Late last night, we got the first definitive, hang-your-hat-on-it, story of the window so far; we are closing in on a deal to sign Kasper Schmeichel as our keeper for the next campaign. Judging by the social media reaction to this one, it’s a more popular option than not.
I for one am perfectly pleased with it and have little time or inclination for those who want to shout about how it’s penny-pinching and a cheap option. On the contrary, it’s smart business.
Celtic has a budget. That’s a reality a lot of people don’t want to come to terms with. Whether people like it or not, the surplus is not going to be all spent on the team. But the team has to be made stronger than it was at the end of last season, that’s a reality which people on our board will need to accept.
And if that ends up more expensive than some of them would have liked, that’s just hard lines for their failure to do the job sooner.
Every time we put off a major decision in the transfer market we are making it necessary to spend money some other time.
There are people who say that this is just another short term option, and it is … but it will be easier to fix the keeper problem when we’re not already looking at spending upwards of £10 million just to bring back to the club two of the players who we finished the last campaign with.
How many times have I written that in recent months?
We could either chose to invest that money to stand still or we could spend it to perhaps move us a couple of steps forward.
The manager wants to spend the money on Idah and Bernardo.
The fans appear to want to spend the money on Idah and Bernardo.
Okay then.
I have no specific problem with either deal, although in my view whatever we’re waiting for with Idah is risking us ending up in a desperate last day scramble to find an alternative – and we need two strikers, not one, if Oh goes – and I would prefer it if we made a “take it or leave” it offer, on a decent level, and in a reasonably quick timeframe, and showed we were willing to walk away to pursue other targets rather than drag this one out.
I think we’ll get both of them. I think that will cost us £10 million plus.
Since we do not have a magic money tree at the back of Celtic Park that is coming out of the manager’s budget and that limits what we can spend on other parts of the team. There were always going to be necessary compromises; we’ll almost certainly bring it at least one loanee.
As long as there’s an option to buy, I am no way concerned by that any more than I am about this.
If you read the transcript of the recent BBC interview Joe Hart did on Schmeichel he could not have praised him more highly. Those who think that because Kasper is five months older than Hart that he hasn’t got it should consider that you have outfield players who retire in their mid-thirties and those who go on way past 35, and who continue to produce.
Keepers have a longer shelf-life again. He’s been playing almost every week for years.
He played over 30 games for Anderlecht last season, in a tough environment.
One online stat last night said that he saved over 80% of the shots which came his way … a superb figure for a keeper and one that should give us a lot of confidence that he can do it for us.
This is a perfectly sensible, perfectly good, piece of transfer business. Known and trusted by the manager, experienced, a leader, a presence in the dressing room … you can never have too many of those in a squad and we lost a big one when Joe departed.
I always thought the idea that we would spend a heavy duty sum of money on a keeper during this window as a bit fanciful and hard to picture.
I thought some of the names we were linked with were pretty ridiculous; at least two of them have less than a year at their current clubs and I could not understand at all why anyone believed we would sign either of them.
Some of the other players were not inspiring targets at all.
The one name which excited me was De Gea, and two of the most attractive elements of that were first, that he was free which meant we replaced Hart with quality without breaking the budget, and second, he had the sort of top-level experience we are losing in Hart going.
This guy ticks the same boxes, and that’s perfect.
No complaints whatsoever about this bit of business, and one thing about it rings out; there is no question whatsoever that this is a Brendan Rodgers signing … and that might be the best news we’ve had on the transfer front for a while.
Happy enough if they sign Schmeichel, Goalkeepers can play until they’re 40 and I think that Schmeichel is the Professional type who will keep himself fit.
Like a lot of the support I’m a bit frustrated at how long it takes to get deals done, but some of the negative comments are away over the top. I’ll start making the serious judgements from 4th August onwards.
GK such a difficult position for the majority of our games when key attributes are concentration and communication – both come with experience. We unearth a young GK with these attributes and he would be gone in 12-18 months… BR knows KS and obviously thinks a good fit Good enough for me.