Celtic Is Entitled To Take A Risk With Its Own Players, Ibrox Has No Right Over Sima.

There are a few Celtic players who we would dearly love to see fit for the game at Ibrox; I wrote about this yesterday, and said that the biggest thing in the coming week would be the players who showed up for business at Lennoxtown. That will tell us a lot.

There are risks attendant to pushing players back into the team too soon. I don’t like it from an ethical standpoint, and I have written that before too.

I wish teams didn’t do this, but we know that they do.

One of the best “debates” on the issue of sending injured players back into games was actually in a fictional setting and it was about American football and not “soccer” as they call it; it was in the movie Any Given Sunday, where the team doctor, played by James Woods, shouts down Matthew Modine for his presumption in wanting to take that choice away from men who want to prove their valour and dedication out on the field.

I understand the argument. As long as clubs aren’t forcing the issue the final choice is in the hands of the player himself. The club has to asses the risk, explain those risks to the player and then, if the player is determined to play, allow him to make that judgement … provided the club itself doesn’t decide he’s too valuable an asset to risk.

That happens, and if this was earlier on in the season, we might not have taken chances with some of the guys we might throw in at Ibrox. In the end though, these are our players and that means that we’ve got the right, if they agree, to make that choice.

But the Ibrox forums are actually talking seriously – and apparently with a steer from the club – about how they might throw Sima into the game against us. It doesn’t seem to matter to them if he’s 100% fit or just able to get out on the pitch. Hey, we’ve been there and we’ve done it.

The only thing about this is it that Sima isn’t their player, he belongs to another club, and so they don’t have any right to make that kind of judgement call, whether the player agrees to it or not. This is someone else’s asset. It’s shocking to even be thinking like that about a footballer who doesn’t belong to them and who they’ve not business risking.

He went sent on loan to them to play regular football; that’s already ended in disaster because they played him earlier on in the season when he was injured and the current injury is the result of it. Half of their current issues this season,

Right from the start they were talking about rushing him back and it sounds as if they are actually seriously considering this ridiculous step.

There is an arrogance in this which sort of astonishes you.

It echoes what I wrote yesterday about how their club has no respect for other sides, their fans, their players or their respective situations.

Ibrox is focussed only on what it wants and needs in any given moment and to Hell with everything and everyone else. Brighton should be watching this with grave concern.

And they should be putting their foot down and stopping this lunacy.