Waiting for rumours to write is sometimes like waiting for a Euro 2021 bonus or a train to come on an old rarely used track where the service only runs in an emergency. Today there’s a story that I like bobbing up and down in the water. I am glad to have something to do.
The rumours have us interested in Young Boys striker Jean Pierre Nsame, and as a smarter man than me once wrote “If it ain’t true it ought to be.”
He is quality. He has the pace and the eye for goal to be a lethal marksman in Scotland and in Europe too.
He played against the Ibrox club a couple of years back and tore them to pieces.
This is the kind of target I could get excited for.
If the story was true.
If we had a manager to approve the offer and a Director of Football to close the deal.
Nsame has a fantastic scoring record and all the credentials to be a really great signing … the sort that we have been woefully short of for a long time.
A complete finisher, he would be an A list footballer at Parkhead, the sort who would very quickly become a hero.
So yes, I love the idea of it and I’d give it my wholehearted seal of approval.
Nsame is exactly the sort of footballer I would expect us to go for, and his playing in a country like Switzerland means that he would not be prohibitively expensive, although he wouldn’t necessary come cheap either.
A deadly marksman already, this would be no project player.
Of course, though, it all comes down to the “But …” and the “but …” here isn’t even “could we afford him?”, it’s “who’s going to sign him?”
Without a manager it would be a lot of money to spend on one player, the sort of deal that really would need approval from the top.
And there is no top at Celtic right now. Which is, to my mind, the biggest problem with the story.
Are we interested in this guy? Is that real? I would certainly think so, and I’d certainly hope so, because his quality is proven and his pedigree is first rate.
Which only leaves whether or not we could get the deal done, and that’s the issue as we’re proving a little naff at that right now.
At the same time as we’re allegedly sniffing around this guy there’s meant to be interest in a defender at Hadjuk Split; that story doesn’t excite me the way the prospect of seeing Nsame in the Hoops does … but in that case we’re actually supposed to have made an offer.
I don’t know whether I believe it or not … it seems like a ridiculous thing to do but then, we come off as a bit of a ridiculous football operation at the moment, don’t we?
The Rumour Guy is a Celtic fan and blogger from Glasgow.