Celtic Diary Friday January 6: Brendan’s Recruitment Plan Revealed

It appears that the bidding war for Moussa Dembele has begun. Or it doesn’t.

It depends where you look.

Starting from a bid of £3m over lunch, by the time we had gone to bed West Ham had increased their bid to £25m. Presumably the first offer was to have the Frenchman on loan until May. The second , more realistic offer, is to have him permanently, and give him the chance to play in the fabled EPL that he turned down in the summer in order to further his career and development as a player.

There has, at the time of writing, been no official confirmation of any bid, and the word on the streets of London, if I may take you by the hand and lead you through them, is that the Hammers just wanted to cheer their fans up as they are not the happiest bunch in the world.

Celtic have said nothing either, but there is a picture, supposedly of one of our board members, claimed to have been taken shortly after he opened an email from the London club

The player has repeatedly said he doesn’t want to go yet, the manager has said he doesn’t want to sell him, and whilst in the past, players have been sold without managerial consent, thats unlikely to happen this time. I’ve a feeling that Brendan would give them the rough side of his tongue should they even try that.

Having missed out on one signing story, that of Koussa Eboue, the media are on their toes making sure they don’t miss out on the next one. Although its fairly obvious that they haven’t got a clue whats going on. Incidentally, although he doesn’t qualify automatically for a work permit, he should get one on the grounds that he would be an asset to the Scottish game, and so the club do not foresee any problems with the player wearing the hoops.

There’s too many players linked with the club to go into it in much detail, but I think i’m onto something after a clue was made available to anyone who wants to understand the thinking behind Brendan’s signings, from Fitzy, on twitter…

Makes sense for me, and that means we can predict with a certain degree of accuracy who will be in next. all we have to do is look for that Ginger streak, though frankly anyone who goes out of their way to deliberately have ginger hair is probably the sort of person who pulls the legs off spiders and and laughs when babies fall down the stairs.

There’s a back up goalkeeper..

a creative midfielder…

and a fiery, all action striker..

The policy continues off the field, when the lovely Geri Halliwell was hired to model the summer range of Celtic gear, after New Balance proved beyond all doubt that they should stick to trainers and golf jumpers.

There’s no football for three weeks, and some of the players are already out in dubai, with the rest of them joining up over the weekend. In a move that will delight the players, their wives and families are invited along as well, with the manager chipping in to cover some of the cost.

Leigh Griffith’s kids were delighted.

This gesture by Rodgers doesn’t sound like that of a man who is here short term, that sounds like a man who is building something, and will be around to live in it when its done.

By taking everyone out to Dubai, he is fostering a team spirit and sense of unity that cannot be bought. If you don’t count the cost of hotels and air travel, that is. Rodgers is putting something together that could well be another glorious chapter in the history of the club.

Davie Hay, former Celtic player and manager , in his Evening Times column, seems to agree..

The imminent signing of 19-year-old Kouassi Eboue does two things for me; first of all it shows that Celtic are intent on doing business and doing business early in the January window but secondly, to my mind, it shows a real long-term outlook from Brendan Rodgers.

I am not saying that there has been any suggestions to the contrary but I think this is a man who is here for the long-term.

I don’t know Brendan on a personal level but I am going to wager that he has never enjoyed his football the way he has at the minute. His team are playing well, you can see improvements in individuals, signings like Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair have had a major impact and so far his team are unbeaten.

There isn’t the finances on offer here that he could have got at Liverpool or by staying in the Premier League but to injure yourself celebrating your team scoring a goal suggests a wholeheartedness that I think augers well for the future.

I don’t think that Brendan will be in any rush to go anywhere.

One of the most frustrating aspects of being a Celtic supporter has been the reluctance of the club to build from a position of strength. Post Seville, the team was dismantled and never replaced, let alone built upon. Too many times in the past, just one or two quality additions would have sen the side move up a level, and one wonders that had Rodgers not been recruited, that would have continued, especially as the cyrrent squad are so far ahead of domestic rivals.

The swift signing of Eboue, and rumours of others, are the most positive actions by the club from a position of strength that certainly I’ve ever seen, and it could be the manager setting up for a serious crack at European success.

Its also worth noting that along with the new players, the boss hasn’t forgotten about those already here who have responded to his ideas, and put in the hard work he asks of them. Craig Gordon, Mikael Lustig , Emilio Izaguirre, and Stuart Armstrong are all to be offered new deals, and are all likely to sign them.

Exciting times indeed, ans there’s no one apparently more excited about it than the boss himself.

Things don’t look so good on the other side of the city, as the scales start to drop from supporters eyes. Not enough to realise they’ve all been fleeced, but enough to make them ask whats going on, and , of course, to offer a practical solution.

Break the bank ?

Like when they could call on the likes of Gavin Masterton, who was always ready to chuck a few bob there way when he was their friendly bank manager ?

The only problem, of course, is that they have no money in the bank, and no credit line to allow them to get any.

Still, he tried, and it looks like he’ll have to wait to see Terry and Lampard pull on the famous blue shirt. Well, the blue shirt designed to look like the famous one.

Over on twitter…

Ah, but what a loan player this one is…

Special praise there for Keith Jackson, who managed to get Christian Ronaldo, arguably the best player in the world, who won everything there is to be won this year, at both club and international level, into the same sentence as Rangers, who were placed into liquidation and replaced by a basket of assets with a convicted fraudster in charge.

In fact, despite a strong entry from Michael Grant of the Times, who suggested  ( see yesterdays Diary ) that he would like to see the Supreme court allow those who cheated the taxman get away with it, Jackson pipped him at the post with that nonsense above, to become the first man to win a second Etims

Knob Of The Week

title.

You do know that when he refers to himself as an award winning journalist, this is the one he is referring to, don’t you ?

He did pick up a couple of best sports writers awards, but thats not really an achievement in Scotland when you consider the opposition, so its only right that  he should be proud of our gong as the competition is much more intense.

Such as this wonderful effort from the uniquely talented Kris Boyd,

Which leads us into yesterdays caption competition…

Andy Walker, is of course, the odd one out, being the only one in the picture to have won the Knob of the Week award.

Though a few of you were close, and you were all quite correct. He is whatever you called him.

Today, we have this one, and we’d like to know what he could possibly be teaching..

By the way, does anyone know this woman, spotted at the darts….?