The boss sat in front of the press again today – minus the fans again; I am going to keep banging on about that as long as nobody responds to my requests – and gave us another great insight into his plans for the club.
The more you hear him the more impressive he is.
I listen to every word this guy says on transfers. Every word.
The manager knows what he wants to do here.
He has plans and he’s not shy about saying so.
The board had better be listening and they had better continue backing him up, because he won’t be shy in calling them out if they don’t. But I think so far so good, and he’s said there is more going on.
Yesterday, I wrote about Odsonne Edouard and how we cannot afford to wait until he’s not at the club before we start thinking about his replacement. Ange, today, talked about contingencies explicitly in the case of the big man, so clearly the club is way ahead of me here.
There are names popping up here there and everywhere about players in various positions.
Not one person in the press corps correctly identified any of our four signings so far until the deals were just about done, so I try not to listen to any of it as I very much doubt that the hacks know what’s going on behind the scenes here.
When the next signing comes I expect it to be completely out of the blue and probably some left field option which the media hasn’t even flagged yet.
Ange is right about one thing; with the global health crisis still having us in its grip, we need to do things a bit quicker than we are at the moment. Let me put it this way; the next deadline for registering players is in six days.
The next round is either Tuesday the week after next or the Wednesday.
If we sign a right back from abroad, even if he leaves right now, you can probably forget him playing in either fixture if he has to quarantine, and the rules on that aren’t clear but he’d probably need to be double vaccinated to stand a chance.
We really need to get something done there pronto.
Provided we got through – or if we need to play a Europa League playoff – we need to have the next bits of business done a fortnight after that. European signing deadlines do not allow all this pissing about.
Things cannot be allowed to drag on.
For all that, we seem to be going about the business in a structured way, even if it’s not terribly quick. I am impressed. The manager talks about having three or four options for each position, and that’s exactly how we should be going about our business.
Every word he says now illuminates a little bit more about how much has changed already at Celtic since he took the dressing room reins. His comments about wanting to be involved in everything shows you that this is a guy who isn’t content to leave his future in anybody else’s hands. He wants total control … and Celtic needs to bend to that will.
Because I can safely say now that he has nearly universal support in the stands, on the blogs and on the forums.
Even my own doubts have faded away as I’ve watched him get to work. If this guy is allowed to realise his vision, we’ll be back on top in Scotland before the other lot have even put away the last of their party hats.