Elias Jelert Would Solve Two Problems At Once – Which Is Exactly Why I Don’t Trust Us To Get It Done

Look at our full-back positions this morning.

Alistair Johnston is off to Everton.

Marcelo Saracchi has Houston Dynamo circling.

Two full-back slots emptying in the same fortnight, three weeks before a Champions League qualifier.

And the name being floated to fix them is Elias Jelert.

In May I Called These The Two Easiest Deals Of The Summer

I'll take this one on the chin.

Back in May I argued Celtic simply had to buy Julian Araujo and Marcelo Saracchi.

Two players who had already proved they could handle it here. No saga required.

We signed neither.

Araujo's loan ended.

Saracchi drifted, and Boca have now had an offer of around £900,000 from Houston Dynamo for 60% of his rights.

Sixty per cent. Of a player we couldn't decide about for a year.

So forgive me if I'm sceptical about how this next one goes.

Jelert Would Cover Both Sides At Once

On paper, he genuinely fits.

Twenty-three years old.

A right-back whose secondary position is left-back.

Denmark international.

And a market value of around €5m, which against the £12m Everton have bid for Johnston – potentially rising to £15m – is not a number that should frighten anybody at Celtic Park.

He isn't short of medals either. Two Turkish titles. A Turkish cup. Two Danish titles and a cup before that.

For a squad about to lose its first-choice right-back and its cover at left-back in the same window, a player who covers both flanks is exactly the profile you'd draw up.

That's the appeal. One signing, two holes.

But Southampton Had Him And Didn't Keep Him

Here's the part that needs saying.

Jelert spent last season on loan at Southampton.

Southampton held a buy option of €8.5m.

They didn't use it.

That doesn't make him a bad footballer. Buy options lapse for a hundred reasons – budgets, relegation clauses, a change of manager.

But it's a question we're entitled to ask before we get carried away.

Because we've been here before, haven't we? A player available at a reasonable price, with a reason he's available at a reasonable price.

Galatasaray Have No Reason To Blink

This is where it gets awkward.

His contract runs to June 2029.

Three more years after this one.

Galatasaray are under no pressure whatsoever, which means the €5m valuation is a starting point and not a price.

Now think about how we negotiate.

Preparing an offer.

Weighing up a bid.

Monitoring the situation.

We are about to bank up to £15m for Johnston. If we then spend six weeks haggling over the difference between €5m and €8m for his replacement, the money isn't the story.

The hesitation is.

Sell One, Sign One – In That Order Or Not At All

I'm not against selling Johnston. He's 27, he wants the Premier League, and Martin O'Neill has been honest enough to say out loud that a big club turns heads.

That's football.

What I'm against is what usually follows.

The sale completes.

The replacement doesn't.

And we walk into a Champions League qualifier with Anthony Ralston at right-back and nobody at all on the left.

So sign the full-back first, or at least sign him the same week.

Because the problem here was never identifying Elias Jelert.

It's that we already identified Araujo and Saracchi in May.

And we're standing here in August with neither.