Celtic Diary Tuesday December 30: Celts To Spend Big In January

The senior football pundit in Scotland, Radio Clydes Hugh Keevins confirmed last night that Celtic are about to spend heavily in next months transfer window.

Alright, what he actually said was that Celtic wouldn’t buy anyone in the transfer window, but such is the degree of accuracy over the years in the mans pronouncements, its clear that Peter has given Ronny the debit card and told him to blow the lot.

Theres no need to go over Keevins track record when it comes to his bold predictions, they are well documented, but supporters can take hope from the fact that he is adamant Celtic won’t spend, and thats good enough for me.

Oh , alright. Just one;

I don’t know what I find more laughable; the fact that Celtic cannot find £500,000 from their biscuit tin to sign a proven talent like John Spencer, or the fact that they then spent £300,000 on one of Dr. Jo’s old pals, the unknown Lubomir Moravcik!” 
Hugh Keevins  Sunday Mail; Nov 1998 

I will never tire of reading that quote.

It may be that a couple of players will leave to finance the shopping spree, and despite asurances that Virgil van Dijk is having the time of his life in Glasgow, the papers have begun-or his agent has-to tout him for a move;

Notice in the text of that report a player by the name of Max Diskerud. You know the one. He’s Norwegian and available on a free and the reporter has decided that means we will be in for him. Same as the fellow at Cardiff, whose name escapes me for the moment. The midfielder who was at Manchester Utd but is now also available on a free.

Anyway, Diskeruds father didn’t sound in the least bit desperate to help his son get another job;

“Ronny Deila is a fantastic guy, a good person and is a coach I’ve been following closely, Mix is free to leave Rosenborg.”

This simply shows that whoever Celtic are after, it won’t be in the papers first. clearly, they have no idea who is on Ronnys shopping list.

The first exit from Celtic Park took place yesterday, Jo Inge Berget went back to Cardiff after his haircut failed to impress anyone, and that frees up a place in the locker room for someone else.

He won’t be the last to leave, and hopefully Deila realises that there are other positions to strengthen rather than out on the wing.

Any hopes Celtic had of landing the Dundee Utd duo Nadir Ciftci and Stuart Armstrong appear to have been dashed by United chief Stephen Thompson;

“We are not keen on selling anybody and don’t have to do so.

“But we understand there is a price for everybody and if a club makes an appropriate offer then we will have a decision to make. 

“The important point is we have set the bar at a certain level in the summer and I don’t expect us to move that bar in a downward direction.

“We lost Andrew Robertson and Ryan Gauld but felt satisfied that we had been properly compensated.

“That would have to be the case with any of our players as we don’t have to sell those who are under contract.”

 Although a figure of £6m has been mentioned in the press as the amount it would take to prise the pair away, theres no mention of that from Thompson, but the implication is there in the comparison with Robertson and Gauld.

In fact, what Thompson was really implying was that Celtic could go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

Which is fair enough, because from his point of view when you look at the money previous Hoops regimes have blown on an assortment of unknown diddies, then he is right to hold out for more.

One promising young player from the lower tiers we appear to have missed the boat with is Second Rangers midfielder Lewis MacLeod, who like Norwegian wonderkid Martin Odegaard is wanted by all of Europes top clubs.

Cunningly, though, the player has elected to consider a smaller club for his first step into the big time, and is having a medical at Brentford, with a view to joining the English giants on New Years Day, a fee of £1m already being agreed.

Which will go straight to Mike Ashley to pay him back some of the money he is due.

If only the press had made us aware of such a talent being available, and apparently its only Davie Weir, who coaches for the North Londoners , and his influence that secured the move, beating off other teams who it seems would rather not be mentioned at this point.

Davie Weir. Remember him?

All of this means that the pre closing down sale at Ibrox has begun.

And its not only the players who are going. Unconfirmed reports last night hinted that club kitman Jimmy Bell and his no.2, son Martin have been handed their jotters in a bid to save money. Unconfirmed reports say that the pair were on around £160-170,000 a year between them to clean the kits and drive the team bus at the club.

Nice work if you can get it, and whilst its never nice to see someone lose their job over christmas, this has to be the exception. If only for the mans actions when everyone else applauded the life of Jimmy johnstone, after the wee man passed away;

It could be argued that he preferred a minutes silence rather than the applause, but we hear that Alex MacLeish gave him a proper kicking in the dressing room afterwards, so perhaps that wasn’t the case.

Nobody has come in for Beram Kayal yet, but the stories linking Kris commons with Bolton won’t go away, but again we have to be careful of lazy reporting. Islam Feruz, now finished his loan over at OFI Crete is also looking for a club, and he’s been linked with Bolton as well.

Unless we want the little rat back.

Celtic scoring against Ajax back in the days when both were major forces in Europe featured yesterday, and today we feature two men who did a lot for Scottish football when they began to tear the foundations out of the old club at Ibrox.

Question is, where are they now ?

Those you you concerned that the Ebola virus has been confirmed in glasgow should take comfort from the fact that the city has a modern contagious diseases unit, and Ebola is just the latest in a long line of deadly diseases treated there. There is little or no risk to the public. These guys in the hospital know what they are doing.

However, I’m a little concerned its appeared in the city as it means the virus is now resistant to alcohol.