Celtic Diary Thursday January 14: Loan Market Bouyant This Time Of Year

Talks have apparently begun with Manchester City over a short term loan deal for Bersant Celina, another one of those Norwegian wonderkids we keep hearing about. The player wants to play football, and that isn’t going to happen at City. However, its quite worrying that the deal isn’t going to finish up with the player as a permanent fixture at Celtic Park, so one wonders if there is a point to it. Don’t the club know Steven Fletcher is available on a free ? Oh , hang on, I’ve just answered my own question. The problem with loans is the player has to go back, as with Jason Denaayer, as if they are succesful, they end up out of our price range. Okay, it may lead to other signings, such as was the case with Dedryck Boyata, oh, hang on, theres no point in finishing this sentence.   Deila is on record as saying that he wants to bring in experience this month, as the trialists already here are still needing to take ID with them when they go out for cigarettes.

“Of course, we’re not looking at someone who is on the Ballon D’or list, It’s not going to be them.

“It is players who have been important in their teams – that’s what’s important for me.

“He [Ajer] is not a player who would immediately be a big part of the Celtic first team. It can be also that he stays in Norway for half the season, also to finish school.

“We have to see the whole package. He would be a project. He is a ‘98 kid, so he’s very young.

“We want players who have played games before and who can come in and do something now.

“That is the important thing.

“We have a lot of talent and we need someone who can lift the whole squad.” 

Peter Lawwell was standing nearby, and he only heard the words “Ballon d’Or list “

A marquee signing ?

The club’s retail sector is concerned that shirt sales indicate that there is no big name at Celtic, they can tell by what names go on the back of shirts ,as the last real big seller was Kris Commons, and it is a sign that the support is becoming apathetic.

Other signs, which you would think they would have spotted, include large numbers of empty seats during matches and the comments on social media these days.

Looking at the possibilities perhaps indicate that the clubs idea of a marquee signing is perhaps a little different from the supporters.

We’ve mentioned Steven Fletcher, and earlier in the window we mentioned Georgios Samaras, who is on the list, but a little further down than expected, and lets be honest, thats not going to have the crowds flocking to buy the temporary tops supplied by New Balance.

And anyway, there’ll be three new ones next season.

So maybe the marquee signing will be in the summer, which doesn’t make sense. If that is the case, then we’ll be playing qualifiers while he’s still trying to talk his missus into living in Glasgow, which isn’t so bad and is nothing like it is portrayed in the Taggart episodes.

The police are far more miserable than that, and carry guns now as well.

Any major signing would have to be now, and as we know its difficult to get anyone of a decent calibre to move in January, unless they are miserable where they are.

And lets face it, the weather being what it is just now would make most hide at the back of the plane until it took off again.

In an ideal world, we’d be getting in a player or two to put bums on seats and create a buzz for the run in, but we don’t live in an ideal world, and thats not entirely the clubs fault.

The Steven Fletcher story is moving quickly, unlike the player, and he may be the answer.

Sunderland aren’t a great side, and most players would struggle there.

Ask Adam Matthews.

So maybe he would do well alongside Leigh Griffiths. It would be worth a shot, but not at the expense of Griffiths, who is, and must remain, first choice.

Which leaves the Norwegian out in the cold, as there is no way a loannee needing games should displace our number one striker.

Scott Brown may be ready to return to the side a  bit sooner than expected. He’s been running around at Lennoxtown, and that has delighted Ronny Deila;

“It is unbelievably positive for us. I think we have done well without Scott but everyone knows how important as a player and as a person he is to the club and the group. “He is smiling and we are smiling when he is out running. He is like an 18-year-old boy when he runs and hopefully he can progress a little bit quicker than we hoped. Things seem positive but there is still a little bit to go. “We were looking at the middle of February but we will see how he progresses. “Scott is a really important person in the group and in the club. “He’s here every day in training and he is at every game as well. “Scott has a positive effect on everyone, but his biggest influence is on the pitch and we look forward to getting him back.  “His body heals very quickly and hopefully that will be the case this time.” At Lennoxtown theres a wee room, and whatever it is that helps Brown’s body to heal so quickly is the subject of a wee experiment, involving Derk Boerrrigter; The Scott Allan saga of the last window may be out to repeat itself as Celtic “monitor” developments on Michael O’Halloran , the pacy St. Johnstone forward. As with Allan, Second Rangers have opened the bidding at ridculously low amounts. apparently offering thus far £110,000 and £145, 000. For a city trader, he really has no idea about the football market. Probably explains why he’s not a city trader any more , come to think of it. Of course, it could simply be that the Ibrox club is a bit short , like anyone ekse this time of year, and hoping that , well, the lord only knows what they are hoping, but it certainly isn’t anything realistic. Celtic may make a bid, purely to strengthen our own squad, and not to annoy the first division leaders at all. The paltry offers made by the new club show that they still think they only have to click their fingers and players will jump at the chance of playing for the worlds most successful club, but they don’t, because they aren’t. This might change when Dave King opens his warchest, believed to contain around £30m in unmarked bills, but lets be honest, it’s unlikely.   Anthony Stokes now has a third club to choose from, as an agreement to take him on loan has been arranged with Dundee United. The player will choose where he wants to go.   One player who , well, up until yesterday, is going nowhere , is Stefan Johansen. The midfielder, one of our better players agreed to a Q and A on Twitter, which probably wasn’t the cleverest thing he’s ever done. However, supporters proved , when a player is maybe short on confidence, their experience of playing FIFA whatever on the computer, serves them well when dealing with the issue; They may think its clever, or witty, but frankly, its pathetic and any player would think twice about joining, or indeed staying at, Celtic given this kind of abuse.