That was a quiet week at Celtic, right? A quieter one than many of us expected it to be. Indeed, I don’t think anyone thought it was going to be nearly as peaceful as it turned out. There is virtually no chance that the next one will be like that.
Too many issues are waiting to be settled. There is Jota, there are transfer deals being worked on other than him. The reason I expect it to be a whirlwind is that the management team – complete with a new coaching setup – will want to hit the ground running in pre-season training. That starts at the end of the month.
Which means that next week is going to be critical. Expect big things.
The Jota signing will almost certainly be completed in the next seven days. If the word from abroad is right on we should also be closing the business of signing the Lanus left back Alexandro Bernabei. It could be speculation but the chatter on it is a little louder than usual and there seems to be more to it than just the usual talk.
Reports continue to link us with a number of midfielders, and centre backs, but how closely we should be following some of them I don’t know. A couple at least seem to have no more to them than that they play for the City Group.
But clearly, there are things happening and in the next seven days that is all going to come to a head. I find it hard to believe that the manager will want many issues still outstanding by the time the training kicks off. He wants the minimum disruption.
By this time next week, a lot of the questions we have are going to be answered, and I expect that the manager will be well pleased with where the club is. And so will the supporters, especially those who have already bought their season tickets.
How well do you know your Scottish Football Governance Scandals? Take the quiz now! You’ll not be surprised how many of these feature Ibrox …
I watched the Bernabei sending off and my immediate reaction, apart from his stupidity in doing that in the first place, was that he is too wee for a full back, he stuck the heid on the guys chin FFS.
James, don’t you think that we should no longer be in the market for a centre back?Now that Christopher Julien has nailed his colours to the mast, he’s going nowhere, then Ange should be using him in the squad one way or the other. He is Celtic’s most expensive defensive signing and we cannot afford to write off the 7M we paid for him. Notwithstanding that, the big man is a very good player and if he does stay and show the right attitude then he can be an important member of the squad going forward. Why would we even doubt his attitude as he has always been very committed until his accident. He has stated that he will stay and fight for his place and I don’t doubt that. Of course the underlying threat is that he could also run down his contract and give us nothing in return if things don’t go his way but I am happy to give him the benefit of the doubt. I know he bumped his gums about not getting playing time in the second half of the season and for whatever reason Ange did not pick him. He is definitely right to be annoyed by that, and in fact that is exactly the right attitude from him. What we don’t want to do is to spend 5 or 6 million on a new CB if we don’t have to and if he isn’t moving on then we should be utilising him. If we do buy a CB then in my opinion that CB is going to be replacing Starfelt in the side, surely that much is obvious. Starfelt to me has never properly shown that he is a defender to place total trust in, he is hesitant, does not exude confidence and I get the jitters when he is on the ball. Big Chris deserves his chance and the money saved can be spent elsewhere in the team. We are not a super rich club and we need to be sensible and cut the cloth where required.
Starfelt is an excellent defender in some respects who improved as time went on, he probably covers the ground faster than Julien, but Julien is superior in the air and would give us far more ball-playing ability from the back.
Why not at least bring him on if we go 2-0 up against the weaker teams, get game time in his legs.
Julien is far too good a player to ignore, unless there is some factor we don’t know about.