More Celtic Transfer Rumours. But Does All This Smoke Necessarily Mean Fire?

Aissa Laidouni, of Tunisia, became the latest name to be linked with Celtic yesterday. He’s a midfielder, a part of their national team, and featured in the World Cup. He plays right now for Ferencvaros. People are putting two and two together because of the stories which said that Ideguchi might be allowed to leave.

There is a lot of smoke out there.

We’re linked with a new player every day. Even those non-exotic footballers like Porteous and Wilson are coming at us thick and fast. Some of this is lazy journalism. Some of it is every World Cup player’s agent trying to get his player a move on the back of a good competition. Some of it is clearly real; we are obviously on the hunt and busy.

Aissa Laidouni is a big midfield hard man. That’s the sort of player we need. He’s 25, which means he’s got plenty of experience. It’s a sensible option, but let’s not get excited. We have no way of knowing if it’s real interest or his agent playing games.

We won’t know, for sure, until every outlet is reporting the same story, or until one of the more knowledgeable journalists, like Anthony Joseph, has something concrete on it. Until then you can file it with the rest of the rumours and there are a lot.

Amidst all that smoke there has to be some fire.

We can say that for definite, and we can also guess pretty close to the mark which positions the club will be interested in. Central midfield is clearly one. Ideguchi hasn’t worked out and we only have Abildgaard on loan. James McCarthy will probably be moved on at some point too … so stick a pin in that.

Which does make some of these rumours more realistic than others. Stories about central midfield players are more worth taking seriously than the stuff about Porteous, because that’s a position which you can see we badly want to look at.

The forward line position is another almost endlessly debated, and in which we’re linked with more than a couple of names. That might or might not depend on there being something in the Giakoumakis rumours. But I suspect we’d be looking there anyway.

January will be intensely interesting. Ange wants much of the business done before the window opens, even, but I think we can expect developments right up until late in the day. Not last minute panicked stuff, more disciplined than that; when you recall that the O’Riley signing didn’t come until late last year you see how it all might shake out.

The important thing is that we have faith in the boss and in the established process, and we all hope, of course, that nobody and nothing messes with that. You all know what I mean.