Time to focus on Gineitis and Sigur – Celtic need reinforcement in midfield, and fast. Nicholson still has plenty of work to do…
With Arne Engels gone and no replacement in, Silent Mike is once again gambling with Champions League qualification...
Eric Knott Michael Nicholson sat in the directors’ box at Tannadice on Saturday night and watched his football club win 4-0.
Five months ago he sat in that same stand and watched us get beaten 2-0.
With a section of the support letting him know precisely what they thought of him and his boardroom chums.
Same ground.
Same suit, probably.
Completely different night.
Ryan McDonald in the Record reckons Silent Mike could have sat there with a cigar in his mouth this time, and do you know what, he’s not wrong.
Twelve wins on the bounce since that night in the Tannadice sandpit.
Kasper Hogh leading the line, Camilo Duran off the mark, Benjamin Nygren with three goals and three assists in three games, Sebastian Tounekti scoring and creating on a rare start, and Auston Trusty heading in a corner that came straight off the training ground.
United hit the woodwork five times and it didn’t matter a jot.
That is what happens when you actually sign footballers.
But here’s the bit of McDonald’s article that matters, and it’s the one line the happy clappers will scroll straight past.
Nicholson still has plenty of work to do in the transfer market.
Indeed he does.
Because while we were all enjoying ourselves in Dundee, the midfield was quietly being dismantled behind us.
Arne Engels, gone to West Ham for £22 million on Saturday night.
Paulo Bernardo, gone.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, suspended for the LASK double-header, because of a three game ban dating back to his time at Besiktas in 2023 that nobody at Celtic Park appears to have known about until last week.
A three game ban from 2023.
Two years old, sitting there in a UEFA filing cabinet.
And our manager only found out about it days before the biggest tie of our season?
Somebody was paid to check that.
Anybody?
I’ll wait.
So let’s do the sums on the engine room, shall we?
Sold: Engels.
Gone: Bernardo.
Banned: Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Signed to replace them: nobody.
That is the midfield Martin O’Neill takes into a Champions League play-off on Wednesday night.
I’d love somebody to explain to me how a club that has known Engels was leaving since roughly the middle of July hasn’t got his replacement in the building yet.
I wrote yesterday morning that Michael Gannon had turned up with a brolly to burst our bubble, and that the annoying thing about it was that he wasn’t entirely wrong.
This is exactly what he was talking about.
The £30 million splurge was a B minus, not a triumph, and a B minus that leaves you starting a Champions League qualifier with a threadbare midfield isn’t even that.
The two names are Gvidas Gineitis and Niko Sigur, and both of them have been on our radar for months.
Months.
I wrote about Gineitis on the first of July, when the story broke that Celtic had ‘eyed’ the Torino midfielder as the Engels replacement.
Seven weeks ago.
At the time I said that this particular ‘target’ would be one that was conveniently missed, because the asking price was north of £8 million and the board have a documented allergy to any number that starts with a different digit than three.
Sigur of Hajduk Split was in the Record’s list of six targets last Thursday.
Neither of them is a new idea, neither of them has appeared out of thin air, and neither of them is signed.
We have had this identified since the height of summer and we are still ‘in the market’ with a deadline tomorrow.
And that deadline is the whole ball game here, because there are two of them and only one of them counts this week.
The UEFA list for the play-off closes at 11pm on Tuesday night.
Not the end of the month.
Tuesday.
Anybody signed after that is a wonderful addition to our league campaign and completely useless to us in Austria and at Celtic Park in the return.
So the question isn’t whether Celtic will sign a midfielder in this window.
The question is whether Celtic will sign a midfielder who is allowed to kick a ball in the tie that decides our entire season.
Those are two very different questions, and I have a horrible feeling our board only understands one of them.
Now, before anyone accuses me of raining on Saturday night, I’m not.
That was a terrific performance and a proper away day.
Hassan and Baur got their debuts off the bench, Nygren has taken over the set pieces and looks like he’s been doing it for years, and this squad is unrecognisable from the one that got booed off in March.
Credit where it’s due, the club has moved, and it has moved further than most of us expected.
But moving further than we expected is not the same as moving far enough.
We are three days shy of the biggest ninety minutes of the season with no Engels, no Bernardo, no Oxlade-Chamberlain, and no goalkeeper, and the club is still ‘monitoring’ a Lithuanian it has been monitoring since June.
Make no mistake, this is simple.
Let’s get Gineitis done.
Get Sigur done.
Get one of them done, at least, and get them registered before eleven o’clock tomorrow night.
Because there is one number in all of this that I cannot shift out of my head, and it isn’t £22 million.
It’s £40 million.
That’s what last year’s failure cost us, and last year’s failure also began with a fortnight of promises and a squad that wasn’t finished when the whistle went.
Nine attempts at Champions League qualification.
Seven bellyflops.
The pattern doesn’t break itself, and it certainly doesn’t break because we put four past Jim Goodwin’s side in a League cup tie.
Silent Mike has spent the money, and I’ll give him that.
But just remember this, the net spend is now positive by £2 million.
Positive, as the net spend generally always is at Celtic.
Waiting around to see if we land that fabled £40 million before spending anymore on transfers over the next ten days or so won’t cut it.
We are back gambling again.
Our midfield on Wednesday night could line up as Nygren, McGregor, Baur and possibly Reo Hatate or Luke McCowan.
Hatate has already checked out of the building, so that leaves McCowan outside of him.
Mika Baur is only in the door.
It would be a lot to ask him to slot in seamlessly and perform on an occasion such as this.
Doesn’t exactly fill you full of optimism, does it?
9 attempts, 7 failures.
Do we really want to make it 8 out of 10?
Silent Mike has about thirty six hours to spend money on the one position that could actually cost us the tie.
The brolly is on the shelf in the shop, and it’s raining on Wednesday.
Buy it today…
Key Takeaways
- Michael Nicholson experienced a contrasting Tannadice night, celebrating a 4-0 win after facing criticism during a previous loss.
- Despite recent victories, serious midfield issues persist with key players sold or unavailable before a critical Champions League tie.
- Celtic must sign replacements, specifically Gvidas Gineitis and Niko Sigur, before the UEFA list deadline.
- While recent performances showed improvement, crucial gaps in the squad raise concerns for the upcoming matches.
- The urgency to strengthen the midfield is high, as past failures in Champions League qualification could repeat without timely action.
Choose Read Celtic as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.
A few things.
Sigur isn’t eligible.
It’s not Nicholsons club, it’s ours.
And you have become a bit of a happy clapper when it suits you.
Firstly, I know Sigur is not eligible. He’s a defender, not a midfielder. There’s nothing stopping us from signing him, though, is there? So why not sign him anyway? I said try to get at least one of them in before Wednesday. That would preferably be Gineitis. The net spend is positive £2 million, what is stopping us from signing both players?
Secondly, tell me where I stated Celtic is Michael Nicholson’s club? Show me where I said that? I said he watched his football club win 4-0. Celtic is his place of work. How else should I term it? Michael Nicholson watched the club he works for? It’s a term of phrase. I hardly mean he literally owns the club and it’s his.🙄
Thirdly, don’t insult my intelligence by ever suggesting I’m a happy clapper. You read my stuff enough, the pattern never dictates that I’m a happy clapper. That’s not to say I don’t get enthused when good things happen at our club, what exactly is wrong with that? Saying I’m a happy clapper just because I do is a tad over the top. It will never ever ‘suit’ me to be a happy clapper, unless there is f*** all for me to complain about. Then I’ll be left with no choice, and that day will never come under this board. I’m intelligent enough to know that much.
You inferred that SIGUR should be signed by Wednesday.
Why the panic if he can’t play?
It should have read Nicholson watched our club,not his.
Eric you have spent the last few months moaning about lack of urgency,lack of signings and even when they do come they will be poor quality punts.
One minute you have MON complicit and the next he’s bullying the board😂
When the signings actually arrive and the fans are enthusiastic about the quality and spend you done a 360 and focus on Sevco instead.
In the last few weeks you have been flip flopping around as the quality of players arriving has caught you and Forrest Gump out.
At least Joe has been sticking to his guns.