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Ntcham Has Realised Something: He Needs Celtic More Than Celtic Needs Him.

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Yesterday, after the game, Ange Postecoglou spoke of the immediate need for players. He, at least, seems to realise what’s at stake here and is pushing hard to get some in before qualifiers registration deadline, which is later on this week.

“We are working hard,” he says. We’ve heard it all before, of course, out of the mouths of those who had to work under Lawwell. If you believe the media we’ve started, and ended, talks with several different players over their wage demands.

It makes me wonder why we’re even bothering. If we’re not willing to pay good players what they’d get elsewhere then we’re just pissing in the wind. I’ll write more about that later; it’s a subject that is well overdue for a good look.

Last night, I put up a piece about how Ange needs to sit down with certain players and find out what their intentions are. He has, apparently, already done it with some of them and knows their thinking.

They have made up their minds, and I suspect that all of Ajer, Christie and Edouard will leave this club in this window and thus clear out the uncommitted.

Here’s what I don’t think will happen; I don’t think any of those players will get the move they thought they would get. All will settle for something less.

All will wind up at clubs which make them wonder what might have happened had they given Celtic one more year and performed at their best, to wait and see what lay at the other end of the global health emergency.

One player at least seems to have realised this; Olivier Ntcham.

His Damascene realisation that Celtic doesn’t need him half as much as he needs Celtic must have been a shocking one. But it’s sunk in, at least if you believe what he’s telling the manager.

Ntcham has woken up to the truth that he’s put his career in jeopardy with a stroppy attitude and a weak mentality. He appears to grasp the truth that Celtic won’t tear his contract up and that as long as we’re asking for a fee nobody will buy him.

As a result, he knows he has one year to save himself.

The only way he can entice interested parties is by performing, and that means performing in a green and white shirt. According to Ange, he has found his focus and intends to work hard.

We will see, but for his own sake he has to.

We’re playing on his selfishness a wee bit, but that’s what good managers do.

That’s why it has a better than average chance of succeeding.

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