I read the Jota story last night with a weary shake of the head.
“Here we go again,” I thought. This is like a re-run of the stories we keep getting on Tierney and others who have left. Perhaps Rodgers is to blame for this. When you can bring back a manager who left in such circumstances, surely anything is possible, right?
But where is the sense of realism in this? A one-year loan deal might be permissible, but the club isn’t looking for that. They want to move him on. His wages are ridiculous and there’s no way we’d be willing to match even a third of that sum.
Here’s why it’s ridiculous, so ridiculous it isn’t worth debating seriously.
The money he’s being paid over there right now is so vast that is almost certainly in excess of what he will make anywhere else for the rest of his career. This is it for him. This is the life-changing contract, this is the big one and that’s why he jumped.
His club can offer him for a knock-down sum, and take the hit on the transfer fee, but there is not an earthly chance that any club, anywhere, is going to pay Jota the kind of crazy money that he’s currently on. So, to facilitate a return to Celtic you’d be asking this guy to do the one thing that he would be absolutely mad to do; in my view, he’ll not agree to a termination or any sort of transfer which reduces his basic salary by one penny.
And nor should he either.
This is the choice he made when he went there. He knew exactly what this meant to his chances of a high-level career. He’s not moving from Saudi to the sort of club he would have stood a chance of getting two or three years down the road; this was basically him putting the best years of his career on hold to play in a cash-rich backwater.
Maybe he believed he’d justify himself enough to command a similar contract at the end of his current deal, but my hunch is that he recognised the cold hard truth that this was a one-time chance to make more money in a short time than he will ever have again in his career, and he jumped at it. And I don’t grudge him that, and he was entitled to it, and having made that decision he is not going to backtrack on it to facilitate a “dream” return to Celtic.
If Jota leaves it will be when the Saudis pay enough of his salary in a single sum, and the club he signs for picks up the rest to fully justify the decision he made.
That club will not be Celtic. To believe that it will be is fanciful and we all deep down know this to be true, and so does the media which is pushing this story. He would “love” to return? Enough to set aside millions of pounds?
If he loved Celtic that much he wouldn’t have left for those millions in the first place, and he’s not going to set them aside for us a year later.
But he did. That moment has passed, and we will get nowhere pretending that he might return. It would be a waste of time for the club to spend even one minute on this idea and I have no doubt that those inside the club see it the same way.
We need an iron-clad concrete transfer story soon or this stuff is just going to go and on.
same with the tierney thing…jota won’t return – thank god…nor will tierney…again, thank god….tierney is an injury prone liabiity now…in fact apart from the millions we got for him..his injury record both before and since he left, made it an even better deal than it was at the time.
neither jota or tierney will have lost any sleep fretting whether they will ever return to cfc…
i for one, don’t want them back…or any other player who was a closet celtic man who just wants to experience the famous parkhead atmosphere wearing the hoops…when i think of the keane’s…wright…dion fukn dublin….i cringe.
That is very harsh on KT – a boy and man who gave too much to us in playing when injured resulting in his career being where it is now.
Harsh on Tierney who is a Celtic man. I don’t think he would be a good signing for us due to his injury record. But as a club we were complicit in over-playing him early in his career and when injured the impact of which I believe has come back to haunt him
We shouldn’t even take him back regardless of cost,he couldn’t wait to bolt at the first big offer he got,he could’ve stayed another season but no he’s just another mercenary and his decision to go made that embarrassing “Jota on the wing” song even more cringe worthy.
Really Jim, I think Celtic wanted the money pronto and quite right too, the boy at least tripled his wages and ended up getting a better contract, he owes us nothing and was a great player for us, it’s easy to say i wouldn’t have done this when you have never been in that situation and I feel you are being disrespectful to the boy.
Well shut my mouth! I was thinking of the wrong song ?
As you were ?
I’ve also posted this on the wrong thread! I’m going back to bed lol
Jota, Tierney, Kelleher. 3 names that’ll be linked to this club until they retire. Tbh, it’s getting tiresome now. Celtic needs to do some proper business to stop this constant downpour of utter mince.
In a heartbeat I’d have him back and the only reason apart from his skill is that if rumours are true Alan McGregor the drama queens drama queen is joining his BBC brethren. Can you imagine?
Kris Boyd memes wouldn’t touch it.
Who writes this tripe Jota we where told is being paid £10 million”a year tax free even you got him for small fee how would you match that wage it’s all bull plus Jota has 2 years left on his contract so he is in the driving seat it’s stupid media bull.
“Story” in Scotland – The Jota one or any other in Scotland – Simply means… Lies, Damned Lies. and Damned, Damned, Damned Lies !!!
More chance of me appearing with Coldplay at Glastonbury than Jota returning to Celtic anytime soon, but that won’t stop some in the support thinking that it could happen. Nobody in their right mind would turn down the sort of money he was offered to go to Saudi Arabia. I’m sure there will be Celtic fans out there hoping that it could happen but it’s never gonna happen HH