The Taylor debate comes down to just one thing; could Celtic do better?

As somebody who spent the last week lacerating the club over its transfer policy and lack of ambition, I’m going to stand up and speak in their favour for just a moment—and it’s going to be on an issue of contracts and the sort of mindset that exists at the club. This may surprise some people.

Now, I have a number of issues with the Celtic Park wage structure. I think it’s set at far too low a level at its highest point, and far too few players ever get offered that kind of cash. I know there are people who say Celtic is worried about what economists call an inflationary cycle, but I’m sorry—the game has moved on from the days when they could get away with a wage policy like this.

If we want to retain our best players, then we have to make them better financial offers. It’s really that simple. I don’t think we so much fear an inflationary cycle as this being a feature, not a bug. I think the wage policy is quite deliberately designed in such a way as to make players have to move if they want to better their financial circumstances. It’s not in our interests, as a selling club, to make it more attractive for them to stay, especially if they are on long contracts and big wages.

So I think it’s more of a business decision than a football one that we don’t offer a high enough top-level salary, and that we offer it to so few players. I don’t believe the inflationary cycle argument holds water. I think we’re just tight, and cheap, and that this deliberate. That’s the bottom line.

But the simple fact is that there are footballers all over the world earning salaries far in excess of what they are worth. Some of those players have even been on our books. And I think there are a handful of players we could have done more to keep—players who, had we pushed the boat out just a little further on wages, would have stayed. There are also players we might have signed had we been willing to go that extra mile. It’s all about what they can produce on the pitch.

A guy who can put in a top-level performance in a Champions League qualifier—who nets you £40 million—is probably worth pushing the boat out for. Because you’ll get it back. That’s an investment, not money pissed up against the wall.

A player like that boosts excitement in the stands, which sells tickets. He progresses you in top competitions, which sells even more tickets and brings in prize money and puts silverware on the table. There are players who are just worth it. They’re worth pushing the boat out for. They’re worth holding onto when you get them. And they’re worth fighting for in terms of their transfer value.

The reason I bring this up is that there was a “debate” on Go Radio the other night—if you can call it that—where one of the speakers was Stephen McGinn. Now, McGinn had an interesting theory on Greg Taylor.

His theory was that we couldn’t be all that far apart in terms of what we were offering and what Taylor and his agent thought he was worth. His answer? Just throw money at it. And the example he used was hilariously simplistic.

He said that the cost of signing a left-sided defender would be £3 million, and that rather than doing that, we should just give it to Taylor instead.

And this is why Stephen McGinn will never be a manager, why he will never be a negotiator for transfers, and why he will certainly never be a director at a club. Because that might be the stupidest suggestion I’ve heard in the entire time we’ve been arguing about Greg Taylor’s contract.

This is what he said:

“What would buying another £3million left-back look like with wages on top? Just give it to Taylor. I think he has earned it. He won’t be asking to be on the same money as Callum McGregor. It is one of his last big contracts.”

First, McGinn has no idea whether Taylor is asking to be elevated to the same wage level as Callum McGregor or not. He hasn’t got a clue. He’s surmising. And that’s a stupid thing to surmise. But he poses the question, about what it would look like, and that question deserves an answer.

Here’s my answer: if we do it right, a better player.

I like Taylor. Everyone knows I like Taylor. I like his work ethic. I like that he’s a good soldier. I like that he has repaid his transfer fee a dozen times over with his performances in big games. He has been a fantastic servant to Celtic, and he should go with everyone’s best wishes.

But I’m also very clear that Greg Taylor should go in this window. We should be looking to replace him with a better footballer. Let’s not pretend there aren’t better left-backs out there, players we can afford.

This is not sentiment. This is business.

This is not about whether someone “deserves” a contract. Has he earned it? Possibly, on sentimental grounds, you could make that argument. But is he worth it? Is Greg Taylor worth the salary he and his agent want? Or is there someone out there who we could get who would be more valuable on that kind of wage?

I’ve spoken before about Fever Pitch, the best book ever written by a football fan, by the Arsenal supporter Nick Hornby. If you haven’t read it, and you’re a football fan, you don’t know what you’re missing. I urge you—no, I beseech you—to get a copy as soon as you’re done reading this. It’s that good.

As a writer, the chapter Hornby wrote about Gus Caesar, comparing his own struggles with self-belief to Caesar’s travails in his breakthrough season at Arsenal, is one of the finest things I’ve ever read.

But the part of it that’s relevant here is when he talks about how, in creative industries, you can be terrible and still make a living. You can be a terrible sports journalist and still work at a national title—something we know all too well.

But in professional sports, you get found out. There’s no hiding place. You can’t brass-neck it. You can’t bluff your way through it. It’s the ultimate meritocracy, and everyone gets exposed for what they are.

Greg Taylor is not Gus Caesar. Greg Taylor is a vastly better footballer than Gus Caesar ever was. Greg Taylor is a tremendously accomplished footballer. But this is still a meritocracy. This is still about finding the best man for the job. And football is an unforgiving, unsentimental environment.

I think often about the players who have been brought in to take Taylor’s place, and to be brutally honest, some of them have been the result of terrible scouting and a system designed to sign project players.

The last player we attempted to replace him with was Alexander Bernabei. I didn’t understand that signing then, and I don’t understand it now.

Some of this club’s scouting decisions have been poor and perhaps it’s a reflection on that – or perhaps the club deserves credit—that we’ve gone out and signed Kieran Tierney. It seems like an admission of failure in that system, but if fit he’s a better bet than anything we could ever hope to find.

That’s an outstanding signing, but we know we need someone else to play rotation and as a backup and we know that player will cost money.

On balance, it might end up being more expensive to replace Taylor than to keep him. But the real question is this: Can we get more bang for our bucks? If the answer to that question is yes—and we know the answer is yes—then the argument ends there.

Everybody in football has a worth, has a value. Greg Taylor is like a habit that this club has struggled to break. For what he cost us and for what he’s provided, he was more than a good signing—he was some kind of great signing.

But as regular readers will know, I’m a computer buff, and every three or four years, I buy myself a brand-new rig with all the bells and whistles, getting it as modern as I can. It’s not that the old one wasn’t functioning—my computer build from two iterations ago would still run most of the things I need it to.

But that’s not the point. The point is, I wanted an upgrade. I wanted something that ran better. I wanted something that could do more. And that too wasn’t cheap. And some will argue that if the old one was adequate that it was money I spent that, you could argue, that I didn’t have to, and I get that. I just don’t agree with it.

I sometimes compare a football boss to a computer technician, trying to assemble the most up-to-date system he can.

He’ll work with inferior parts if he’s on a budget and has no other choice, but he’ll try to use those parts in non-critical areas to avoid bottlenecks and system failures. At the end of the day, the system has core functions it needs to perform. You might sacrifice a faster processor. You might sacrifice some RAM or a high-end graphics card if you have to. But if you have that little bit extra to spend, you don’t cut corners.

And that’s what Taylor is. Taylor is a very well-functioning part that is coming very close to the point where you can’t squeeze another bit of performance out of him. He sits at the level of a mid-range system. But this is a team that’s trying to go high-end. This is a team trying to do things a lesser version can’t. A team trying to reach a higher level of performance. And you need better parts to do that.

So what do you get if you don’t just throw money at Taylor? You get a better footballer. If you’ve done your homework, if you’ve done your scouting, if you know what you’re doing, you get a better footballer. And this team functions just that little bit better, that little bit sharper, and it is that little bit more robust.

And that is not a slight on Taylor. That is just football reality. That’s life in this harsh, unforgiving, unsentimental meritocracy we all love so much.

Photo by ANP via Getty Images