Celtic Diary Wednesday July 17: A New Direction ?

The first Celtic player to score in this seasons Champions League is Johnny Kenny, on loan at Shamrock Rovers, who beat Vikingur Reykjavik 2-1 last night in Dublin.

That gave them a 2-1 win on aggregate and they now face Sparta Prague in the next round, after which they’ll drop into the Europa League.

Whatever way you look at it, we have the luxury of a champions League level goalscorer out on loan.

So if we don’t get Adam Idah we can always bring him back.

Three players are in, with Idah still either under negotiation or not, depending on who you believe, but the switch of attention to the fellow from Antwerp could well be an indication Celtic have dropped their interest in the Norwich forward.

The squad have flown out to the US, and as expected, Matt O’Riley was on the plane.

That means he isn’t angling for a move, and no one has put a bid in that Celtic are taking seriously. Lawwell wouldn’t pay someones fare halfway round the world if he wanted out.

Paolo Bernardo is happy enough with his deal it seems, reported in Portugal as being around £16,000 a week, though the clubs are still arguing over percentages of a future sale, with Benfica clearly remembering how much Jota went for.

Viljami Sinisamo is done and dusted, he joins as back up keeper from Aston Villa, and despite a crude video of a couple of his mistakes he made, presumably when he was in his school team, the reaction from Exeter City  , where he was on loan, and Aston villa fans , suggests he is certainly one with potential.

And he’s a likeable lad as well.

In fact, he was keen enough to get ready for the trip to america before the deal was announced.

Celtic TV has an interview with him, and he went through the usual niceties of being excited about joining a big club, but stopped short of saying he used to watch our games growing up in Finland.

At least the weather won’t bother him. Compared to the Baltic state, where it really is baltic, Glasgow is a virtually a tropical paradise.

Kasper Schmeichel hasn’t had his medical yet, but it isn’t seen as a problem.

Speaking of Celtic TV, if you subscribe to them there’s all sorts of footage from the current tour. In one fascinating clip there was film taken of a plane window, and another shows the players walking into a hotel.

Mind you, the blue chip signing may be closer than we think….

And Fabrizio Romano, a journalist who doesn’t work in Scotland, added….

Aston Villa want more than initial €55m bid from Al Ittihad for Moussa Diaby. He’s considered as important player by Unai Emery, talks will continue with Al Ittihad. More round of talks are also needed on player side in terms of financial/contract agreement. 

If this is indicative of Al Ittihads plans for the season, then poor old Jota, who must be feeling that if he fell in a bucket of boobies he’d end up sucking his thumb, might well be available on loan.

Or he could just run away, and grow a beard or something.

Though he’d have to take a wage cut.

Elsewhere, and the deal that allows “rangers ” to play at Hampden in case their own ground falls down has raised a couple of questions.

Not in the mainstream media, obviously, to think they’d want to get involved is naive at best and downright silly at worst.

But since no one is asking any pertinent questions, such as how much they are paying, when they are paying it and where the money is coming from, suspicions of dodgy handshakes in the corridors of power are rising again.

The SPFL have a twitter page.

There are signs, maybe only small ones, but they are there.

However, having said that, i think we have to go some way to match the optimism shown by this fellow….

Though I think I may have spotted the guy who should be on the end of the phone when clubs ring up to ask how much we want for our players.

Yesterday, we had this….

Today..