I thought I’d be reviewing Celtic’s game with St.Mirren today but that of course was called off because of the sheer stupidity of Boli Bolingoli.
As we all know now the 25-year-old Belgian left-back plays by his own rules and decided to jump over to Spain a week ago on Monday before returning the following day.
I mean going to Spain for 24hrs? What the hell is the point in that?
Anyway, there’s no point in raking over that one anymore and the fallout has seen our games with both St.Mirren and Aberdeen on Saturday cancelled.
When they’ll be played now is anyone’s guess considering the already congested fixture list we faced.
In the meantime, there has been some good news and that is that after weeks of rumours Swiss internationalist striker Albian Ajeti finally put pen to paper on a four-year deal for around ÂŁ5 million from EPL side West Ham United.
It’s been a long time in coming and the 23-year-old certainly fits the club’s profile.
He’s young with bags of potential and has already he shown he can do it.
Word is the club wanted a loan with an option to buy but West Ham told Celtic to make it permanent or no dice which is an indicator of how badly even the EPL clubs finances are currently being hit due to the ongoing pandemic situation.
His season in East London was a disaster but the Hammers are a bit of a car crash of a club fighting against relegation every year so it’s difficult to judge him on that.
That plus the fact he was only ever given twelve runouts and only three of them were starts.
A better indicator to his form was the previous season he spent in Switzerland with FC Basel where he scored 21 goals in 43 games.
The 17 goal haul in the Swiss Super League 2018/19 made him the divisions top scorer and secured him his ÂŁ8 million moves to the EPL promise land.
He scored 37 goals in 75 games during that spell with the Swiss side and before that scored 14 in 38 for St Gallen on loan also in the Swiss top flight.
In total, he’s scored 57 in 151 games during his fledgeling career and has also secured ten caps for a talented Swiss national side scoring one goal.
With his best years ahead of him, we can expect big things and he also formed an exciting partnership with Mohamed Elyounoussi before at Basel.
The pair scored 14 goals each in the 2017/18 campaign so the prospect of them replicating that form is of course pretty mouthwatering.
With Bayo on a season-long loan to French second-tier side Toulouse, we now have four strong striking options as it would appear that manager Neil Lennon still believes that Leigh Griffiths still has a future at the club despite some naysayers in recent weeks.
Hopefully, this will also mean a return to two upfront though manager Neil Lennon has warned Ajeti might no bet fully match fit until late September which might be around the same time we get back to competitive games at the rate we’re going.
It should also bring an end to the seemingly endless rumours around moves for Steven Fletcher and Ivan Toney though there’s still a long time until the end of the transfer window so who knows.
The focus now will likely shift to defensive reinforcements with Brighton central defender and Republic of Ireland internationalist Shane Duffy being mooted for a possible transfer to help bring around more cover at the back.
Duffy was an ever-present for the Seagulls these past few years playing a major part in them both getting promoted to and remaining in the English top-flight but he doesn’t seem to be in the plans of current manager Graham Potter with his appearances dropping significantly in the last campaign.
If this one comes off though expect it to be a season-long loan deal as Duffy still has three years on his contract down there making a permanent move highly unlikely considering fees and wages.
At 28 he’s at his peak and is the sort of no-nonsense defender we could be doing with and though I still rate big Chris Jullien and Kris Ajer the pair do often play like they aren’t being exerted too much on the training pitch.
If you know you are a guaranteed starter every game it’s inevitable your form will drop.
Elhamed is an option at centre back and indeed it’s meant to be his preferred role but in truth, he’s now firmly placed as the right-back option alongside Frimpong with both giving different facets to that position.
So a definite thumbs up for Duffy if it happens but with alleged interest from Burnley, West Brom and even West Ham who’ve we’ve just bought from also circling I’d file it under speculative.
Another keeper and perhaps another left-back with Boli’s career looking well and truly in the toilet at Celtic are also being rumoured and indeed even last night a story circulating indicated the disgraced Belgian could depart to Amiens in France on a season-long loan with an option to buy whilst we are allegedly looking at Barry Douglas the left back at Leeds as his replacement.
Oh and something about Oliver Burke coming back too which we can only hope there’s no truth to based on his last dalliance with the club though of course I’ll totally back track on that and suddenly find poistives if anything comes of it.
We’re certainly going to need a big squad what with the sort of fixture pile-up we can expect coming our way married to an insanely busy international schedule next month.
All because Boli wanted a secret overnight stay in his Spanish villa.
There are no words.
But enough of that. Here’s the new Bhoy:
....Always A Tim! 