Celtic Diary Tuesday July 2

With a heavy heart, and the windows barricaded, manager Neil Lennon admitted;

” Paddy has gone. I think he is talking to Birmingham at the minute. I would reccomend Paddy to anyone. He didn’t play as much football as he would have liked last season, but he is a great pro who was well respected in the dressing room, and he was a valuable player for me in the last three years. ”

Paddy McCourt divided the support. Some felt he was a legend in the making, full of the skills of the old Tanner ba’ players. He had an eye for a pass, but couldn’t get to the fitness levels required in the modern game.

Others felt he didn’t do enough when he did get a chance, and , like Aiden McGeady before him, suffered more from the fans when it didn’t go his way.

Footballers like Paddy are rare these days, and its sad to see him go. But, he clearly doesn’t fit in with Lennons  “big strong and fit players ” template. Wherever he ends up, we wish him well.

Lennon has expressed his delight in the boards decision to ditch the globe trotting of previous close seasons to concentrate on the work needed to get his players up to speed for this months Champions League games.

” Those tours were productive from a financial point of view, but maybe not from a footballing point of view. There was a lot of travelling involved, I remember on one trip we missed four or five days of training because of the travelling. To be fair to the board, they’ve backed us again by allowing us to return to Germany…. Its ideal because basically we walk out of the hotel and we are straight onto the training pitch. Its private, there are no distractions, and we’ll get a lot of work out of it. ”

Ah, thats why Paddy hasn’t gone.

Speaking of not going, Pierre van Hooijdonk, who used to play for Celtic until he checked his bank balance, has offered Gary Hooper his advice on moving to England.

” I always believe that going to England is a good move, as long as you play ”

Radical stuff. Although what he means is that Hooper should look to be guaranteed a start every week, and not be part of a squad rotation which would leave him on the bench. Van Hooijdonk hardly ever sat on the bench, because no-one wanted to sit next to him.

Twitter was alive with rumours that Victor Wanyama had sacked his agent Ivan Modia, which if true, would mean that he is at least considering staying. Though reallistically its probab;ly because he had linked the big Kenyan with teams such as Stoke, Southampton and Cardiff, which can’t have helped Vics street cred.

Modia works for Extra Time, an agency owned by Rob Moore. Moore built a publishing house and sold it for millions before moving to Barcelona to set up his agency.  Their clients include , er Benni McCarthy -now retired-and Steven Pienaar, who might as well have retired. Other than that, theres no-one else of any note. Extra Times website valued Wanyama at £4.4m, but that has clearly been re-assessed. The lack of big names on their client list-Vic at £4.4m was their second most valuable, behind Pienaar -now 31-so it may explain their apparent greed when it came to negotiating.

Victor Wanyama is their proverbial cash cow.

You have to feel for young Stuart Urquhart, who is with Sevco. He has Modia for an agent and McCoist for a manager.

Suddenly, asking people if they  ” want fries with that ”  doesn’t seem like such a bad job after all.

Former Captain and podcast legend Tommy Boyd has spoken of the strength in depth at Celtic, and he has a point. With the addition of Virgil van Dijk, there is plenty of cover at centre half now, with Mulgrew, Wilson and Ambrose all capable. Midfield has Kayal, Brown and Ledley fighting for places, and on the flanks and up front there is a wealth of luxuries. And James Forrest.

Forrest wants to make up for lost time, after an injury plagued season, which in fairness could make him a hell of an assett. But if he does struggle,then McGeouch, Samaras, and Commons are all able deputies.

Lennon is on record as wanting to add two more left sided players-even if no-one leaves-  another forward, and some cover/competition for Emilio Izzaguerre.

Wonder if the Daily Record will do one of their famous Three Teams features, like they did with the old Rangers club, who had one team for Europe, one for the league, and one for the cups.

Until, of course, they realised they couldn’t afford it, and crashed headlong into liquidation and extinction, re-emerging briefly as a tribute act in the lower divisions before spectactularly imploding again amidst criminal investigations and admissions of corruption.

(Whoops, getting ahead of myself there. Thats from the July 2 Diary of 2014. )

Fair play to the Record , they have had fans of the new Sevco club screaming like someone had poured holy water on them.

Apparently, in an article last week-or the week before-Pierre van Hooijdonk called old Rangers  cheats , and when they complained -in crayon-the paper said that the current club didn’t exist in 1996.

All true, but to those who keep their ears covered when bad news is about, it was sacrilege. They want to stop buying the paper, stop advertising in it, and burn down the homes of its staff.

Any right thinking reasonable man can see where the bias in the Record lies-those journalists not already in the pay of Ibrox soon will be,  ( except Hugh Keevins, he isn’t good enough even for them. Not while they have Hateley. ) but somehow they have managed to convince themselves that the paper is out to get them.

Yesterday, the Record commented that a “review of the staff is underway, but no redundancies are expected. ”

Rangers websites were full of staff, friends of staff and their carers who would tell you different…

And still they splash out on all the players no-one else wants, to be managed by a manager no-one else wants, to play at a ground no-one else would deem fit for purpose.

They have saved money by tearing up the contracts and paying off Goian and Bocanegra-instead of loaning them out and letting someone else pay them until their contracts run down. They couldn’t even sell them.

Yet their latest Chief Executive still thinks they will be challenging for the SPL title in three years.

Yet their fans still think they can win a cup or two this season.

More to be pitied than scorned.

It  was Fergus McCann who spoke of agents in a way that made you think of bulldogs chewing wasps, and he was right.

Heres another one of those hairs on the back of your neck quotes. Who was it, and when ?

” Cups are not won by individuals. They are won by men in a team, men who put their club before personal prestige. I mlucky. I have the players who do just that for Celtic. ”