Isn’t it nice to have people thinking of your well-being? Isn’t it nice to think people are out there worrying about our football club, people who aren’t part of this family, people who you wouldn’t actually think have your best interests at heart?
Craig Moore is pretending sympathy with Celtic.
He is “worried” that Howe might be using us, stringing us along whilst waiting for an English team. It would be nice if he was expressing his genuine concern but of course he’s trolling us.
The media has been getting ready to go with “But Celtic wasn’t his first choice …” since Howe was identified as a target, and this is just more of the same nonsense.
Their tactics are so obvious and whilst I think Celtic could have made this go more smoothly and kept these people at bay by being a little more forthcoming in certain areas, we’d have gotten this anyway.
It galls a lot of these people that someone like Howe is interested.
Their worst nightmare is a guy of this quality coming in and swiftly turning things around.
They are ever alert to the fact that our last two high profile bosses from down south came in, transformed things and won trebles in the first year; nothing scares them more.
There are various means by which the media will try to wage not-too-subtle psychological warfare on our eventual managerial choice; that will be made a lot easier, of course, if it turns out not to be Howe as they’ll be able to question him on not being our first choice – and at that point it won’t matter if the guy was, in fact, the first choice behind the scenes.
But they think it will be Howe because the club has effectively briefed that it will be Howe.
That’s why he is the focus of so much negativity.
I personally think this deal has taken longer than it should but I’m ever aware that there are oftentimes things happening which we don’t know about, and delays aren’t always done to reluctance or incompetence.
The same sort of thing happened last season with our pursuit of Albian Ajeti; the media did all it could to make it sound like he was stalling because he didn’t fancy the move, or that he was holding out for a bigger club … none of that was true.
There was a compensation issue with West Ham which had to be sorted out behind the scenes and it took time, and sometimes that’s what happens with these sort of deals.
All along the handful of media people with the inside track have said that Celtic have been relaxed, Howe’s people have been relaxed and that progress was being made. What I find most pleasing is that none of his “demands” appear to be deal-breakers … this is a negotiation not a stand-off. Which means that a compromise will be reached eventually.
Our enemies do not want to see this deal getting done; they are clinging to every straw that they can find, taking advantage of the length of time to make the maximum mischief.
It can work … but only when they don’t use ex-Ibrox players who can’t stand us.