I’m not angry at players who leave this club. How can you be angry at players who leave this club? They do it all the time.
It’s common, regular, and just part of football.
If you got wound up about it every time, you’d spend your whole life in a constant state of irritation. But there are times when it’s hard to keep your stomach contents in place when you read some of the things they say on their way out.
I just wish they’d spare us the long goodbye sometimes.
We’ve had two of those this week. Two players running out on us with a Champions League game still to play. And both of them penned heartfelt letters, thanking the fans, telling us how much they love us and how much they love the club. Just not quite enough to hang around until the job was done.
Fans, by and large, aren’t asking for love.
All we want is for people to treat our club with the same respect we do—if not the same reverence. Alex Valle left like a shot the moment his chance to play in Italy came along. Kyogo stamped his feet until he got his move. And I don’t care how it’s dressed up—Brendan Rodgers spelled it out plainly.
Neither of them wanted to give us just a few extra days, which would have made our lives a little bit easier. That’s all.
No one’s saying they can’t go and do what they want, play for the clubs they dream of. No one is saying that, although Kyogo was under contract, and we very easily could have enforced it. Valle’s situation is entirely different, but it’ll likely be the last time we take a player on loan from Barcelona.
Some people have blamed the manager for not giving Valle more of a chance, suggesting Barcelona might have been happy to let him stay if he’d played more. But if Valle had been a better player than Greg Taylor, he’d have gotten all the chances he wanted. The manager isn’t going to play someone he doesn’t fully trust in a must-win game. That would be selling Celtic short.
Valle can chase his dream of playing in Italy. Kyogo can chase his dream of a relegation battle in France. That’s fine.
On one hand, Kyogo gave us three-and-a-half years of excellent service. No complaints there. A foreign player comes in, does his best, and then leaves. But I could have done without the farewell letter, especially when Aston Villa looms in front of us. Valle’s story is slightly different, of course—he wasn’t our player in the first place. But he shouldn’t pretend he’s leaving behind happy memories and all sorts of sentimental nonsense when he’s scarpered, leaving us with problems and a mess to clean up.
When you read this stuff, it’s easy to forget these guys aren’t working for free. Whether Kyogo thinks he was underpaid or not is irrelevant. He was paid handsomely—more than he ever earned in Japan. We didn’t ask for much, just that he kept his powder dry until the summer. And when he couldn’t manage that, waiting one extra week didn’t seem like too much to ask.
I wasn’t even going to cover Kyogo’s farewell letter. I haven’t read it, to be perfectly honest, and I don’t care what it says. But when I saw that Valle had also posted a goodbye to the fans, my blood started to boil.
Regardless of what the club seems to think – and we can surmise what that is in their decision to let our squad be weakened before this game, tonight still matters to me. It matters to tens of thousands of Celtic fans.
The disrespect shown to our club by these two players slinking out the door won’t be erased, no matter how sweetly worded their goodbyes are.
I can take players leaving, and even the timing of it wouldn’t have made me this angry. But being patronised on top of being let down—that’s what pushes it over the line. These transparent efforts to smooth over ruffled feathers feel like an extra kick on the way out the door. Don’t pretend, to those of us who know better, that you thought about us or the club for even a second while hounding your agents to find you a way out.
Just leave. Do your thing and get on with your career. Kyogo, thanks for your service. Valle, thanks for whatever it was you contributed while you were here. You did what you were paid to do. That’s all you ever had to say to us.
All the rest of it, you can keep. In a mercenary business why pretend to be anything else? Fans are daft … we’re just treated that way a lot of the time.
Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP via Getty Images
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Good point James and totally agree 100% with it…
That is the thing that The Huns spunk their ceilings with and no doubt get plenty of it in the Scummy Scottish Football Media –
Not That I’d know anything about that of course !
But yep leave The Sevco Huns to warp themselves in their little wee snug comfort blankets of lies…
Us Bhoys n’ Ghirls are bigger and better than that and are happy to meet unpalatable truths head on and deal with them in an adult and mature manner !
Clach, some of us will, but sad to say we still have a helluva lot of ‘Happy Clappers’ in our own support
that accept this from ex-players and accept the downright disrespectful and patronising behaviour from our Board.
We’re both players asked to stay until after the Villa game?
Would Kyogo risk being injured?
Some fans still love him
Some fans will think he is a sleekit wee b……
I’m sure Kyogo references goals he scored in *ld f*rm games, I wasn’t aware he was here prior to 2012 lol. As you say James he couldn’t wait to leave us. The blame for this fiasco lies solely with our board however, they did not need to accept Rennes offer or his transfer request.
I think Kyogo has tainted his time at the club in the way he has left. It reeks of a player spitting the dummy & forcing a move.
I totally understand Valle leaving though, he left Barcelona on loan for game time & didn’t get enough of it. No doubt his agent will have been ringing round Europe for teams who will give him a chance.
I thought there looked to be a player in there tbh & it surprises me he couldn’t challenge Taylor but I guess we don’t see the day in day out stuff around the squad.
I also don’t think it’s as big a deal that he has left. He isn’t going to start tonight & was unlikely to feature for more than 10-15 minutes if at all.
I think with Maeda banned & CCV injured tonight is an uphill battle (even more so than it already was) so maybe we just use it to get some young players who will be on the bench some seriously high level experience in preparation for the remainder of the season & next.
Athough Emery had hinted at resting players in his interview at the weekend so maybe we need to be going for the throat here to really put the pressure on if he chooses to do that.
I think players will almost always betray the trust of the fans. As you have described football previously James it is a mercenaries business & that is all they ever are.
Rare to have people who will choose loyalty to the club over the allure of bigger paydays & “bigger” clubs.
CalMac, Forrest, Brown are rare rare talismans we can be proud of.
I dare say KT will slowly creep close to them as I don’t see him leaving the club again unless Celtic were to release him, but at the end of the day he still left like so many others.
While I agree about the long goodbye I think you’re a bit harsh about condemning the players and Barcelona. There must have been an agreement in place with their representatives that they could leave after qualification was achieved. Too much of a coincidence otherwise, so if there is any blame it’s with Celtic’s management for not insisting they stay until after the final game.
As for criticising Barcelona, did not Celtic do the same thing by recalling Dane Murray from Queens Park?
As I said in a previous post .
Fuck kyogo.
Yesterday’s news wrapped around a fish supper .
Anyone, no matter who they are , if they don’t wanna play for our European class team/club.
Can GTF
I don’t care…
Even if the timing isn’t ideal, this assessment is harsh for these players, especially Kyogo. Very reactionary. Green Brigade-esque. Chill out.
If you believe all you read then that’s your fault.
“You want to bye a share in the Sydney Harbour Bridge?”
In Brendan we trust LMAO
What did Moussa Debelle say about Rodgers in his transfer?
Money talks bullshit walks. (See our the bank balance, it’ll tell you all you need to know)
Rodgers never wanted Kyogo and vice versa unfortunately