Dream Celtic transfer window means only Rangers regime change will halt an unbridgeable chasm – Keith Jackson
With one week still to go before the end of the January sales, it’s beginning to feel as if Celtic are showboating around their own boardroom already.
Put it this way, it doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to envisage chairman Peter Lawwell doing keepy-uppies at one end of the big oak table and CEO Michael Nicholson lollipopping stepovers and nutmegging a chair at the other.
Because right now the pair of them are smashing the window to pieces while enabling manager Brendan Rodgers to take his team to an entirely new level. And, let’s face it, Scotland’s champions were already some considerable distance ahead of all the rest before Lawwell and Nicholson started pulling all manner of rabbits out of their respective hats.
It’s worth stating here the sleight of hand involved in pulling this all together has been nothing short of remarkable. Having been bounced against their will into sanctioning the sale of talisman Kyogo Furuhashi, Celtic’s hierarchy have responded in rapid and emphatic fashion.
In Kieran Tierney and Jota, they are about to seal the return of two much loved prodigal sons previously sold for a combined sum of £50million. Tierney will arrive as a free transfer from Arsenal while Celtic will welcome Jota back from Rennes with open arms while still being a couple of million quid up on the deal which takes a 30-year-old Kyogo to a relegation fight in France.
And – aged 27 and 25 and in spite of Tierney’s wretched history of injuries – it seems reasonable to assume both of these players may still have their best years still ahead of them. And plenty of them. It all adds up to a quite sensational bit of ducking and diving and it seems very likely that at least one further addition will be made in the coming days with Rodgers eyeing a new striker to bolster his attacking options for the remainder of the campaign.
To that end, Danish youngster Mathias Kvistgaarden remains a person of significant interest even though Brondby will demand a fee in excess of £13m before allowing the 22-year-old to move on. Other names such as Brighton’s Evan Ferguson and AC Milan striker Tammy Abraham continue to the rounds so it’s little wonder Celtic’s supporters are quickly adjusting to the prospect of life without their little Japanese magician
Short of a sentimental Virgil van Dijk deciding to end his time in British football where it all began or Henrik Larsson suddenly announcing that he’s coming out of retirement, it’s difficult to imagine how Celtic could make the remaining days of this transfer window any more enjoyable for their rank and file than they are right now.
The prospect of Tierney and Jota running riot down the left flank while Alistair Johnston and Nicolas Kuhn wreak all sorts of havoc, tag teaming on the opposite flank ought to strike terror into the rest of the teams in Scotland’s top flight - and to one club in particular.
How exactly do Rangers even attempt to keep pace with Rodgers and his side now that Celtic have turned on the transfer market after burners? Yes, they cut the gap at the top of the table yesterday back to 10 points with a victory at Tannadice but that vast margin only narrowed a little because their rivals from across the city were given the weekend off courtesy of storm Eowyn.
So Rodgers and his men still have a midweek home game against Dundee up their sleeve as they close in on what will be a fourth consecutive league title. In other words, Celtic were already miles ahead of their neighbours even before Lawwell and Nicholson intervened in the market to further strengthen their manager’s hand.
And it seems more and more obvious now that only some sort of fundamental regime change will be required if Rangers are to have even a remote chance of shifting the dial back in their own favour where this old rivalry is concerned.
Having spent a month or so getting his feet under the table, new CEO Patrick Stewart must now realise the almighty extent of the job he has taken on. Stewart may even have reached the conclusion he’s shoehorned himself into the ultimate hiding to nothing unless he can foster a mood around the boardroom for meaningful and radical change.
The current lot which Stewart heads up is a largely dysfunctional collection of investors with decent sized pockets and even bigger egos. These men may mean well and they certainly talk a great deal about having the club’s best interests at heart but the majority of them have presided over a decade of dismal under achievement.
They are part of the problem even if they can’t quite bring themselves to admit it. So, while Philippe Clement is scratching around in the bargain basement, attempting to source some odds and ends, Celtic are flexing their huge financial muscle and ensuring that the Belgian is effectively trying to shove water up a hill.
It’s getting close to becoming an impossible task which is maybe why Stewart chose not to pull the trigger on Clement after taking over his position last month. Perhaps he has concluded the club is in such a state of deep decline that simply changing the man at the wheel won’t make any discernible difference to the general direction of travel.
For his part, Clement can only continue to plod along while hoping for an upturn in performances and in particular a rapid turnaround in his team’s form away from home. Yesterday’s win at Dundee United has at least stopped some of the bleeding for the time being and Clement can take consolation too from the nature of the near miss against Manchester United just when it seemed Cyriel Dessers had earned Rangers another Europa League point.
That cameo at Old Trafford was enough for Dessers to earn a start in Tayside, where he lashed home another spectacular finish to wrap up a 3-1 win. But, while Clement must now cling to the hope this Nigerian enigma could still come good on a consistent basis, Celtic will dive back into the market this week to tool themselves up with a new striker of their own and, most probably, at considerable expense. And that perfectly sums up the state of play where both of these clubs are concerned.
The gulf opening up between them is starting to look like the kind of chasm which might never be bridged.
