James Tavernier is a pretty poor excuse for a footballer. Let’s be clear on that before anything else. He’s crap. He’s not got anything which would lead me to want him in a Celtic squad far less our starting eleven. But he’s part of a squad that is pretty crap anyway and there he stands out. There he’s a big character and a top performer.
Reports that Sevco have been trying to flog him have been rife for ages, but some thought that them giving him a new contract meant they were no longer trying to entice interested parties; in fact, the new contract was explicitly designed to do exactly that, with the logic being that if he was on a long term deal they could command a bigger fee for him.
I chortle when I read that they want £5 million. One newspaper today says Gerrard would “reluctantly” accept a bid of over £3.5 million. Reluctantly in the way Donald Trump reluctantly signs hateful legislation. With a glint in his eye and a smile on his face.
They will be lucky to get a half of that. But it does seem, today, as if they are going to try and ship him out ASAP and bring in whatever pennies they can. In case Sevco fans have missed this, there are ten days of the month left and the “promised” share issue hasn’t happened yet and the Takeover Panel had their man in court just yesterday.
Even if the share issue does happen now – which it doesn’t look as if it can – it is already undersubscribed to the tune of £1 million thanks to Club 1872’s failure to raise the necessary cash and the Celtic sites highlighting their efforts to borrow the money from a commercial bank. That pretty much killed that idea stone dead.
They are haemorrhaging money. That’s okay as long as they still have some in the bank, but there re pressing issues which are going to cost them plenty later on in the season.
The need to sell is acute. Tavernier is one of their own saleable assets and if they can get a decent price for him – £2 million and Mark Allen will dispatch him before the buyers change their minds – he’s gone. So is Morelos, and anything over £3 million will be seen as a minor miracle. Reports yesterday that they are looking again at Cummings are hilarious in what they mean; he was slightly better than useless during his loan spell.
This is Sevco now. Desperate for cash, to replace every player in the squad with someone on the same level or worse. Tavernier’s planned replacement is Jon Flanagan, who I wrote a piece on last week, a thug who wouldn’t get a gig in any other industry. There is alleged interest from English teams, but they are leery of the bad PR.
Sevco has no such concerns.
Chris Jack has written a piece about the impending deal … and guess what story about the player didn’t make the cut?
Bad PR is something they don’t have to worry about.