Celtic’s media messengers were out in force last night.
Reassuring fans that a transfer summit was underway to discuss getting signings completed in time to face Hearts on Sunday. It is already too late.
Martin O’Neill apparently attended the meeting with Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay. This morning it is training as usual at Lennoxtown. Same faces, everywhere.
On Wednesday it will probably be training at Celtic Park, a three hour flight to Italy and attention switches to facing Bologna.
TIME RUNNING OUT ON CELTIC
There is then less than three days between playing Bologna and Hearts. Travel, warm downs, preparations. Virtually no time to introduce a new signing. Almost certainly someone out of favour at their current club, lacking match sharpness and unfamiliar with the SPFL.
The last time Celtic went to Tynecastle Dane Murray and Colby Donovan came in from the cold. Neither did themselves any favours.
Scott Burns of the Daily Record was first with the transfer summit claim. January 19 is really a bit late in the day for a CEO to stage a meeting after spending the two previous windows selling anyone capable of scoring.
Clearly there were zero preparations in place to strengthen the Starting XI in January. No work done on bringing in strikers or a right-winger. Typical of life under Nicholson.
Soon after the Record story was published Anthony Joseph of Sky Sports told the Off The Underside podcast:
I know tonight they are having an emergency transfer meeting involving Michael Nicholson, Martin O’Neill, James Bell Walker, the new senior scout who came in from Chelsea, and Shaun Maloney.
Last Thursday and Friday the Sky Sports reporter was passing on claims linking Celtic with Callum Wilson and Joe Piroe.
Neither link stood up to any scrutiny. Online they were quickly trashed.
LINKS, KEEPING TABS, ENQUIRING, MONITORING
Celtic have no way of matching Wilson’s current deal at West Ham. He moved there last summer as a free agent. Nothing has changed for the better since then, Celtic’s income this season is significantly down.
Leeds United were never going to do any deal with Celtic over Piroe or anyone else. Google check Paraag Marathe if you struggle with that.
Why would they loan out someone who might come up with a couple of goals to secure their EPL place to a club trying to deny their Glasgow partners a Champions League spot.
About as likely as Tony Bloom agreeing to send Evan Ferguson on loan to Celtic to try and overtake Hearts.
Tomorrow O’Neill, Nicholson and McKay will be travelling together to Bologna. Plenty of time then to find out what excuses to send out via their media messengers.
O’Neill will drop in a few gags during his pre-match media conference, the Scottish reporters will laugh along. And Celtic will be unchanged at Tynecastle with substitute options dependent on the condition of Kelechi Iheanacho’s hamstrings.
7 minutes 40 seconds, Joseph on Celtic’s transfer position.
Any player who can talk English or read English, will know we are a car crash when it comes to recruitment.
Not first choice, not second choice, hell, probably not even third choice….just the cheap choice, the quick fix, the equivalent of radweld in your leaky radiator.
11 days left of the transfer window, and not a sniff of a player.
There is no longer any doubt in my mind that this is a deliberate act.
There just isn’t a club anywhere , where it is glaringly obvious positions need filled, that have suits that incompetent they cannot get it done.
It’s deliberate.
The Tash says no.
Us naughty fans have hurt his tattie peelings, so The Tash says no.
He’ll teach us a lesson, he’s a billionaire, what do we know?
“January is a difficult window to get business done”
“We tried really hard but couldn’t get some deals over the line”
“We had problems caused by German and Belgian tax regulations”
“Nobody wants to take our money!”
Editor: Followed by ‘lessons have been learned’ in the mid February Interim Report.
You forgot “the quality players we want don’t want to come to Scotland”
Yep, another good entry for the tombola of reasons we didnae sign anybody.
Think Lawell has this in a document and any subsequent CEO or Chairman simply cut and paste as it is always the same feckin thing year in year out. Now they always say they will learn … So how come EVERY window they make the same mistakes ?
Now I ask you IF WE did this year in year out … How long would WE last in our jobs ? Let alone get a big feckin bonus !!!
Looks to me MON is past the gag routine joe. He is looking one not happy chappy and why would he.
Any meeting re transfers would have been called by him as in what the fuck is going on here type of meeting. It wont be a fuckin yellow post it reminder meeting thats for sure
If they’ve fu ct O’Neil over I hope he walks
March the c*nts to the summit of Ben Nevis then throw them off it
The Kingston and Erskine Bridges are a lot nearer, would cost a lot less to get to and probably give the same outcome. I’m assuming ‘Peter’ would be included and the irony of ‘lower cost’ would raise much merriment as we celebrated in the Brazen Head or wherever, apres splash!
Behave yersel, Tic Toc. If Big Peter hit the Clyde from that height, a tsunami of epic proportions would engulf half of Scotland. ?
Hail Hail.
Yer right, Magua.
And what a spectacle it’ll be. We’ll go for the Erskine as it’s in a lovely setting and I’ll get ontae the printer. Given our supporters’ feelings toward the fat slug we’ll say £50 a pop, 5000 only and give the £250,000 to the new CFC to make him turn in his early grave as we plan the next moves! 🙂
Pistol Pete would be handing in a cheque of £1 million pounds to the Brit veterans at Erskine before he’d ever spend it on players !