The press today is full of stories about how Celtic has submitted a bid for Andraz Sporar, the striker at Slovan Bratislava who we’ve scouted and who would, apparently, be available at around the £5 million mark.
He is a good player, and I’m sure our interest in real.
But the media is puzzled because Lennon has said that we’ve not opened talks with anyone yet; indeed, this bid was supposed to have been made earlier this month and according to the manager we were only scheduled to hold a meeting to discuss targets three days ago.
This does all seem a bit confusing … what’s the truth?
Well there are five possible explanations for it, as far as I can tell.
Celtic have only expressed interest but not made a formal bid
The Slovan chairman claims we’ve actually talked money, but this could be him playing up our initial approach to make it more than it was.
Celtic often does this; they sound out clubs to find out if there’s any point in even talking about players. All clubs do.
If you approach a side about one of its footballers and they say “not for sale at any price” you save yourself a lot of time.
Likewise if you approach them and they ask for stupid money, or say they’d only let him go for stupid money.
If English clubs are hovering around this guy, then you can be sure stupid money is where it will end up.
So it’s more than possible that we simply asked if it was worth our while submitting a bid, and that this is where things stand, and maybe there’ll be a more formal discussion and maybe their won’t be. But the club wanted our interest known … and so they told the media.
Celtic have made a formal bid and Lennon approved it
The second possibility is that Celtic did make a formal bid … with the full seal of approval from the manager.
Which means that Lennon lied to the hacks.
Aww, diddums.
Other people lie to the hacks with reckless abandon. They shouldn’t take it personally, and there are very good reasons why our manager might have done so.
Neil has a policy of not commenting on other club’s players; if only certain SPL managers adopted similar standards.
Neil knows what we need in January, and I would be surprised if a striker wasn’t on the list. If he and Hammond work closely on this stuff he’d know all he needs to know about the player already, and he’ll probably have a fair idea what the budget is too.
So perhaps that’s what happened here; Lennon ticked the boxes and said “Go and see if you can get him.”
And that means we’re only at the start of this saga.
Celtic have made a formal bid without Lennon being in the loop
Is it possible that the board did it without Lennon’s say-so?
Of course it is.
It wouldn’t be the first time that the Celtic board had gone out and tried to sign a player without telling the manager, and if they thought they could get away with this when Rodgers was there why wouldn’t they think they could get away with it here?
Daniel Arzani and Maryan Shved were both brought to Celtic Park apparently without his approval.
He made his feelings on them plain too.
On the day he was unveiled, Ronny Deila was pretty much told that Craig Gordon was going to be his first signing.
But really, we should be past this at Celtic, shouldn’t we?
I would be amazed if Lawwell was brazen enough to pull this, knowing how it’s blown up in his face before.
Slovan Bratislava are trying to drum up interest in him and using us
Definitely possible.
We’ve scouted this guy and everyone knows that. If we’ve also expressed our interest in an informal manner then their club is in no doubt that we’re interested.
And they may well be using that interest to drum up more.
We’ve seen this movie before, and it would not be in the least bit surprising if this was them trying to start an auction by putting it out there that we’d made an offer which they didn’t deem high enough … but with the not too subtle hint that they would talk if we upped it some.
Other clubs are sniffing, that’s for sure, and some of them might well have more money to spend than us.
“There is an interest from other big clubs from France, Spain, Italy, Portugal or Belgium,” their manager said. “There is already a huge interest and we expect that even more clubs will address offers during January.”
The thing is, this isn’t a strategy that’s designed to get us to stay at the table … it’s bad form, for one thing, to use our club to entice others into a transfer war.
That’s why it’s entirely possible that Celtic made a bid, Lennon approved it … and we’re now withdrawing it because the club decided to leak it.
This would explain the manager’s denial in front of the media.
The player and his agent are the ones playing games here
This could be the player and his agent at it.
Maybe they’re spreading rumours and stories of interest and backdoor talks here, there and everywhere to try and bounce the club into a sale.
It might even be that the club has decided to go along with it.
Because players and agents have a lot of power these days … the Kilmarnock manager just got sacked because a cabal of players didn’t want him there.
More and more in the game, it is the players and agents who drive transfer deals … but if that’s true then we’re being used here in the same way we’d be getting grafted it was the club who were trying to spark an auction … and I don’t see Celtic being impressed by that either.
We definitely were looking … whether we still are is another question.
Remember, you can still do our Slapping Sevco quiz at the link below … just answer the first question about who scored our first goal against the NewCo …