The idea of us signing Jonny Evans does not impress me one bit and I daresay most other Celtic fans feel the same way. I hope this is an internet rumour, and I strongly suspect that’s all that it is. There’s no merit to the idea whatsoever.
Why would we look at signing a 35 year old centre back on a free? He is not necessary even as a backup option in the title race.
He certainly does not add a single thing to our ability to compete in Europe. The idea that we should waste a squad slot on him for the Champions League is almost laughable.
I don’t believe for a minute we’ll move for this guy.
I see no indication that this is a serious story. It emerged from Leicester’s local press, where I am certain they have lazy journalists every bit as awful as the ones we contend with here at home. Or I could be his agents, looking to leverage a better offer from his current club, or one of those which are said to be interesting him.
Hell, maybe the Saudis will fancy making him an offer. Football is just mad enough for that to happen, and no-one would blink if it did.
But questions would be raised – and rightly so – if he walked through the doors at Celtic Park. I just don’t see what he brings to us.
When Brendan signed Toure in his first campaign – and that’s what this is being compared to – he did that because we genuinely did need a backup option and we were working with limited funds. Neither of those things is true at the moment.
He also need a big personality to lift the dressing room. We don’t. We have plenty of those already; the squad is as good as many of us can remember it, and this would do nothing whatsoever to make us stronger either now or in the future.
Even if you look, as Sutton has, at the current players we have and think we’re somehow weaker than we were at the end of the last campaign, the players we’ve signed are all young enough to grow into the roles. Evans only represents a backwards step. He isn’t going to get younger, so he’s not going to get any better.
This club has not signed one of these “bling” players in a long time, and that’s what this would be although I entirely fail to see anything glossy or shiny or appealing about the idea.
Evans would be a drain on the finances, a waste of a squad number and would spend more time on the bench or in the stands than he ever would on the pitch.
And there’s not a person at Celtic Park who doesn’t know all that. Which is why this sounds like pure speculation to me, and not something we need to take particularly seriously.