At the end of a week when Celtic Fans Favourite Daizen Maeda signed for Ipswich for an estimated £10 million and Celtic signed Kasper Hogh from Bodo/ Glimt for an estimated £11 million. A very clever piece of business from the Celtic board. One in One out.
With cash banked for Palma (£3.5m /£4m), Nawrocki (£2.5m), Maeda (£10m) and players off the wage bill including Schmeichel, Iheanacho and Saracchi it made the deal easier on the board without withdrawing cash from last season’s War Chest.
Those sales and wage bill reductions would have also paved the way for Duran a few weeks back who has scored 3 out of 3 in pre-season. Who leads the line on Monday Night will it be him or Hogh?
The Celtic board played a blinder. Drip feeding certain members of the media about the signing over the weekend. It got the Celtic fans excited about the signing.
On Friday Martin O’Neill at his press conference was asked about Engels and Johnston heading down to England. His expression said everything. The Celtic board could not cash in on Engels during the last transfer window because they did not have a back up plan. If that sounds familiar it’s because it is.
When both players are sold some of the money will be used to replace them while the rest will be banked in the already bulging War chest and Martin will be expected to perform miracles once again.
Andrew Milne is Editor of More than 90 Minutes Celtic Fanzine & Host of the Celtic Soul Podcast
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