Bravo Celtic, for delivering the best piece of non-transfer business news that we could have had as this window, and this awful long summer, draws to a close; the club is said to be ready to open talks with Kris Ajer, in a bid to make him one of the best paid players at Celtic Park, hopefully binding him to the club for the foreseeable future.
Ajer signed a new deal not that long ago, but since then he has come to play an ever more important role at the club.
The bidding has already started on him; £15 million is the number that would get us to pick up the phone, but it would already take a lot more before business would be discussed in any seriousness.
If he commits to a better contract it will take Tierney style money to even interest us in the conversation.
Ajer himself would be financially secure. This is important. Celtic is said to be pretty tight with the wage cap, but the feeling is that Ajer is worth pushing the boat out for.
The team The CeltcBlog are all huge Kris Ajer fans, and I wrote about how he is a potential captain over the weekend.
If the club manages to nail him down, and if they tell him they have a long term plan for him to take over from Scott Brown I reckon that would convince him to spend a lengthy spell at the club, where he would very soon be the on-field leader.
This guy oozes quality, and although I still reckon his future is as a defensive midfield player he has proven able at both central defence and, more surprisingly, right back where his performances have been so good that I can see us opting not to spend in that area … a mistake, by the way, but one that his performances could convince people to overlook.
Keeping our best players has never been easy, but this Celtic board doesn’t even appear to have tried in the past. And whilst things change – Tierney was “living the dream” not that long ago – it can’t hurt if we’re now showing commitment to keeping what’s left of the squad together.
This, and a few additions of real quality before the window shuts, could change the mood amongst the fans in a heartbeat. Do we have the will to try?
By the end of the week we’re going to know.
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