Ryan Christie has shown us something this past few weeks. He’s shown us that although his contract talks have stalled that he still has affection for the club and a determination to play for us right at the very edge.
He is taking risks for us, risks with his career.
If Ryan Christie gets a serious injury whilst playing for us – and this is a guy throwing himself into each and every 50/50 challenge – he’s in real trouble. His contract expires in four months.
Celtic would be well within their rights to walk away. If, God forbid, it was a career ender there would be no point in us doing otherwise. But he would have nothing to fall back on.
Ryan Christie knows this. Every player in the last few months of his contract with a club knows it. Which is why it’s the point where most clubs try to ship them out. Because only a handful will still give you blood and thunder, total commitment at that point.
I have been very harsh on Ryan Christie here.
I said at the end of the campaign that he was one of the players we could easily do without. I still think there are enough options in the squad that his departure would not be a full-on disaster.
But by God, he enhances this team.
He enhances the starting eleven.
He is a great asset to be able to bring off the bench.
On form, as he is right now, he’s almost unplayable.
We owe it to him and to ourselves to get something done on this if that’s possible.
People can speculate on why Ryan hasn’t signed a deal as yet.
I think he’s probably listening to a bit of bad advice but I can also imagine that Celtic, under Lawwell, probably made him an offer that was nowhere near reflecting his value to the team.
It’s about time we treated our best players in a way that does, and the so-called “wage structure” has been a disaster in those terms.
We should have a smaller squad on more money instead of the bloated behemoth we’ve had in recent years, which doesn’t deliver proper value.
Ryan Christie definitely does that. He has been a great signing for this club, but it might all have been tainted had he been one of those players who downed tools when the end of his deal was approaching. Now we have a choice to make, both Christie and Celtic, with an obvious solution to everybody’s benefit; get him signed up on a new deal.
By all means, insert minimum release clauses in there if he does want to try his hand at the EPL or something somewhere down the line. He’s young enough that he can still do that in the next couple of years.
But he can protect Celtic and himself with a new deal that gives him more money and security in the medium term … and we would keep one Hell of an asset.
Dominic McKay is a busy man, but this ought to be at the top of his to-do list until it is resolved. Some reports suggest that Christie would be amendable to a new deal; he enjoys working with Ange.
I always suspected that Lennon and his turgid, boring, awful style which had almost wrecked Christie as a player, was part of the reason for his discontent.
He sees what Ange wants to do and he’s buying into it. Ange sees what a talent he has and wants to utilise him as long as he is here. This could be a perfect fit … if Celtic get their skates on and the player likes what we put on the table.
It is high time that we found that out.
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