If one of those things that annoys you to the point of winding down the car window and shouting that its only November is the plethora of Christmas lights appearing on peoples houses, then the transfer window rumours must be driving you doo lally already.

After all, its only November.

But that hasn’t stopped the professional rumourmongers from trying to sell papers.

Conor Hourihane is the latest to apparently appear on Brendans radar, and if that doesn’t get your dander dandified, then there’s no hope for you.

Hourihane currently plays for Barnsley, and he will be out of contract in June, so he will be available for around half a million or so. even at that, Barnsley will be doubling their outlay on him,as he joined them for a quarter of a million in 2014 after spells at Sunderland, Ipswich and Plymouth.

Its at Barnsley where he has made his name, though, and as recently as August was named Championship player of the month.

That was enough to prompt Barnsley into opening talks on a new contract, but the Sun says he wants to move, so thats that then.

Another name on the list is Jordan Mutch, who has also done his time in the championship, impressing most at Watford which got him a £6m move to QPR, which frankly doesn’t count as a £6m move as they just buy anyone who is available , preferably someone who is not wanted by anyone else.

So the Guardian’s Secret Footballer reckons, anyway.

Mutch then moved to Crystal Palace and he’s fallen out of favour there as well. So its only natural to assume Celtic would be after him. That one is from the Record, which gives me the impression the papers have got a list of Championship players and are sharing it between them.

Steven Gerrard will decide today whether or not he’s going to try his hand at management with MK Dons, though quite why the club want him, or he’s even considering the job is beyond me.

What does he know about that level of football ? What does he know about what is required to succeed at that level and how can he possibly identify with players who are not on 50-60k a week. If m, as expected, Brendan can talk him out of it, then he’ll be at Celtic to learn his trade, and not floundering among the kick and rush leagues.

Another name mentioned-this time a centre back, is Charlton’s Ezri Konsa, and under European Ridiculous First Name rules, recent signings of Kolo, Moussa and Scott mean we may struggle to get this one over the line, but to be honest, of the players mentioned, he looks the most promising.

For a start, he’s been at chalrton sonce he was twelve, and has worked his way through the ranks. A bigger club and a new challenge is the next natural step for his career, and moving to an EPL side would see him stall. Thing is though, he’s atraacting a lot of attention, even though he only made his Charlton debut early this season. Which tells me there is something about him.

It may be that Brendan has decided Simunovic is not going to be the player to play with Sviatchenko, and this lad is. Or at least, he can be eased into that position under the watchful eye of Kolo Toure or  John Kennedy, as one of those has turned the sieve of a defence into one that has kept seven domestic clean sheets.

Maybe the press have got wind of the fact that Brendan is going to make a few changes in the next window.

Almost certainly on their way out are Kris Commons-remember him?-, Efe Ambrose, Nadir Ciftci and more than likely Nir Biton. Thats from reading the signs. If a big offer comes in for Moussa Dembele, he’ll go as well, but only if he wants to. Which he might not, as he seems settled enough, and is enjoying himself, but i still can’t take to him, and I don’t know why. It might just be that I’m not expecting to have him around for long, and so its not worth going through the heartache of when Larsson left.

You’d expect the likes of Gary Mackay Steven, Liam Henderson, Dedrryck Boyata and probably Calum MacGregor to be on the move as well.

Maybe even Christian Gamboa, who hasn’t staked a claim for a place at all, and if he is moved on, that will show an impatience in the manage,ent team , which combined with ruthlessness, should ensure anyone else who comes in will know exactly what is required of them.

Dorus de Vries has been handed his ticket out of Celtic Park too, but he was out of position  and dropped it.

If Celtic are to exit Europe altogether before the window opens, I’d expect the manager to be building for next year immediately, and this will mean more than a few changes.

Whilst the siging of Dembele has been a success, it would be foolish of the management to think that every player who has seen his career stall in England is going to turn out to be a revelation, but there is no doubt that there are some disillusioned with the game down there, if not the money, and finding them and assessing them is going to be a lot harder than just working through a list.

Rodgers needs to know enough about the player to see if he is no longer bothered about the money, and genuinely wants to fight to get his career back on track. The wages down south have made a few more players find a little niche and make a damn good living from it. going from club to club every year or two makes them very wealthy, and that can take the edge off their desire to make a name for themselves.

But when you find the right one, you’ve possibly even got a player who willwan tto stay and give something back to Celtic.

Dembele doesn;t fall into that category in that his career certainly hadn’t stalled. He decided not to go down that path, and that may mean he’ll be with us for a while yet. I’d like that to happen, but I’m unconvinced, which is strange, becuase sp far-just by moving to Glasgow, the player has shown that he’s in it for the non financial rewards.

Whoever goes this January however, there seems little doubt there will be quite a few of them.

Elsewhere, the build up to the League Cup final has begun in earnest up in the north east, where they have a full week to prepare.

One supporter even decided to take his better half for a slap up meal  to ensure he got the full weekend off next week…

He had to really. Other Dons supporters have seen their partners do everything they cam to prevent them making the arduous trip south..

Happily , that game is on BT sport, so we can guarantee a decent build up to it, and decent coverage. I’m still working on the possibility of heading north, but there are one or two obstacles to overcome.

Well, one in particular.

I made an arse of her birthday last week, so I’m in bad books. How was I to know I’d bought the exact same card last year ?

I blame the garage for having it on sake two years running. Problem is, she still thinks I dug out last years card and gave it to her again, because I forgot.

And it didn’t help that one of my sons didn’t order her present until late the night before, so it was delivered Friday, a day late, making it look like we’d all forgot, which in turn allowed her to justifiably call us a set of ungrateful bastards who she is sick to fucking death of.

As you can imagine, mentioning League cup finals at that point would have ended in tears.

Mine.

Doesn’t matter what I say, she’s convinced we all forgot, and thats that.

Speaking fo wee disagreements, a little tete a tete has broken out on twitter, between Phil MacGhiollabhan, author of Downfall, which lovingly describes the events up to and including the death of the original Rangers, and Keith Jackson, who lovingly describes whatever the fat controller tells him to.

It all began with Phils article which claimed there was a meeting between Traynor, who has set himself up as a sort of cross between Josef Goebbels, Joseph Stalin and Joseph Pasquale, and a number of journalists, including Martin Williams of the Herald group, Chris Jack , the “rangers ” blogger and Jackson.

The aim of the meeting was to encourage the hacks to go after the blazers at the SFA, which may explain Williams highlighting the petition i started in both the Herald and the Evening Times, neither of whom were previously kindly disposed to the Resolution 12 issue.

Jackson has written once or twice in favour of Regan being forced out at Hampden, and there are stories that Martin Bain is being lined up for his job, with Alex McLeish replacing Gordon Strachan as Scotland boss shortly afterwards.

With allegations that Dave King, the man currently in charge at Ibrox-if you don’t count Traynor holding the SFA to ransom as he is in possession of potentially damaging information on the SFA activities at the time of the original club going down the pan, there is little doubt something is afoot, but the questtion is what ?

Maybe Regan isn’t playing ball anymore.

He may have disagreed , for instance, with the Ibrox clubs valuation of a years rent for Hampden.

He may have decided that he’s fed up covering up for the Ibrox club and their financial situation.

Maybe they are afraid that he will defend the decision to allow Celtic to visit Ibrox on New Years Eve, and maybe he will say why..which is presumably to help the Ibrox club with policing costs, which will be considerably lower than on New Years Day…

It all promises to be a christmas pantomime the likes of which has never been seen before, and the capacity for hilarity is even greater than when the first lot went down.

Whatever the reason, Jackson has denied such a meeting ever took place, but unfortunately for him, his credibility is at an all time low, after his wealth off the radar story, his Cup final exclusives and his refusal to answer my questions on whether or not he got the one on one audience with the SFA he desired around  the time I first got involved with the Resolution 12 guys.

So, who is right ?

Did a meeting take place, or is it merely a ploy by the Fat Controller to flush out one of Phil’s sources ?

Or is it all just a game to prevent anyone paying too much attention to their AGM this week ?

After all, with Januarys window about to open, the fans will want to know how much King is going to give Warburton..

Perhaps the big picture is important here, which is the level of influence that Level 5 PR has over the Scottish media, something that it really doesn’t need in a time of falling sales.

And , of course, falling credibility. Their reluctance to take up the two Offshore Game reports into corruption or collusion at the SFA is damning, and after the SFA are cleared out, perhaps its time to clean out the media.

It’s a big ask, but the whole lot needs to be changed, as they are doing nothing to enhance the games reputation, and indeed, may drive sponsors away, tv companies away and leave us all wondering why we didn;t sign that petition the guy at etims keeps harping on about.

This one.

petition-link

If nothing else is certain, the fact is the supporters of all of Scotlands club are going to have to force change, becuase no one else will.

Speaking of petitions, you might want to add your voice to this one, set up by the man behind ” Anyone But Celtic “, Paul Larkin..

Scottish referees must declare football allegiance

and membership of all secret societies.

Anything that brings out , or tries to bring out the underlying stench of corruption in our game is well worth backing, and you can sign it here.

https://www.change.org/p/make-referees-declare-their-loyalties?recruiter=158907509&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

Hopefully that will work, if not, try this..

referee-petition

Remember , the more pressure we put on them,. the more likely they are to crack.

The stubborn refusal to accept reality continues at Ibrox, and to an extent, the Daily Record..

Rangers ace Andy Halliday insists Ibrox men still have Celtic in their sights as he says second place is ‘not an option’

No it isn’t, and neither are any of the top four or five places. They’re not up to it, no matter how well they think they’re doing.

Halliday said;

“I said the same at the start of the season and I’ll say the same again – and with no disrespect to Celtic – but we can’t settle for second.

As with the “same club ” mantra, it appears that lot think that of you say something often enough that makes it true.

There was a bizarre incident over in Sweden where Jordan Larsson, son of Celtic legend Henrik, had his shirt ripped off his back by his own fans at Helsingborg after the club were relegated, which prompted Dad to tell reporters..

“If they had turned on me, I’d have been beaten, but some of them would also have been beaten. But I was not going to run.” 

Time to bring him and his boy home. I’m sure we can find a place for both of them.

Henrik Larsson was also the subject of an insightful piece by Scotlands greatest ever Striker, Kris Boyd, who outlined the reasons why the former Rangers man is the top dog..

Apart from the revelation that Larsson scored the majority of his goals in the League, co incidentally where he played the majority of his games-could there be a link ?-the implcation that Boyd had a better record and Larsson didn’t do so well in Europe is a little misleading..

In fact. Larsson scored more goals against Celtic than Boyd, and that kind of puts the matter to bed.

Yesterdays cheeky-see what I did there ?-picture of the girls rowing team at ?Glasgow university

prompted a few alternative explanations, with one being more in line with the theme of the Diary than others, and certainly worth a shot if you ask me…

jimmybee November 20, 2016 at 2:54 pm · Edit · Reply →

Caption: Celtic show how to stop barca,as their cheerleaders line up behind the goal Celtic are defending.

Meanwhile, can someone explain this..?