Celtic Fans Should Scorn Guidi’s Gibbering Nonsense About An “Understanding” With Spurs.

Earlier in the week, my attention was drawn to one of those ridiculous media stories about the summer transfer window of next year. Yes, next year. Having been denied the satisfaction of seeing half of Celtic’s first team squad depart in the last window, they are preparing their tales for the next one … and the one after that as well.

The nonsense never ends with these people.

It goes on and on and on like a drunk in the pub who won’t shut up. And the variations and spins on some of it can be quite unhinged. These people have better imaginations at times than Stephen King, but in the main their thinking is stunted and lazy.

Most of the “summer rumours” revolve around Spurs, and it was in this context that Mark Guidi made one of the most ludicrous “suggestions” I’ve heard in a long time; that Celtic and Ange Postecoglou came to an “understanding” when he left that he would not move for any of the Celtic players for the first 12 months he was in England.

I mean, even at a surface reading that is plainly ridiculous. If Ange thinks these guys can do a job for his club, why in God’s name would he ever agree to that, especially with Spurs being such a graveyard for managers in recent years? He would want every chance of hitting the ground running, so for him to say “Oh yeah, I’ll leave priority targets and come back next year” just makes no sense whatsoever. It’s a ridiculous suggestion to make.

Secondly, Celtic would trust to that, would they? Some sort of gentleman’s agreement from the guy who was clearly negotiating his exit behind their backs? I very doubt that. I very much doubt any of it, and it’s all the more ridiculous when you consider that least one of the players in question – Kyogo – has just signed an extended contract.

Does that sound like someone planning to leave in the summer?

This is not even lazy journalism, it’s fantasy thinking. It’s Guidi indulging his imagination and letting it conjure up the best anti-Celtic story he can come up with. And this is it.

Gentlemen’s agreements. Understandings. I am fairly sure all this same sort of guff was used when Brendan Rodgers left for Leicester. He was “certain” to want to “raid” Celtic and take half our players down there.

And, in the end, not a single contracted footballer from Parkhead went there. The only player who had played here who ended up doing so was Filip Benkovic and that didn’t impact on us one bit. I don’t expect to see any of our players wind up at Spurs.

Indeed, sources south of the border have already denied one of the principal stories; that Spurs are going to come in for Maeda. I mean, first it was Kyogo he would certainly move for, then it was Hatate and then Daizen was the story.

The hacks cannot help themselves, but this conspiracy theory of Guidi’s is the worst bit of “reportage” yet. As with Rodgers going to Leicester, this is simply people putting two and two together and coming up with whatever they want. They did this same thing over the summer when they tried to convince Gerrard to move for Ibrox’s junk.

Our hacks lack credibility because they lack talent. The talent to go out and dig. And failing that, the talent to at least make something up with a bit of imagination.