After last summer – when it ended with three great signings and left us with a team I thought was capable of challenging for the title – I wondered, I feared, that it might turn out to be a one off. I was wrong, because January was even more well put together.
This summer was about adding to certain key areas and making sure that the balance of the team was maintained. The big ticket signings – Jota and Carter Vickers – were delivered and we added some quality in key areas; it was brilliant.
This January window has started spectacularly. In particular, because the signings are coming through the door – two were paraded on the pitch last night – and we’re not even in January yet. This is window number three for this manager and it might prove to be the triumph to top the lot of them, if we come out of it even stronger than we went in.
We went into it, don’t forget, nine points clear in the league.
And you want to know what the overall feeling I have about all this is? “Guys, I think I could get used to this …” I am sure I am not alone in feeling that way.
Where has this been all these years? Did it really take bringing in the right manager, a strategic thinker, one who would not settle for simply plodding along, to push us in this new, radical and thrilling direction? If so, then the ideas he has adopted must be carried forward into the next regime and beyond. In short, this should be the new normal.
This stuff works. Even if we lose Juranovic, his replacement is already in the building. Even if every bad story about Giakoumakis is true and he’s going as well, I have no doubt that his own replacement will be paraded on the Parkhead pitch before he does.
I couldn’t believe it when the manager said, the other day, that we’re still working on a couple more deals.
It’s tremendous. This is the way we’ve been crying out for Celtic to operate for years now, and that it is proving so successful, and that we make it look so simple, makes me wonder just who stood in the way of it before.
They should take note.
I remember reading Phil Macs blog a couple of months ago saying deals were being for 4 1st teamers. Turns out he might be right on the money.