As Celtic Close In On Bernardo, We Should Rule Out Further Loans Without A Buy Option.

There is some proper rubbish online today about Adam Idah and how his value has risen due to his scoring a spectacular goal. In training. What a joke.

Training ground goals don’t turn players into world beaters or command higher fees. It’s absurd. Norwich wants to hang onto their guy, fair enough. They aren’t bringing top clubs to the table by highlighting this. It’s no more credible a story than when The Daily Record highlighted a similarly otherworldly goal from one of Ibrox’s new signings a few weeks ago, a story that this blog and others rightly scorned at the time as meaningless drivel.

If Norwich or anyone else thinks this puts zeros on the value of the guy they should remember that too high a price tag on him and Celtic isn’t the only club who will view it as ridiculous and rule out a bid. I said earlier in the week that we should move on from this thing entirely.

Today as we close in on Paolo Bernardo, we are reminded again that securing an option to buy is a winner when you’re getting a player on loan and that to do otherwise is pretty self-defeating. The two contrasting fortunes in terms of the deals we all expected to be done are our warning shot. We’re wasting our time on Idah. We took a guy, got him playing regularly, gave him a platform and now his club don’t want to let him go and they have a long-term deal and so it doesn’t matter what it is that we want, or even what it is that Idah wants himself.

As the news of the Bernardo deal breaks, and as these stories circulate about how a training session goal puts Idah out of sight (that’s not the reason his value has gone up) we are allegedly in negotiations for the Spanish left back, from Wolves, Hugo Bueno.

Now, for a moment let’s assume this not rubbish. According to the hacks, it would be a one season loan. I can already anticipate the calls of “penny pinching” and accusations that we’re doing things on the cheap. But the simple facts are that he’s 21, he’s a product of their academy, we wanted him on loan in January and couldn’t close the deal … and in spite of his age he has a lot of games in the English top flight.

So, he’s got a decent pedigree, and some good experience. As a signing I’d welcome it. As a loan deal I can see the sense in it. With a right-to-buy option at the right level it’s a no-brainer. Without one we’re not learning from our mistake with Idah.

If it comes to a loan where we’re basically giving minutes to someone else’s player, I would prefer that we pass and actually spend some money.

Loan deals are inevitable in this window. Whilst this board is in charge, we’re never going to spend significant sums; I’m resigned to this, it will take a major shift in attitude and our level of intent before anything changes in this regard.

So as per usual, no matter what’s in the bank, the boss is going to have to make compromises and as with the keeper this will be a smart one if we can bring in the guy, evaluate him properly and then make a decision about whether to pay big bucks for him somewhere down the line; I have no issue with the thinking behind it, except in that sums up our ambition level.

Without the option to buy this would be first-grade stupidity and will obviously raise questions about what in God’s name the club is playing at. It puts off filling a crucial position for another year, and surely to Christ we’ve had enough of that … at some point Nicholson’s balls have to drop, and we need to grasp the nettle and do this job right.

If these stories are true, it’s a sign of life. Not super-predator life perhaps, but something further down the food chain, where this board of directors likes us to stay. And because it’s a sign of life I won’t knock it completely. But I will be genuinely pissed off if this is another case of us taking a player from another club to do the job with their young players that we don’t produce enough quality to be able to do with our own.

It’s a move that would sum up everything I said on the emergency podcast earlier in the week. I hope we’re doing this one right. I hope if the interest is real, we get it done with the option to buy. That will make it more than worthwhile, and a significant step forward.

Otherwise, pass, Celtic, and start getting real.

The podcast can be heard below.