Celtic Diary Wednesday January 6: One In, and One On The Way.

And Carlton Cole is going back to West Ham!

But only for a testimonial in March.

The picture above is from Amsterdam airport, which notably  has its own facility for the exclusive use one Dutch player just before he boarded the plane to Glasgow. We should have known then.

The one in is only on trial, but not in the same way that Leigh Griffiths or Anthony Stokes would understand the term.

Norwegian wonderkid-theres a lot of wonderkids around these days-Kristoffer Ajer has leapt at the chance to show what he can do at Lennoxtown, despite interest from a number of top European clubs.

Currently with Start Kristiansand, the 17 year old is  already a regular for his side, and at 6 foot 5 obviously has a lot of physical development still to do.

He’s got a year left on his current deal, but the influence of Ronny Deila might just swing a move to Glasgow for the youngster. Like it didn’t with Martin Odegaard.

“Kristoffer has been allowed to visit Celtic, We got a call from Celtic, and decided that Ajer deserved to get the chance.” 

The trial is likely to see if he will benefit from joining Celtic now, or at some time in the future when there’s less time left on his contract and he’ll be cheaper.

Instead of relying on the Scottish press to answer that most important of questions-is he any bloody good or does his agent need a new swimming pool?-we’ll turn to Christian Wulff, a Norwegian living in Glasgow who knows a bit about fottball over there.

Well, we won’t ask him as such, we’ll just copy his twitter and hope he doesn’t notice.

Ajer’s hype is big; 18 in April he already has 45 (36 starts /7 subs) top flight games with 9 goals and 3 assists + 4 goals in 2 cup games. 

Ajer mostly used as central att. midfielder, quite an unorthodox no. 10 at 6’5” tall! Also been 2nd striker – future is centre mid IMO. 

Maybe the idea is to use him to hold the ball up instead of a lone striker, adding an extra weapon to the attacking armoury…or maybe its just that we don’t have scouts who understand we need more than just midfielders in the team.

Thats the one in, what about the one on the way…

Well, he is currently considering a short term offer from Celtic, on less wages than he used to be on when he was here before……

Er, no. not him. Although he is available on loan, according to the Liverpool Echo.

Not him either.

Don’t even go there.

According to a drunk guy we spoke to-well, listened to-its none other than

But there may be competition for him…

Adelaide United will struggle to be a serious contender this year in any competition unless a goal machine turns up.

Greek international Georgios Samaras, 30, may be the perfect fit. He’s available, has an Australian passport, has scored goals galore for Celtic (48 goals in 156 games) and featured for Manchester City early in his career — but he won’t come cheap.  

Well, it will give us something else to moan about, or cheer about instead of Ronny Deila.

I’ve no idea if theres any truth in what the fellow says, and before we could ask him for some sort of credible source he ran off, shouting something about us never taking him alive.

But then again, a credible source, on here ?

While we’re at it, theres talk in the Netherlands that a striker is on his way…

Celtic have got their transfer boots out and marched their way into contention to sign the wonderfully named Wout Weghorst, according to claims in the Netherlands.

Weghorst is a 23 year striker who currently plays for Eredivisie club Heracles Almelo, and he’s huge. At 6ft 5¹⁄₂ in, Weghorst is a towering youngster who Celtic obviously believe could use his physical prowess to good effect in Scotland.

The youngster was supposed to be moving to Wales with Cardiff City, the club making an approach for Weghorst recently. Cardiff’s attempts were confirmed by Heracles themselves, but Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf say that’s off, at least for now, and Celtic have swooped in to try and hijack things.

There’s no mention of a fee, but this isn’t likely to be a big money transfer, and the most Celtic would be prepared to pay is probably a couple of million Euros.  

Another at six foot five, which makes me think that someone has told the on call agents to get us a six foot five player.

Reminds me of the time i was having a light refreshment with a chap from work who was a scout-if thats the right word-for Blackburn Rovers, who during our chat got a call about a possible prospect.

His first questions-how tall is he ? And how fast is he. ?

Blackburn are currently shite.

But Celtic certainly do need a bit more height, and a bit more strength in the team, its just sending out a call for anyone to fit a certain template as opposed to spotting talent is a little worrying, but it does fit in with a number of criticisms aimed at Ronny Deila.

As you may may have gathered, I’m not comfortable with the way the scouting is done at Celtic, and if it wasn’t for a few successes that have brought in a fair bit of money, there’d probably be cause for change, but as long as the odd gem drops in for a few months on his way to England, things probably won’t change.

With regards to that other target, Aleksandr Pantic, we’ll turn again away from the Scottish press to website The 4th Official for an assessment;

 The 23-year-old central defender has been a subject of interest from Celtic scouts on a number of times and he can possibly the answer of Celtic’s defensive woes. Pantic did not Deila down with his performance as Eibar kept a clean sheet against Real Betis in their 4-0 La Liga win. When a manager travels a long way to watch his target play a game in person, it suggests his level of interest. Pantic can surely be someone who can partner Simunovic very well at Celtic defence.

Pantic graduated from the famous youth academy of Serbian outlet Partizan and made his professional debut for Rad back in 2011. Then he joined Serbian giants Red Star Belgrade in 2012 and played 15 games over the course of one year. He was signed by Spanish giants Villarreal in 2013 but could not become a first team regular at Estadio El Madrigal. He was loaned to Cordoba in 2014-15 and Eibar for this season and doing really well for the Armeros. He featured in a total of 21 games for different youth setups of the Serbian national team.

Pantic has a brilliant ball intercepting ability. He is aerially very strong. He is tactically and technically sound and does not dive into tackles and plays out of danger. He will be a brilliant coup by Ronny Deila and also be available for a much lesser fee as he is out of contract at the end of the season. Any possible deal is likely to be made simpler by the fact that Pantic and Simunovic share the same agent. Blackett is currently on loan at Celtic from Manchester United and the arrival of Pantic will not only add quality in the team but also depth. They also have a relatively younger squad apart from the likes of few experienced ones and Pantic can also gel easily at Celtic Park. 

Ah. Tyler Blackett.

Now theres a man whose agent deserves a new swimming pool. In fact, the SFA should hire him to take over the marketing of the game in Scotland, because he has an unquestionable ability to sell things that are perhaps not quite of the quality the buyer requires.

Incidentally, manager Deila has clarified the position on Blackett;

“Tyler is still here. He has not been recalled by Manchester United. We haven’t heard anything about him going back to Manchester United., the bastards. 

We hear he has tried to contact the United, but every time someone answers and he mentions blackett, the guy at the other end collapses in a fit of giggles.

Meanwhile, there was a pre trial hearing yesterday concerning the former owners of now defunct Rangers and the basket of assets that was sold during its demise.

Court reporter James doelman is typing up the indictments, and he reckons theres about twenty seven pages of them.

Heres page one.. with a big thank you to him for keeping us informed, without fear or favour.

James Doleman

If you want another view on the goings on yesterday, theres also in depth analysis from tv expert Chris Graham;

I wonder what Whyte thinks he’s achieving by taking his ‘lady friend’ to court all the time? Just a misunderstood family man….? 

The amount of charges has risen from eight to fifteen, and its not for me to say, but I think that perhapos we are about to hear a lot more about what went on during those days when the good ship rangers hit the rocks, exploded and went to the bottom of the sea.

And in the following days when everyone said it didn’t.

One day they will make a movie of these shennannigans.

Who will play the main roles-any ideas?