A scimitar through the heart for Celtic supporters who adored Jota. Arabian nights for the Portuguese once he signs for Al-Ittihad. Dark days for the fans who would see the loss of the league title in the new season as like being cast into a desert wilderness of another kind.
An even darker cloud over Scottish football in general if you consider any Saudi Pro League club could sign any player from here with a click of their fingers? Not really. Their government-backed profile is to acquire players with the lure of life-changing money. Players at Celtic and Rangers are eminently gettable because, relatively speaking, they don’t earn that much in the first place. Multiplying their annual salary is less expensive than getting Cristiano Ronaldo or Karim Benzema, that’s for sure.
But the reality is Celtic are the only team in the country who have the calibre of player the Saudis would remotely consider. And, with specific regard to Jota, what would anyone honestly expect Celtic to do under the circumstances? A 400 per cent profit on a player they only signed on a permanent deal from Benfica 12 months ago? It would be corporate negligence not to make that kind of profit so long as you recycle the money on the transfer market for your own good.
Brendan Rodgers will know that, being the man left with much more money to spend than his only rival for the Premiership title, Rangers’ Michael Beale. I don’t think there’s any prospect of Brendan now regretting the guarantee he gave of still being at Celtic when his new, three-year contract reaches its expiry date. Why would he? Unless, of course, selling the club’s prize assets one by one undermines his position and alters the circumstances that tempted him to accept Dermot Desmond’s offer of a return to Celtic Park in the first place.
There comes a time when the club are obliged to reject those who want to turn their heads with money. A time when it has to be about title-winning and not asset-stripping. About genuinely trying to improve in Europe instead of becoming a feeder club for teams in the Middle East. The time when you have to take into account the tens of thousands of people who buy your season tickets, your merchandise and your corporate hospitality boxes. A moment, and this is it, when the supporters are looking for the club to make at least a couple of statement signings of their own.
If it’s not breaking the bank, it’s at least making a serious dent in what is a lavish account there by Scottish standards. Celtic supporters are being asked to contemplate a conundrum. On the one hand, their club could bank £25million for Jota and add that to the £50m estimated to already be nestling there as it is. On the other hand, it is being admitted in private within the club that any permanent, or loan, deal for Kieran Tierney is impossible on the basis that he is out of their league.
Both of those situations can be true at the same time. The Saudi money might be the first, and last, Celtic will get. They then have to work within the constraints of the country where they operate on limited commercial revenue compared to the Arsenals of this world. KT will be OK with that when he thinks about it.
When it comes to Tierney, it’s not about the heart he wears so obviously on his sleeve for Celtic. It’s about the head he has on his shoulders and what’s between his ears. Earning six figures a week at Arsenal on the way to never having to work a day in his life when his football career is over would appear to make his answer to a return to Scottish football a no-brainer. It can’t be done.
Deep affection for a club and all of the sentimentality that goes with it is all very well but common sense would tell you it’s a dream that can’t be paid for. Even if he cut his Arsenal wage in half to play for Celtic he’d still be on twice as much as any player currently working under Rodgers. How would that look? It was a tantalising prospect for the Celtic fans but it was always a pipe dream.
Kieran’s in a world where his pals, and fellow Celtic fans, Andy Robertson and John McGinn are either nipping along to Windsor Castle to receive the MBE from Prince William or being made Aston Villa captain on an extended contract and reaping the rewards from that promotion. They inhabit a different world from the one they left behind.
Rodgers will be the first to appreciate the difference between the romantic notion of a return for Tierney and the reality of Kieran’s situation. The manager won’t have time to dwell on the matter because tomorrow morning he’ll be confronted by the return of the tried-and-rejected at Celtic and need to figure out what to do with all of them.
All they need is Davina McCall and they could do an episode of Long Lost Family around the “Who’s he again?” of Scottish football congregating at Lennoxtown. But Brendan’s unlikely to see the funny side of it all at the start of pre-season training.
Unwieldy numbers make for disruption on a daily working basis and he can’t have that complication at the commencement of his managerial return. The lengthy list of those going back to their parent club after extended loans elsewhere should be a reminder of the need to reserve judgment on new players.
Everybody who goes into Celtic or Rangers is always the greatest thing since sliced bread – until you see some of them play. Wait and see shouldn’t be taken as an insult. It’s meant to be a precautionary warning. Rodgers will literally be able to count the cost of failure to tell the difference in the morning.
Nine players back from loan deals now run out, Yosuke Ideguchi still in Japan at Avispa Fukuoka until December and Aaron Mooy having announced his retirement. A team’s worth to be dismantled, dispensed with and put down to experience before they get in the way of the present.
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