The Anyone But Celtic Narrative Now Risks Swallowing Up Lennon Miller

Lennon Miller has won the first of the Player of the Year awards. He’s a stonewall certainty to win the second. It will happen. There’s no question about it. With Arne Engels essentially out of the race because he wasn’t even shortlisted, Lennon will win it by a country mile—and no one will complain.

I have to be honest, I think he’s had a reasonable season without being brilliant. If he weren’t surrounded by all this hype, I might have missed him entirely.

Lennon Miller is a Scottish football curiosity right now. Allegedly wanted by clubs all over Europe, he’s talented, sure, but he hasn’t proved it yet on a bigger stage. Right now, there are a lot of people falling all over themselves to talk about the boys over in Italy, but a couple of those players were signed by very modest teams over there. And the ones making the biggest splash, the two boys at Napoli, were both signed from English top-flight sides.

Scottish football has been identified as an untapped market. But we who watch and play in it every week know why it’s remained that way—there’s just not a lot of talent in it. If part of the calculation from those American investors allegedly eyeing a move into Ibrox involves Scottish football being some hotbed of undiscovered potential, I can assure them it isn’t. We know.

Let me put it this way about Lennon Miller: I like him. I can see there’s a talent there. But he hasn’t exactly towered above his peers, has he? Let’s be honest—he just hasn’t. He doesn’t look like anything exceptional yet. If he did, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Motherwell would have sold him in the January window. Or last summer, when reports of him going to Celtic were rife.

And we all know those reports were rife. We were hearing all this stuff back then about how he was wanted by all these clubs in all these parts of the world. And maybe it’s true. Maybe there is a long list of them battering down Motherwell’s door. Or maybe this is just an agent playing games. Or maybe he’s got some good PR people doing the work on his behalf.

But I’ve always been moved to ask a question: if Miller really is all that, why are so many people in our media desperate to make sure he doesn’t stay in Scotland?

This is a strange country when one of the so-called best young talents to emerge from it in a generation is being advised—and that’s putting it mildly—to get out as quickly as possible. And the reason for that popped out in one hack’s comments yesterday, when he said he hoped Miller would go abroad because only one Scottish club could afford him—Celtic—and he didn’t want him to go there.

This was Ricky Forster, ex Ibrox, of course. But this is not a sentiment exclusive to him or to the ranks of their former players. This is everywhere.

The Anyone But Celtic narrative has been strong around this Miller story from the start. It’s been pushed by everyone, including his former club manager. It doesn’t seem to matter that there was a chance here for a good young player to sign for Celtic and anchor our midfield for the next ten years.

Apparently, that’s the last thing anyone in Scotland wants him to do.

I very much doubt Lennon Miller has spoken to us. I very much doubt we’ve made him any kind of offer. Which makes it utterly absurd for some people to be saying we’re the last club he should sign for. For all they know, we’ve just missed out on the future anchor of the whole team. For all they know, we might make Miller an offer—to become the central figure at the club for the next decade and beyond.

So much for the “he’d just rot on the bench” argument, confidently thrown about by people who have no idea what Celtic’s plans might be. Nobody knows what Celtic’s plan for him would be. This is all just people pushing what best suits their own narrative.

The idea of him staying in Scotland doesn’t seem quite so inconceivable whenever the Ibrox club’s name is mentioned. In fact, if that’s the destination, we’re told he should stay. He’s told he should jump at it because he’ll play every week. It’s only when you remove them from the equation—when you conclude they won’t have the money, takeover or not—that suddenly it becomes a bad idea for him to stay in this country.

And I’ll say it again: this isn’t about Lennon Miller. It’s about Celtic. It’s about how nobody wants to see him sign for us. God forbid a Scottish club should have one of the best young Scottish players to mould into a genuine footballer of quality.

And the same people pushing that narrative are the very ones who are now talking up Ibrox’s “plan” to build a core of good young Scottish players—some of whom include Lennon Miller as a key part, if they could somehow afford him.

And it is shocking, isn’t it?

But this is the narrative that now surrounds the boy—that he’s destined for better things than Celtic. Oh, but if the Ibrox club could scrape the money together, he should go there? Absolutely pathetic. Transparent. Ridiculous. Biased.

All disguised, of course, as concern for the player and his development. But it’s Celtic’s development they’re focused on stopping—by any means necessary.