Aaaah man, just when you think things can’t get any worse.
Joe McHugh of VideoCelts flagged a quite horrible scenario in his piece of earlier on; the idea that the deadline for Celtic to renew Leigh Griffiths’ contract has come and gone.
I had a look at the coverage of this, and it was mentioned in some sections of the media but never confirmed by the player or by the club, but it stands to reason that a deadline existed.
According to those outlets, it was 30 April, so we’re now more than a week past it and as of the end of the month he is free to talk to other clubs.
If that’s right, we no longer have control over this process.
Honestly, the more you look at the situation this club finds itself in the more it resembles sabotage or dereliction of duty more than simple incompetence, although incompetence is certainly playing an active role in what’s unfolding in front of us.
We’ve gone from having four strikers at this club to three.
Edouard is off. That leaves two, of whom one is Albian Ajeti and there’s some talk of interest in him, and at this precise moment in time you wouldn’t exactly fight to keep him here.
Griffiths is the fall-back option that every club would love to have in its ranks, a natural predator in the penalty area who if you can get him fit and his head screwed on is worth more than 20 goals a season to a club.
Granted, that’s a “big if” because the player sometimes has trouble with things like following orders and maintaining discipline and keeping himself ready for games. More than one manager has tried to keep him on the straight and narrow and given in.
But in the meantime, Griffiths has scored goals whenever called upon. His ability to do it on a regular basis in uncanny. So is the ability of this club to make huge mistakes.
Scott Brown was valued by some as a possible asset.
The new manager should have had a decision to make on that, but he’s not at the club, and so Brown had an offer in hand and left.
There’s no new manager to sit down with the other players whose contracts are running down, like Christie.
Jack Hendry is stuck in limbo because he doesn’t know whether to come home if that stands or sign for his current club on a permanent deal should they exercise the option.
If it’s true, and he can walk away for free, because we’ve spent so long pissing about that we’ve no longer even got the option of a one-year extension … well that’s the kind of thing heads would normally roll for.
Since Lawwell announced he was stepping down from the CEO’s job I get the impression the guy has just downed tools and can’t be bothered.
This club is fragmenting.
The summer rebuild gets bigger with every single day that passes … and with every day that passes the time to do the job is running out.
This would be a scandal, and that Kennedy sat there today and confirmed that Griffiths and other player’s futures are still up in the air should completely eradicate any remaining hopes that some of our fans had that “work is going on behind the scenes.”
Because there’s no forward planning going on whatsoever, everything is on hold because this board can’t get its business done in a timely fashion.
They made this mess, and they are making a bigger one trying to clean it up.