focussing on the football here, and let all this contract mumbo-jumbo fade into the background for a while. The squad will not be weakened in this window, or for this campaign. We now know what we have to know, and that gives us the stability in the here and now to go on and have another storming campaign.
It keeps the feel-good factor high.
Celtic is awash in positivity right now.
And no wonder.
The Champions League Group Stages are beckoning, and the pot of gold that goes with them. Later on I’m going to take a look at how next year’s changes in the competition might influence things, but for now we can look forward to speculating on who we might get in this year’s draw. Glamour ties are guaranteed, and whilst playing the biggest club in the world might hold out some attraction for some people, Barcelona will want to avoid us this year!
Provided we don’t draw Manchester City, I’d say we’ve got a better than average chance of seeing Patrick Roberts back at Celtic Park. I know most people are as sick of this story as they were of the Armstrong one, but it looks increasingly like we’ll be happy with the end result.
It’s coming folks.
Not much longer for us to wait now.
The Green Brigade returned to the stadium this week, and that was something I think all of us were delighted to see. They have clearly had fruitful meetings with the club, where both sides have been able to air their views and come to an understanding. Their banner was magnificent.
The team is playing superb football, which makes us look forward to every single game.
The way we’ve started this season, you wonder what it’s going to take to stop us.
We will lose games. Of course we will. I suspect we’ll lose domestic games … there are some people in the media and elsewhere who celebrate our first defeat and hope that we collapse like a house of cards. That’s not even remotely likely.
When this team finally loses a game I think it will be the catalyst which drives us on to another treble … no Celtic side has ever won trebles back to back; this team looks very good for being the first of them.