Celtic Fans Do Not Fear Ibrox Re-Signing Its Serial Losers.

The begging has begun as the season draws to a close. Morelos has, I suspect, already expressed his intentions clearly to the club; he’s off. He thinks he can get a move somewhere decent and he’s not going to sign a new deal. If Kent is still wavering, there’s hope. Hope amongst the Ibrox fans and their media allies. That’s why the begging has started.

Mark Hateley is one of a number in the press who has practically pleaded with Kent to sign a new deal. They know they need to pull at least one rabbit out of the hat as far as these two go and the one they’ve chosen is the one who they might still have a chance of convincing. I don’t think they’ll succeed, by the way, but they are determined to try.

But if there’s hope amongst Ibrox fans then I would think there’s plenty of it amongst ours too, because today there’s talk that Arfield will be offered an extra year and we know they want to keep Ryan Jack and are considering a new deal for McGregor. So the plan, on the surface, is to keep as much of the band together as possible.

Yet these guys are failures. They are bottlers. We can only guess at what sort of players they will bring in on limited resources, but we know we can beat this lot. We know we have their number. Morelos, Kent, Arfield, Jack … Ibrox gets to put the rebuild off, and doesn’t need to replace these guys for chump change. I see the attraction for them.

I also see why Ange would be grinning from ear to ear.

The only way that a plan like that would be of the least concern to us is if they were intending to sell these guys the minute the new deals were done. But that’s ludicrous. If no-one is willing to make these guys a half decent offer when they are available for free nobody is going to pay big money to buy them. It would be sheer folly for any club to do so.

No, Ibrox is trying to avoid a bigger rebuilding job than it can afford and that’s the fact of it. They would be happy to increase the wage-bill and give these failures improved deals if it meant not having to go out and find the next team of also-rans.

We should not fear either outcome. The whole spectacle of them struggling with this dilemma is as amusing as it is pathetic. Let the chips fall where they may. Celtic will cope with whatever version of this team of theirs emerges at the end.