Today’s breaking news out of Celtic Park is truly excellent.
Olivier Ntcham has penned a new four year contract today.
This is superb.
It means that Ollie has set aside all the summer nonsense about wanting away, and is clearly focussed on playing the best football for our club.
I am thrilled at this news.
He is a top class footballer, and will be one of the anchors of our side for many years to come. He didn’t play last night and he wasn’t on the bench either. Whispered voices wondered if something was wrong. Here’s the answer.
Olivier has so much to offer us, and it’s good that he and Edouard are both on decent length contracts along with the other top players in the side. Do not think the club has given up on Boyata; I wonder if perhaps there’s not another chapter to tell in that story as well.
Ntcham is one for the future though, and when he is on his game the whole engine room purrs.
But this is more, of course, than simply a good news story about a player committing to a longer term deal.
This is a signifier that the club is no longer at cross purposes with itself. It says that the wounds inside it have healed, that everyone is back on the same page again and that we’re once more moving forward with purpose … and according to plan.
Ntcham clearly has no fears about the future direction. That says everything.
He has been assured and feels confident in those assurances. He believes, and only one man could have adequately sold him on that vision; Brendan Rodgers. Which means that Brendan also believes. His doubts have been assuaged. The questions he was asking have been answered.
And so have the questions of the fans.
Those who wondered whether we were in a business or the football business have seen, on the park, what the board just showed us off it.
The fog around Celtic Park has lifted.
We’re back in business.
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