The whole of the support is gloomy and introspective today.
No wonder after the shellacking we all took yesterday.
Talk about taking a hit; that was a big one.
Games postponed, a player heading out the door after a scandalous breach of safety … the whole club is hang-dog and depressed and in need of a real lift.
It’s time for a little retail therapy.
The news that Ajeti is due to arrive in Glasgow – finally – is not a surprise. I knew this would be the week for rabbits out of hats.
I knew it after the Kilmarnock game when even some of our more placid supporters were starting to get restless about the lack of action on the transfer front.
What I didn’t expect was that we might swiftly move to make the deal permanent.
But it doesn’t really shock me.
This is Lawwell proving that he can make things move when he wants to, instead of dragging out negotiations like an American delegation being pressed into making climate concessions. We’re taking a hammering, so we’re coming out swinging.
It’s actually smart stuff.
With the papers still full of Bolingoli the story needs radically changing, and spending £5 million will always generate headlines. Ajeti was always odds-on to end up at Celtic Park, I’ve been writing for weeks that stories about how he didn’t want to come here were nonsense, and so it will prove. It’s good we’re not bothering with a loan.
Because what this club needs as much as anything is a little bit of stability.
Ajeti becoming a permanent feature gives us something of that. We’re going to need it. Look out for what happens with Fletcher; if we re-enter the race for him then you can bet that Griffiths is being quietly offered around clubs in England.
Some people will get spooked and start thinking that this is about Eddie being sold; relax on that front.
If there’s one thing that’s now absolutely guaranteed it’s that this board cannot sell Odsonne Edouard, not when we’re in a war and we need the best footballer in Scotland to stay right where he is. Frankly, I think such a sale would provoke fury amongst our supporters unlike anything this board has seen in its time here.
Fury unlike anything seen in a long time.
Ajeti will be a Celtic player this week. If the club is really smart they’ll add a central defender to the mix as well before we play our next league game, all the better to give the manager the option of returning to a 3-5-2, which will blow the opposition out as it did last season.
There’s a political aphorism about the media which is especially fitting in this case; you either feed the beast or the beast feeds on you. The press is not going to stop writing negative stuff until we force them to write something positive.
You can’t get more positive than spending a few million quid on a player from the EPL.
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