Yesterday, a curious story appeared which cast doubt on the endlessly negative narrative over the contract situation involving Josef Juranovic. Most of, seeing the signing of Johnston, expected that there had to be some truth in those tales and were resigning ourselves to his sale in the summer. But maybe that’s not going to happen.
Because the word around the Celtic Park campfire is that contract talks will be resumed and Celtic still wants to get an agreement on a deal. This echoes the sentiments of the player, in public anyway, that he is perfectly happy at the club and is not agitating for a transfer. His commitment on the pitch has been unquestioned. The boss has no complaints.
The Giakoumakis story was full of fire and brimstone and talk of a sale which wouldn’t even wait until the summer; it was said that his departure was imminent, come January. But as I said on this site, wait for the manager and for further developments before making any judgement on this one. I thought it incredibly unlikely that things were as bad as the reports.
Anthony Joseph has confirmed my suspicion with a recent tweet.
Not only is Giakoumakis happy to stay at the club, but the contracts talks are to be resumed with both parties are keen on reaching an agreement. And so both of these media stories has collapsed.
This doesn’t resolve one issue; someone at Celtic Park has leaked this stuff to the press, and that person should be even more ashamed tonight. I doubt very much that the person who told the media this stuff was the one who put the most negative possible spin on the stories; that would have been a decision by the media itself.
And so that person has been used by the very organisations he leaked to, and that individual should keep that in mind. They have been done up here, just as the club has and whilst the club does not deserve it that individual certainly does.
What did they think was going to happen when they told the press that the initial contract offers had been turned down? Understanding? Positive reportage? It’s utterly idiotic to have expected anything other than what we’ve had to read from the hacks.
Leakers do nothing but harm to Celtic. I still want that person found and dealt with.
But the stories themselves are coming apart, and we can all raise a glass to that.
James, you’re reading too much into this. Even assuming the leak is from within Celtic Park, which seems probable at this point, it would have been done to put the story in the public domain that these players may be lining up a move in January. Why would the club do that while simultaneously recruiting and ultimately signing a direct replacement for one of those players and likely scouting a replacement for the other?
The simplest explanation is that there’s nothing nefarious going on. This is the club putting a ‘for sale’ sign on the player and advertising that fact to interested clubs without being so explicit about their intentions. If that results in a suitable offer coming in, I would say that’s job well done.
Find out who is leaking these stories and sack them immediately.
I remember similar Blogs during NL’s tenure and other moments. I’ll be concerned when these “leaks” are not Welsh.
It’s also possible Celtic is taking the pish out of these meedja hun fanboys with entirely false stories designed to mislead and raise false hopes among the deluderino gullibillys.
Let’s face it, the zombies are the stupidest fans in football.
This wasn’t from our board, they haven’t spoke a word since they joined our club
What a load of garbage being talked about on here recently, based on what? Speculative gossip from anti Celtic sources elsewhere, divisive assumptions and angry accusations on here talking like they were definites. Naivety or shit stirring or both? Biting to speculation or lies? I thought we were above all this made up hunnery. Contract talks are rarely settled at the first round of talks so there’s no definite facts to anybody leaving or anybody leaking from inside the club. I’ll be glad when the games start again in a fortnight and get away from these un-stabling emotional critiques. Then maybe we can stop discussing their agendas and talk positively about our team, the ‘in front of your eyes’ stuff; the Aberdeen game, our players, performance, refs, VAR, new signings coming in, and the impending title victory.