Celtic Diary Friday January 22: Good News On A Possible Signing

Depending on which way you look at it, I suppose.

With Steven Fletcher hospitalised and undergoing emergency surgery on his split sides after he was told what his basic wage would be, the player may not even give an answer as even thinking about the deal Celtic offered is likely to set him off again.

Maybe this wage cap isn’t such a bad idea.

Well, sometimes, anyway.

There is a little bit of good news for Forrest, though. The charge of “willy waving “, where he was alleged to have forgotten to put it away after going for a pee,  has been shelved, due to lack of evidence -sometimes these things write their own punchlines- and he will be glad to get that off his back. Or anyone elses back, I suppose.

A Crown Office spokesman confirmed: “There are currently no proceedings but we reserve the right to raise proceedings should further evidence become available.”

January is fast becoming my least favourite month. Not only because of the transfer window, but the weather is shocking as well. Endless cold , grey and miserable days, and you have to feel for the less well off this time of year, struggling to choose between food, heating and strong dry cider when it comes to budgeting.

The trouble is, we just can’t believe anything we read in the papers any more, as they have crossed the credibility line as they fight to please an ever decreasing audience.

So we have to rely on drunk people ringing us up and telling us what they’ve heard.

As Desi Mond pointed out on the podcast last night, it’s a good job one of the big English teams isn’t looking for a goalkeeper….

Maybe thats why Michael McGovern seemed desperate to impress the other night…

Despite stories to the contrary, Ronny deila has mentioned three [players who will be offered new contracts. note “will be ” and not “have been ” , which lends a little credibility to what we’ve heard…

Celtic manager Ronny Deila has told The Scottish Sun that Tom Rogic, Charlie Mulgrew and James Forrest could all get new contracts.

We are going to meet this month and things are going forward,”  “I don’t have any doubt he (Forrest) wants to stay but you never know what options a player has. That goes for every player, you can’t have full certainty until the contract is signed.

“Tom Rogic is still going on as well, hopefully we can get a deal done. Charlie Mulgrew is also in that category. The most important thing is getting him injury-free and then we will see what’s happening.” 

The Stefan Johansen “will he stay or will he go ” crisis took another twist when manager Ronny Deila, who has already sold him once, to Celtic, told reporters Johansen was staying;

“We want to keep every player, things come up every day now that I haven’t heard about, Stefan Johansen is staying here, we want to keep him of course. 

Well, it would look like carelessness if he let him go again.

There was more news on Croatian holding midfielder Luban Crepjula..

he  is a player we have watched a little bit and that we want to see more of, now he is training with us. We will see during the week what we do further. 

So thats a “no ” then.

but theres always the one we’ve already got in.

“Sviatchenko is coming tomorrow and he will be at the game but he will not be available to play. It is too early and he needs to train with the team before he gets his debut.” 

Ronny elaborated on this in private, but it was difficult to catch what he said, although the words “Jo ” “Inge” and “Berget ” were mixed in with “do you remember the shite I got for “

Oh, and we’re not going after Michael O’ Halloran either, not yet at least, and St, Johnstone manager Tommy Wright hit out at one club who have offered a derisory bid for the player, ahead of tomorrows visit to Celtic Park;

“Look, if we had the money I would be trying to go and take one of Mark Warburton’s best players.

“Would he value their better players at the level they seem to value Michael at? No, he wouldn’t – and arguably Michael is playing at a higher level.

“My chairman hasn’t discussed figures with me but he will have a valuation in mind and if that isn’t met Michael will remain a St Johnstone player.” 

Calm down, Tommy. he’s not worth it. Warburton needs to choose his words carefully here, Wright is a martial arts instructor in his spare time, and has even released an instructional video;

Meanwhile, let’s take a minute to wish a fond farewell-or is it merely au revoir-to Anthony stokes as he heads out to Hibernian to resurrect his career.

Good luck, tony, and thanks for what you did here. Stokes and Hooper was as good a paring as we’ve seen in recent years, and its sad to see both of them losing their way a bit.

Stokes doesn’t think his Celtic career is over, and he maintains he wants to come back.

‘I speak to Ronny Deila on a regular basis and we have plenty of conversations,’ said the 27-year-old after signing for Hibs until the end of the season. ‘I like him, he’s a good fella. But he obviously doesn’t rate me as a footballer – because if he did I would be in the team.

‘I am not going to focus on anything that’s gone on in the last four or five months. I am coming here with the intention of getting back, enjoying my football, getting as fit as I possibly can and scoring goals.

‘I’m thinking about Celtic. I’m a Celtic player and there’s a year option on my contract and I want to go back there. 

‘I want to help Hibs as much as I possibly can and get as close as we can to winning the title. That’s one of the main reasons I came here, because it’s an opportunity to win something.

‘For me, it’s about doing what I can to help Hibs win the league – but I want to go back to Celtic fit, confident and in the best shape I can be.

‘Am I here to stop Rangers winning the league? Well, it would be nicer for us to win it.’

Us meaning Hibs, and not Celtic, whose player he says he is.

Good luck to him, and maybe he will find what has been missing in Edinburgh.

Another former hero of the hoops is going out on loan as well, as Sunderland haven’t found room in their team for Adam Matthews, who shouldn’t have been allowed to leave glasgow  in the first place.

We wish him well.

And good luck to Gary Hooper, wherever he ends up.

It could all have been so different…

Here’s another chap who went off the rails and into the bottom of the pool after he left Celtic Park, although he was only a fan for the day. Just shows you, it doesn’t get any better after you leave the east end of Glasgow;

It’s Keith Moon, former drummer with popular 60’s combo the Who. For any reader who doesn’t know.

The League clubs have given their evidence that facial recognition technolgy does work, and could be useful after they released results of a trial at a recent lower league game.

Need to watch that lot, they’re sure to be outraged at news that Leigh Griffiths now leads the table of goals per games amongst top European footballers;

No doubt they will be firing off indignant emails to discover why that Waghorn fellow wasn’t in there.

Quite like the look of the Grimsby lad, though, he seems like he might be, er, Celtic minded…

He’s scored 27 in 24 for the Conference side, though to be honest did very little before this season. Still, a goalscorer is a goalscorer, whatever the level, unless, of course, it’s mostly penalties.

Some good answers to the old photo again yesterday, and it was difficult to pick a winner, so you all won !

In keeping with the theme from yesterday, where a picture says a thousand words-or in the case of this one, hints at a longer sentence, what is going on here ?

By the way, have a listen to Jeanette Findlay on the podcast.

Unless, of course, your name is Kenny MacAskill.

In which case it will only upset you.

Jeanette gives an excellent summary of what happened when MacAskill, former Justice secretary, started to first show signs of his illness.

I’m hoping that MacAskill isnt typical of Scottish ministers and their abilities. Although news today that Folic Acid is to be introduced into flour to prevent birth defects is a little odd.

Surely it would be easier, and more productive, to add it directly to chip fat ?