It is perhaps fitting in some ways that the financial dopers at Sevco need to catch a little magic dust from Celtic Park to pull themselves back from the brink.
This is proof that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Or to put it another way; when you can’t do it on your own, nick someone else’s ideas.
Sevco is obsessed with replicating our transfer policy, but they have no idea how. The latest news out of that basket case club is that Roma are sniffing around Barasic. They could get decent money for him – a tidy profit of around £3 or £4 million – if they were willing to be realistic about the fee, but they have spent too long listening to the idiots in their support who insist that stamping their feet and demanding crazy money will get it.
The figure they want here is one they’ve arrived at in a most unscientific fashion; they’ve looked at what we got for Tierney and they’ve decided that’s the market rate for SPL left backs. This is bonkers, of course, and it has generated the predictable result; Roma have heard their asking price, said it’s too much, and gone looking elsewhere.
The media will try to spin this as a victory, as the club “holding firm” to get “their fee” but it’s madness instead. It’s a little like when Aberdeen slapped a £7 million price-tag on Scott McKenna, and turned down our very reasonable bid in the summer.
Where are we now?
McKenna’s stock has gone down and most people are glad Celtic didn’t pay what we were willing to far less what we were asking.
Clubs have to be realistic about this stuff, and Sevco are certainly not.
The thing is, they need to make at least one signing in this window, and the sale of Barasic for a decent sum would have allowed them to do that. There is speculation about Kamara, but I think he’s even less a player than Barasic is and thus unlikely to command any bigger a fee … the need to sell over there is pretty acute, but they won’t do it like this.
One lunatic Sevco site, writing about Barasic and Kamara just this week, was spouting more of the usual nonsense about a £50 million bonanza. What crazy Peepul they are. Whatever they are smoking, if it was being sold in the shops it would be worth more than gold.
That’s a damn sight more than any of the players.