Celtic Diary Thursday August 22: Sleepwalking Into Disaster ?

Yuki Kobayashi, the Japanese defender, has joined Portomense of Portugal on a four year deal. They probably paid for him, but no one seems to know how much.

What does stand out about this move, and the others, such as Oh, Seigrist, McCarthy et al,  is that the media were completely unaware of what was going on.

Whereas they seem to be fully aware of the projected moves and costs of those who haven’t left yet.

Atalanta had several well publicised bids for Matt O’Riley, and for whatever reasons, they didn;t land the player. but their failures should have indicated to Brighton that they would have to offer more, which they haven’t yet. Or he’d have been gone, if he wanted to, equally quickly and without all the speculation.

To a lesser extent, that also applies with others who have been mentioned as the subject of interest, such as Hatate (Leicester ) Kyogo (Manchester City ) …though one suspects a lot of that is his new agent planting a story….especially as Celtic just spent a lot of money on his back up, and his dodgy shoulder might mean the agent wants a big move for him before his arm falls off….and Carter Vickers (Unknown).

That’s four key players, and to lose all of them would plunge Celtic back to where they were before Ange Postecoglou took over.

Even our board aren’t that stupid.

Alright, even our board can’t be that stupid.

What we have is a plethora of stories, quite possibly because Celtic are the only club with any players who might even remotely interest other clubs.

Which means the usual rumour mill is centered around one area.

Let’s be honest, even the most gullible mainstream media isn’t going to believe there’s legitimate interest in James Tavernier or Todd Cantwell, and even the jewel in the Ibrox crown, Jack Butland isn’t going to match his Ibrox wage anywhere else.

Truth is, the Glasgow sides have the biggest support, and therefore the biggest readership, so stories about them will be written, and whether or not there’s anything in them is irrelevant.

Celtic possibly losing key players gets both sets of supporters interested, so everyone;s a winner in those circles.

We may yet lose an O’Riley, or any of the others, but it’s worth remembering Brendan Rodgers has said that he wants to add to the squad, not decimate it.

And with interest in a couple or three others, that seems to be his plan.

Let’s see how quickly Mikey Johnston is sold…..now that Burnley has registered an interest.  The players Rodgers wants out seem to go fairly quickly , the ones he wants to keep ?

So far, he’s kept them.

The new third kit is now officially on sale.

Supposedly a tribute to fans, the squiggly bits are scarves and tifos…yeah I know…the designers have clearly overlooked the fact that the purpose of a football shirt should be to enable team mates to find you easily when they need to pass to you.

Real Madrid’s all white may be basic, but results suggest it works.

The hoops are equally iconic, and immediately noticeable in a crowd. If you don’t believe me, take the kids out to a busy event and if they are wearing the hoops I guarantee you’ll not lose them.

God knows, I fucking tried.

Wearing dark shirts makes it difficult to pick out a winger with a long pass. Gary Caldwell the exception of yesteryear, because he didn’t so much as pass, but hoof it in the hope someone might be somewhere near where it lands.

Fair enough, three new contractually obliged strips a year will present difficulties for the design team, but stick with combinations of green and white.

Or, of course, don’t have three new strips a year.

Even the players don’t like the third one, as we can see here as they show their relief at not being chosen to model it

Champions League packages are rumoured to be £200 for the four games Celtic will play at Celtic Park.  It’s going to be difficult to shift them at that price, which works out at approximately £200 a point.

The fear of the board is that the team may have a few meaningless games should things not go to plan, and if they do a pay as you go system, even for season book holders only, sometime around Halloween supporters will have given up.

Getting the packages sold may prove tricky, so expect some sort of gimmick to help push the numbers.

Of course, they could spend some of their, er, cash reserves on quality additions to the squad to enable a realistic chance of qualification for the knock out stages , but that’s perhaps a little pie in the sky given their track record.

Well, not quite pie in the sky. Maybe more pie hurtling past the fecking moon.

It’s not often we get something wrong in the Diary

but yesterday the mention of a share issue at Ibrox appears to be wrong.

I’m devastated to have been caught out by a prankster and can assure you it won’t happen again until the next time.

By the way, does anyone know how I can get my quid back ? I bought two million shares in that place.

Yesterday, we had this….

and a close second….

Then there’s a much more serious point…..

Caption “Jeez, da, we’re weaker than last year and you’re doing hand stands because we re-signed someone we already had’ 

Today…and these two might not want to read the replies…..