The biggest open secret in football became reality yesterday-or will do today, officially, when Patrick Roberts returned to Celtic.<\/p>\n
( Diary, August 9<\/p>\n
Oh, Patrick Roberts.<\/em><\/p>\n We hear Brendan popped down to Manchester a few weeks ago to see the Roberts family, and explain to them why he wants him at Celtic, and how it would be in the players best interests to come back.<\/em><\/p>\n We hear there has been a deal done, but its hard to work out whether its a loan or a permanent move. Our drunk at the bar had had too many and couldn’t remember himself what the deal was, but we did find further evidence that he\u2019s definitely coming back\u2026 <\/em>)<\/p>\n So when Chris Sutton goes on about where you heard it first, you know what to tell him.<\/p>\n After considerable negotiations the English youngster ended up where he wanted to be, and where he was wanted.<\/p>\n Cetic may come on for criticism later as it appears to be a twelve month loan deal, and an expensive one at that. But thats why it took so long. Celtic wanted to buy him, Manchester City were willing to sell, but some sources claim that Fulham wanted their bit as well.<\/p>\n Fulham sold Roberts to Manchester City for \u00a35m plus add ons. Roberts didn’t feature at the Etihad, but made a name for himself at Celtic, which annoyed the Cottagers because that didn’t trigger the add ons.<\/p>\n Then, when City wanted to sell, they presumably saw a player doing well, earning money for city, and felt a wee bit left out, or even stung. Manchester city wanted to keep the peace with Fulham, and so reluctantly agreed to a loan.<\/p>\n A similar scenario would have been if Celtic had sold Virgil van Dijk to Southampton for \u00a35m, added on another \u00a37m if he played one hundred games, but the Saints loaned him to Liverpool for a year, who then bought him, giving Saints a profit but nothing for Celtic.<\/p>\n Instead , of course, with news that Celtic will rake in around \u00a312m from the sale of van Dijk to Liverpool, one could just conclude that Lawwell et al are better at selling players than Fulham.<\/p>\n There are a couple of days to spend that windfall, and there are a couple of centre halfs who will be ringing around Glasgow estate agents. Probably from Manchester City, whose fans seem to be a little upset at being relegated to little more than Celtics feeder club.<\/p>\n