Quirky Jackson reveals his Clement to Celtic fantasy

Keith Jackson has stitched together a bizarre scenario in which Pep Clement could be weaving his managerial magic over Celtic this season.

The media obsession to link two Glasgow clubs together at every opportunity is week known but this one seems bizarre in content and timing.

Apparently the Belgian was one of the preferred candidates to replace Ange Postecoglou with his sacking from Monaco coming between Celtic’s Scottish Cup win over Inverness Caley Thistle and Spurs appointing the Australian as their boss.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of Celtic knows that ultimately Dermot Desmond is the decision maker regardless of who is drawing a salary as CEO or Chairman. In almost 30 years with the club he has never given an interview to a Scottish newspaper, the thought that he is leaking tales to a reporter like Jackson is extremely remote, extremely.

Desmond’s contact book rarely extends beyond England with Irish managers and former Celtic bosses prominent.

Before his departure it had been heavily speculated that Postecoglou was a target for Spurs, a week after being sacked by Leicester Rodgers was watching Celtic at Hampden in the company of Willie Haughey. Sometimes joining the dots is very obvious.

Until last week Clement had been outdoing Giovanni van Bronckhorst in terms of boredom, after drawing with ARIS Limassol he came up with a couple of headline grabbers with his views on parenthood and claim that drawing at home to ARIS is a sign of progress, not Progres.

Additionally he humiliated the golden boy, Todd Cantwell with a 35^th minute substitution that drew a petted lip and a long slow walk off the pitch without eye contact to his gaffer.

Faced with all that for his Monday morning Daily Record column Jackson opted to look in another direction entirely with:

Here’s a quirk of fate of which not many will be aware.

Around eight months ago, when Big Ange first dropped the Spurs bomb on Celtic, the name of Philippe Clement featured high up on a very short list of preferred potential candidates to replace the outgoing Australian.

Yes, at that time the Belgian was still taking home a fat tax-free wage from Monaco which might have proved problematic around the negotiating table even if his long term job prospects in the Principality were already the subject of some serious speculation amidst suggestions of a splintered dressing room.

And, in any case, once Brendan Rodgers had answered the call from Dermot Desmond, the whole process was put on hold for as long as it took to persuade the Irishman to bring his planned year-long sabbatical to an early end.

In other words it was a conversation which never really got off the ground but the fact remains that Clement was a person of considerable interest at a moment in time when Desmond and his board of directors needed to find a credible fix to a Postecoglou sized problem.

Exactly, a call that never really got off the ground. Here’s a quirk, print sales of the Daily Record will drop through 50,000 next year with October website traffic down 20% on last year.