Earlier this week, shortly before the transfer window shut, I was reading down a list of free agents, the players who would still be available after the deadline. Most were guys I’d never have given a second thought to, but one jumped out at me.
It was the name of Joe Ledley, our former midfielder, a footballer I thought was a fantastic asset to our club and who would have slotted beautifully into a Brendan Rodgers team.
Now, I’m not suggesting that we rush out and snap this guy up before someone else does … we’ve got a midfield where he’d struggle to find a place at the moment, and he’s nobody’s idea of a reserve. But it made me wonder what the Hell happened to Joe in the first place.
His transfer story is one of the strangest of recent years.
Joe Ledley signed for us in 2010. He played over 150 times in the four years that followed, and was a big player for us on big occasions. He won three league titles and a Scottish Cup. It was easily the most productive, the best, time of his career.
Then, in December 2013, Neil Lennon spoke to the media and dropped a double bombshell; both Ledley and Samaras, who were out of contract at the end of the campaign, and had been offered contracts by the club, were unlikely to be there the following season.
It was not the news most of the supporters had wanted to hear.
And then silence fell. Ledley and Samaras continued to play. Ledley scored the opening goal in a 4-0 win at Kilmarnock (where the last scorer was Amido Balde; there’s a strange sentence) on 29 January, with the issue still unresolved.
It was to be the last time he’d play for us.
On 31 January 2014, he was sold to Crystal Palace, with the clock ticking down and almost no time left to bring someone in.
We had signed Johansen earlier in the window, and Griffiths arrived that same day, but it gave us no chance at all to find a replacement for our midfield lynchpin; no wonder Lenny was so cheesed off by that summer.
And Ledley had no sooner signed on the dotted line at Palace than he told the media that he had been fully committed to our club and had the move not been agreed he’d have signed a brand new deal, committing his future to us for another term.
He would probably still be at Celtic Park today; Joe Ledley is only 30.
He’s a year younger than Scott Brown, and could undoubtedly have made it under Brendan.
So what exactly happened here? Why did a guy who plainly loved it at Celtic Park, and who said he would have signed a new deal, wind up sold in the closing hours of the January window that year, instead of continuing to play a role for us?
Adam Matthews said a curious thing at the time, something that’s never been properly explained. “It’s a personal preference really. He wanted to play in the Premiership and he got the chance. I think he would like to have stayed but circumstances made him have to leave.”
Ignore how disjointed that explanation appears.
Ledley may well have wanted to play in the EPL, but that ambition would have been secondary to his aim of staying at Parkhead. The “circumstances” which made him have to leave – have to, not want to – have never been adequately explained to us, and hey it might well be none of our business.
Was it a family thing?
Did he not settle in Glasgow?
Was it something else?
We’ll probably never know, but I enjoyed seeing him here and I thought he had something more to give us. If someone asked me if I’d be happy to welcome him back I’d say yes with very little equivocation, although he’d only be a squad player in the current team.
It never really made a whole lot of sense to me. To the best of my knowledge he hadn’t exactly been banging on the door demanding a move. His contract was up a few months later, but we couldn’t have got more than £800,000 for him and signing an adequate replacement proved elusive; I still don’t think we’ve properly filled that defensive midfield role, although Brown has performed well in it and Eboue looks like he’ll be able to.
Joe Ledley was a cracking signing for our club. His departure has always bothered me, and I recall at the time thinking the contract issue had obviously been the determining factor and being puzzled when he issued that statement later saying he’d have signed a new deal.
He served us well whilst he was here, and more than repaid his transfer fee. He gave us some very happy memories, one hugely important goal against the Ibrox side, in December 2011, just as Craig Whyte was preparing to drop the hammer on them, foremost in mind.
Whatever he does next in his career move, I hope it goes well for him.