Whenever an ex-Celtic player suddenly pops up with a media career I worry. I worry because they tend to overdo it on the criticism of the club. I worry because the last thing we need is some goonish Kris Boyd clone only on our side of the fence.
So I didn’t initially know what to make of Peter Grant when he appeared on the scene, although I’ve found some of his early interventions to be irritating to say the least. Today, he’s waded into the discussion over Kevin Nisbet and to be frank he’s jabbering a lot of nonsense which the media is only too happy to amplify further for him.
“Celtic ‘priced out’ of Hibs Kevin Nisbet transfer swoop as ex-Hoops star offers ‘4 or 5 million’ theory” screams the ridiculous headline in Football Scotland.
“The price goes right up. If Celtic phone Hibs you know the price is going up right away,” he said, which in itself is not totally ridiculous. Lawwell tried playing those ‘well we’ll wait until the summer and take him for free’ games with them over McGinn and it didn’t turn out so well, but Hibs were guilty of that as well in that they vowed not to sell him to us.
“The English teams, the amount of money they get is phenomenal. And it’s value for money the manager is probably looking at it. You look at Celtic’s new signing and he’s two and a half million pounds and Hibs are asking for four or five million from Celtic, you can see the reason why that doesn’t happen,” Grant said.
Which to me, there’s nothing terribly wrong with that statement either … but he’s missed a very big point, which he would see more clearly if his eyes were open and he wasn’t trying so hard to fire up his brain-cells in pursuit of what’s an obvious conclusion.
“We said in the summer about young [Lewis] Ferguson about young [Josh] Doig, both of them and Celtic were looking for midfielders or left backs, you’re thinking all day long. As I say, there must be a reason why. Whether they get priced out of the market. It’s not down to the boy’s talent.”
Except yeah … in all those cases it was exactly down to the talent of the players involved, and so it is here. Lewis Ferguson, for all he’s a decent player, is not a better player than McGregor, Hatate, Turnbull or O’Riley. Doig? We don’t know whether Doig will prove to be a better player than Bernabei, but he’s not as good a player as Taylor.
And Kevin Nisbet is not rated, as highly, by Celtic as Oh Hyeon-gyu … if he was we’d have moved for him and we’d have signed him.
We’ve paid big for players who were worth it this season, two massive £6 million deals amongst other bits of business … so the idea that we wouldn’t have gotten Nisbet or pushed the boat out had we thought he was worth it is just nonsensical.
The bottom line is that we just didn’t believe he was good enough to play for Celtic, just as we didn’t believe Lawrence Shankland was or Lewis Ferguson or Scott McKenna, just as we don’t believe that Ryan Porteous will ever make the grade.
This isn’t complicated stuff. There’s no need to spin out a conspiracy theory here or push some madcap idea that we went looking for a cheaper option … Kevin Nisbet would have been a backup to the backup at Celtic Park. If we’d thought he was anything else we wouldn’t be conducting our business so far from home.
In the meantime, the Ibrox club had their opening bid for Raskin rejected today. The same newspaper has chosen to cover that in a slightly different way.
I think the term they were looking for was “priced out.” Glad we could help.
Peter Grant. Massively over-rated as a player. As a pundit he is only a level above Alex Rae. On co-comms for Celtic TV the other week it was excruciating listening to him trying to sound like McCoist.
What have you got against Alex Rae. ?
I thought Peter did rather well.
Since when was he over rated. One thing about Peter Grant, he wisnae a ‘prima-donna’, but he was a player who gave everythin for the jersey, never hid on the park in his Celtic career. Was a great servant tae the club and hard as a coffin nail in our midfield. Give the guy some credit ffs.
Doig is twice the player of Bernabei…. Easily one of the worst players I’ve seen in a Celtic jersey.
Peter Grant is right, hibs would ask for double if we went in for Nesbitt, so there is no value for money involved in the deal considering our entire model is about player trading
I think he could’ve chosen his words better. Reading what he said I took it he meant clubs in Scotland will basically try and shaft us for everything they can get, regardless of the player’s actual value, in a way they wouldn’t fir say a Portsmouth-level side. Fucking the Tims over is the raison d’etre for the masons/grasping bastards with a grudge of Scotland’s football boardrooms. As you say James, we aren’t “priced out” as we could afford the asking price but we’re simply not willing to pay over the odds for a player with a 50/50 chance at being a success. Especially not when can get better quality for less elsewhere…
Not priced out but would be ripped off, wouldn’t touch any hibs player with a barge pole.
Priced out.
Ange will have watched Nisbett very closely and clearly doesn’t want him. He is a decent player but I think he lacks the movement you need as a Celtic striker. All the best Celtic strikers had that and Kyogo does too. Even Hartson worked the channels more than Nisbett and he was a real target man up front. Nisbett has skill but seems stationary too much of the time and will maybe never have what it takes to be a Celtic striker. He’ll get a chance to develop if he goes to Millwall.
I blocked that site ages ago , the folk writing the articles are dead club fanboys
100% correct James.
If Celtic had signed Nisbet, it would have been as a 3rd striker and to fill a quota for UEFA. Unless there was an injury to one of the other strikers, his minutes would have been very few in the Celtic team. And knowing that at the outset of any negotiations, there’s a limit to how much is sensible to pay. If it’s a free transfer like Siegrist, sure why not make the signing. For £3-5m, or even £2m, that deal just makes zero sense. This was always about priorities, and Nisbet isn’t good enough to warrant making his signing a top priority worth significant resources.
After “”thugs and thieves”” headline, stopped buying papers. Wouldn’t know what’s going on with them, except all Celtic sites keep regurgitating their pish. UP THE ‘RA
Don’t necessarily agree wi all Peter Grants sayin there, tho tae compare him wi a gloatin arsehole like boyd is ridiculous. Don’t get it, ye seem eager tae jump on this guys case for some reason.
Peter Grant is a great guy, a real Celtic man and a gentleman. Unlike you James he has inside knowledge of how Celtic approach transfers having worked under Peter Lawwell. He actually shares your dislike of PL. You start by slating him then somewhat agree with him. Take a pause before panning good Celtic men.
Ohh and Celtic had an official interest in with Aberdeen to be kept in the loop with regards to Lewis Ferguson before Ange. That is fact! So another error.
I agree that we would have been overcharged for Nisbet had we tried to sign him. I also think we missed a trick by not getting him and that will be proved later wherever he ends up. He will just be another in a long line of the ones that got away. I hope he does well for his new club if he does get a move.
By the way James, players to fit Ange’s system is an important requirement and whether Nisbet would have been flexible/good enough to do that is purely subjective. The one thing I do see though is that Ange, and you, have a blind spot for our LB’S fitting into that system. LB’s should be able to defend as well as attack and our present vertically challenged incumbents do not measure up to those requirements. They need replaced before we go into Europe next season or I fear the worst.
I remember Peter Grant as a footballer for Celtic. In the centenary season he was absolutely imperious in the way he and his pal McStay controlled the midfield. Unfortunately for him (and Celtic) he got injured in an evening match against St Mirren and that was his season done. After that Celtic imploded and were trumped by a Murray “funded” Rangers. We all know how that one eventually turned out (LOLZ!) Grant never really got to play at the same level again after that injury. He and McStay would have probably been better off moving to England as the club was clearly in meltdown.
I’ve always liked Peter Grant. Good lad. I listened to him on co-commentary duties last weekend on Celtic TV. He might not be perfect but he is a million times better than Tom Boyd. Boydy’s a good lad but he’d put you to sleep with that monotone drone of his.
In this instance he’s been misquoted or misrepresented. Hibs do bump up the price whenever Celtic come calling and that’s just a fact. I can sort of understand that as the Hibs fans were getting fed up with us taking their best players from them. So there is nothing here that tells me Grant has said anything we can take issue with.
@ Roonsa. Agree wi that. Always remember feelin gutted for him missin the 1988 centenary final, after doin so much tae help us get there, then gettin injured a couple of weeks before it. Was a wedge peg in our mid the followin year in the 89′ final when we done rangers for their treble that day. Gutsy as fk. In fact, he almost managed tae put us 2 up in the 2nd half of that game. Was unfortunate not tae score.
More ‘one that got away’ and ‘John McGinn’ nonsense. Nisbet simply isn’t up to today’s Celtic requirements and Hibs would have upped the price no doubt. I agree with Grant on that. He’s moving to Millwall ffs and that will help him prove diddly squat other than he chased the money, like JJ and GG. So I don’t know what your beef is with Grant, a Celtic man with or without the jersey. Hope Taylor and CCV hurry back back from injury, we’re missing their consistent performances week in, week out.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Celtic were interested in Nisbet.
Trust me Seamus due to a very reliable source, the millwall collapse was due to a medical failure- underlying/unbeknown knee issue – and not the proverbial red herring that Hibs are spouting about personal terms