As Usual, Pirie’s Latest Celtic Is Article Is All Filler, Fluff And Nonsense.

Mark Pirie thinks Ange has big choices to make ahead of the coming season. He thinks that our manager hasn’t made some of these crucial decisions already. Today in his latest daft column he lists the seven decisions our manager needs to make about the peripheral players in his squad, as though Ange has been playing God Of War II all summer.

Of the seven players he mentions, two are not in the first team squad and have had little to no involvement in the pre-season. One is a player who spent last season out on loan and was never going to be a first team regular. Two we would dearly love to get rid of and everyone is well aware of that fact, and two are squad players and no decision is needed.

Scott Robertson and Liam Shaw are B team players, and both were out on loan and will probably be allowed to go out on loan again. The B team isn’t Ange’s responsibility. Urhoghide was also out on loan and that could have turned into a permanent move. That we’ve signed another central defender, and that he won’t get into the right back role ahead of Juranovic, Ralston or even Stephen Welsh in an emergency suggests the writing is on the wall.

That he would even discuss these three as choices for the manager, when none are even close to being first team considerations, shows how desperate he is for something to write about. The other four are no less ridiculous.

The two we want out the door – Jullien and Ajeti – are too expensive to be sitting in the stands so they are part of the squad until some business can be transacted for them. The manager will have made up his mind on that; indeed, you can take it to the bank that the decision to turn down a bid for Stephen Welsh is rooted in the decision over Jullien.

These two are only at the club because we’ve not yet been able to move them on, and that’s something we have no control over. There has to be interest to do that and we can’t speed that process up no matter what this eejit thinks.

Ange has made it clear that because they are in the squad they will be available for inclusion up until the moment they leave. As was the case with Christie and Edouard last year. I don’t really expect to see either play that much, if we see them play at all.

Of the last two there is no doubt; Ange is happy to have them both in the squad. McCarthy and Mikey Johnston might not be regulars in the team but they are important to the club for a couple of reasons. First, Ange has the measure of them both and knows when they can be relied on and not. Neither is a bad player, just not fully with it in his team.

Secondly – and this is crucial at the moment – both help fulfil the UEFA requirement for home grown players and that, as much as anything, is why Ange is content to have both around. At the SPFL level both are more than capable of performing; in Europe they negate the need for us to leave gaps in the registration squad. That’s the basic fact of it.

All this is basically obvious, and if Pirie thinks Ange has a decision to make on any of these guys he is wired to the moon. But of course he’s not. He’s just another lazy hack.

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