The Media Has No Idea What Celtic And Jota Are Talking About Behind The Scenes.

Rumours and counter rumours fly today.

The Daily Record has published one of its typical articles suggesting that there has been a breakdown in talks between Celtic and Jota over personal terms.

But I would imagine those discussions are amongst the most closely guarded secrets in Scottish football.

In short, there is no way they can know that.

All of this is typical of a media which exists largely on the basis of invention and the surmising of things. As I said in the piece on Itakura, the “interest” in him is largely a figment of their imagination, a case of adding up 2 and 2 to get 5.

The player himself knows of the “interest” only through the papers. He has heard nothing concrete.

The Jota and Carter Vickers transfer deals appear to be “dragging on.” In fact, neither is dragging on. The window doesn’t open for another four days. There are nine more days until either deal has to be completed.

I suspect both are already done and that all we’re waiting for is the opening of the window so that they can be formally announced.

Let’s not forget that it was only the media itself which suggested that these deals were to be done “within the week.” Nothing from Celtic remotely hinted at that.

The manager wants them done as quickly as possible, but when the window isn’t even open yet there’s an argument for saying that they can’t be until then.

The media reports that the deals would be announced shortly were weeks ago; is that a measure of Celtic dithering or something else? To me, all it shows is how little direct information they actually have about what is going on behind the scenes.

They are scrambling. And so you get these ridiculous stories, based on nothing but hot air. Do I believe that the media has direct information on what is going on with Celtic transfer negotiations?

No, and you only need to look at the Itakura story for that to become clear.

Almost everything you read in the sports press in Scotland can be filed under Fiction.

This is no exception. They don’t have a clue.