The Window Just Shut And The Record Is Trying To Sell A Celtic Player To England.

The transfer window is closed, and with it you would think the media’s ability to make mischief. But never fear, they will be doing that for as long as we are following our club and tonight The Record has a vintage piece of it, linking Liel Abada with a summer move.

“Liel Abada faces Celtic transfer poser as Southampton hold back on winter move for summer ‘preference’” screams the headline. They’re not even particularly original, having cut and pasted much of their text from an article in The Athletic.

But The Record chose to put that headline over the piece, implying that the player faces some kind of dilemma over something that might not even happen.

You have to marvel at this lot. We’re less than 48 into the final act of this season and these people are trying to flog one of our players to Southampton in four month’s time. Did you ever believe, as I once did, that the media was meant to talk our game up?

Well that’s a laugh, isn’t it? That’s no more than a joke. If they get a chance, the slightest chance, the merest chance, to do us down then they’ll take it and not even hesitate.

Abada, of course, is an outstanding footballer, of course, and a critical part of the team. He’s one of those guys we’d like to keep on an extended contract and I think we’ve got a good chance of getting him to sign one.

But the press loves to do this. It loves to remind players of what lies just over the horizon. The thing is, what might lie over the horizon, for Southampton, would rule them out of any race for Abada completely, and even the prospect of it should serve as a warning to him.

Because it’s not great success that they sit on the cusp of at the moment, it’s relegation. If Everton get their act together it might be the club from St Mary’s who go down instead, and then I think even the idea of this goes by the boards quickly.

Abada will not be at Celtic forever, but his quality will assure that when he does go that we get a whopping great fee for him. I predict it won’t be to the likes of Southampton either. In the meantime, though, you would think the media in this country would be enjoying the presence of such a talent. If he was playing at Ibrox they certainly would be.

Their problem is that he isn’t.