Fabrizio says Jota is happening! 10m for FFP purposes but realistically a swap for Kyogo
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Is a Taylor/Maeda combination down the left with Kyogo upfront stronger than a Tierney/Jota combo with Maeda upfront? Iâm hoping they have a striker lined up too.
Kyogo was a great player for Celtic. 85 goals for the club. Goals in Europe, 8 goals against the huns, a chunk of cup final goals too. But he was 30 the other day & I donât know whether itâs some regression or if he doesnât neatly fit into the Rodgers style as much as he did with Ange or if itâs a bit of bothâŚbut his first 2 years were a nice bit better than the most recent 1.5. Heâs still had some super games & great goals but not as many & as consistently. We might have got his best years & itâs a decent fee to allow Celtic to buy someone else.
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I left Glasgow earlier this evening . But before I boarded the route 500 airport bus from Waterloo street I took a meander down by central station and round by argyle street. I craved the Glasgow I knew in my youth, the impoverished but vibrant city of a people not yet subdued and broken by life in a decaying glasgow.
I came upon a small cafe still run by a Portuguese gentleman I used to know back when jorge cadete was the king of the town. We embraced and in the few phrases I knew of his estremenho dialect of Portuguese I enquired as to his family and his health. Hailing originally from the foothills of the mountainous Estrella region he wasnât from a culture that readily displayed emotions , a tough agrarian upbringing had taught him to keep his own counsel and his cards close to his chest, but I knew I could see a flint in his eye and a smile darting across his weather beaten face as he served me his homemade pastel de nata. He told me an old friend was to return and his dancing feet would return joy to this city of filth , decay and hopelessness .
Read into it what you will
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Glasgow is less decayed than it used to be. I preferred it back then though. Epic city to live in.
Boydy snorting off the kitchen table at 5 on a Thursday. Pub crawls, crap soccer, the jags, the old firm, Henrik Larsson and lubo moravcek, stopping the ten, digger, hoops, bairds, Aileen mcgonagle, the downy, the dolphin, saucihall street, maryhill, the gas towers âGlasgowâs miles betterâ, the weed, the best of days.
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Kris Boyd?
Ally McCoist trawling clatty pats every Thursday night for drunk nurses.
Worse. Top top man all the same.
Glasgow and I were soon to part ways, and like leaving a frail elderly relative, I wanted but could not be certain that I would see the old Glasgow town again. I had one final stop to make down off Suchihall street before i boarded the airport bus. I had become familiar with some of Glasgowâs smaller ethnic groupings during my time travelling over in the days of Tommy Scotland and the genuine article - Frank McAvennie. One group I broke bread with back in those halcyon days of Glasgows prime were the Honduran community and a small bistro where her people gathered was still serving Baleadas as I dropped in. The proprietor, a man small in stature but with the heart of a lion, grabbed me by my hand firmly and conveyed to me the blessings of his family and his people. He knew my Spanish was academic rather than street and that some of the intonations, emphasis and proverbs he quoted would be lost on me but we were still able to connect and recall the days before this sandstone city sold it soul to progress.
The bistro was adorned with pictures of its favourite sone, Luis Palma represented a new dawn for Glasgowâs Honduran population, a chance not just to exist but to belong. His signed pictures and shirts adorned the walls as did his national jersey. We ate and I was persuaded to share a glass of Gifiti with Jose. I asked after Luis and where his career was headed, knowing he had struggle for gametime and form and that rumours persisted of a move to Spain.
Jose grew up on the dark streets of Tegucigalpa where the cartel would literally take your tongue if you spoke when you shouldnât, so he wasnt a man given to breaking the confidence of his compatriot, but as he gazed across the empty tables of his bistro and out onto the grime, filth and decay of the cesspit Suchihall street had become, festooned with multinational junk food sellers and vape shops, his eyes met mine and i could see a pool of sadness and despair. âSometimes it just doesnât work, youâve got to try something newâ, he said and with that he swallowed the rest of his Gifiti and went back to the kitchen. It wasnât clear to me if he was speaking of his own bistro and its struggle to make ends meet or the career of Luis Palma or even the future of Glasgow itself, but I left there knowing that the dream had died and a page needed to be turned for all 3.
Read into it what you will
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Rodgers in his usual Friday press conference has said the Kyogo & Jota deals should both be done in the next 24 hours. He said Kyogo expressed a wish to leave a few months ago. Other reports saying Jota was due to fly to Glasgow but itâs been put back a day because of Storm Ăowyn.
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I believe Jota may have flown to London instead to do the medical there.
Rodgers also said a couple of times that he wants/needs another striker in as well as Jota. So Maeda in the middle is an option but itâs Jota + A Striker to join.
Would Celtic look at Evan Ferguson on loan?
I wonder does Rogers regret buying idah.
Talk of him going to inter I think
With a heavy heart and a weariness that only Glasgowâs drudgery can induce, I finally resolved to catch the Route 500 Airport Express bus and leave this town to its spiraling decline. Fearing the overpriced monotony of Glasgowâs airport snack options, i made one final stop down by Buchanan street. A Dane I used to know still ran a small bakery there, an oasis of dignity amidst the tatoo parlours and phone accessory shops with their tawdy neon lighting.
Jens the Baker was a man I respected, while we were never friends, I knew he had helped Morten Wieghorst settle into the city and that he and Marc Rieper would often talk tactics over cherry liquor at the back of the bakery till all hours. He greeted me warmly as he rearranged the crossisants on the counter top tray, my Danish was rudimentary and his Bikerod accent made communication more difficult but we exchanged pleasantries. I was keen to ask Jens did he know anything about the other Bikerod native who had been linked with Celtic in recent days - Kvistgaarden. Danes by nature are fiercely loyal and by Viking tradition they are not given to breaching the confidence of their norse clan. I raised the subject just as the bakers oven beeped to signify the Danish Pastries were ready and Jens turned his back to me without answering.
As he opened the oven, for a brief moment the sweet smell of pastries seemed tinged with hope and it masked the more familiar Glasgow Buchanan street odours of vomit, stale urine and despair. âCome and get while they are hotâ he announced to the passers by, or perhaps to the Celtic Board?
Read into it what you will.
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Before @thedancingbaby time but Yoto could be the next Jota
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Whit a signing he was Tam.
TIME flies when youâre having fun. When you start to question your very purpose in life, all the money in the world canât prevent the days from feeling like weeks, the weeks feeling like months.
Back in Glasgowâs East End yesterday, Jota willingly testified to the fact that the untold riches of the Saudi Pro League are not everything in life.
Gazing out of an upper floor window at Celtic Park into the dank winter evening, the Portuguese sounded like a man whoâd just been liberated.
âThe last year and a half, it felt like 10 years,â he said candidly.
Little over two years ago, the winger had been part of his countryâs provisional squad for the World Cup in Qatar.
While that dream didnât materialise, the compensation came by way of a ÂŁ25million transfer to Al-Ittihad six months later.
A prodigious talent whoâd emerged from Benficaâs academy before shining at Celtic, the expectation was that the winger would mincemeat out of defenders in a league with a surplus of wealth but still a deficit of quality.
What unfolded was perplexing. Despite having his compatriot Nuno EspĂrito Santo at the helm initially, Jota made no appreciable impact.
A league rule prohibiting more than eight foreigners per squad was designed to prevent local talents being squeezed out by ageing journeymen from Europe looking for one last pay day.
The exclusion of young, expensive imports like Jota was never the plan yet thatâs how it unfolded. So, what happened?
âI think decisions happened and life happened,â said the 25-year-old. âAnd then I had to deal with life and overcome situations.
âA lot of things that you cannot control happen and then you have to deal with it.
âI donât want to be the guy that is going to individualise someone or something. I think thatâs not fair.
âI think it was like a lot of circumstances that happened which conditioned my situation.
âObviously, I wanted things to be different and they werenât, but thatâs life. And the way I see myself throughout this moment is the way I come out from it, you know?
âMy last 18 months, they were much more mentally challenging than something else. Iâve discovered myself in a way that I didnât know.
âThatâs the beautiful thing in life because we need to be able to put ourselves in circumstances that we are not comfortable.
âSo many people in the world, they donât take risks because they feel uncertain about whatâs awaiting them on the other side.
âIâm proud of the choices Iâve made and Iâm proud of the way I came out from certain circumstances. Iâm always going to do that.â
He does not regret the path he chose. That is not to say that the experience did not mark him emotionally.
After being the star turn at Celtic, he quickly found himself the odd man out with just 16 league appearances made across a season. That inactivity left him feeling isolated and gradually longing for a way out.
âI canât speak on behalf of other players because everyone is different,â he added.
âBut before money, and people might not believe this,but I have to say whatâs true to myself, football always comes first and Iâm obsessed by the game, I love the game, I breathe and I live for the game.
âObviously, the financial situation over there is completely different and we cannot run from it.
âPlayers are taking that as something really important and I think everyone would think the same way.
âThen itâs the way you deal with circumstances. Obviously, for me, it was really painful because I wanted to have success, I wanted to play.
âBut obviously many things happened that didnât allow it and itâs the way it is. I need to deal with it and go on.
âObviously, itâs completely different when you play two, three times per week and then you stop playing.
âBut that was due to regulations, you know, the bureaucratic stuff. That was a decision made and then I had to deal with it.
âItâs difficult when youâre training and you cannot play because you are not on the list for the championship. So, obviously, that was a tough time for me and other stuff happened in between.â
It was not without its compensations. He counted Karim Benzema and NâGolo Kante as team-mates.
âYou get to see what it is to play with Ballon dâOr, with World Cup winners, Champions League winners,â he recalled. âI mean, thatâs the stuff you dream about, isnât it?
âI enjoyed getting to know the details, the way they would move, they would do things, just drinking from their wisdom and the way they saw football.
âTheyâve been in the top of football, they have conquered everything, you know? And when you have the chance of getting to know these people, you can see another perspective.â
There was also solace to be taken in some of the opponents he encountered. The most memorable came in the colours of Al Nassr, the finest player Portugal has ever produced.
âI played against Ronaldo which was a dream of mine,â Jota recalled.
âHe was my biggest idol when I was younger. I think thatâs something that I will always remember. That was a proud moment.
âWe did chat before the game, just casual stuff. It was cool, though.â
When the end came, though, it did not arrive a moment too soon. Rennes offered an escape route in the summer, but his six months there brought only nine league appearances, prolonging the sense that he was caught in a rut.
Jota left Celticâs WhatsApp group the minute he left the country. Yet the bonds - both personal and emotional - remained strong.
âI kept in touch with a lot of guys from Celtic and even sometimes it was a joke like, hey, why donât you come back?â he said.
Having passed Brendan Rodgers likes ships in the night back in 2023, heâs now relishing the chance of working with the manager.
The Northern Irishman has already managed to build on his success from his first spell in Glasgow. Once heâs up to speed, the winger plans to follow suit.
âAs long as thereâs commitment, ambition, talent, hard work and consistency, I think things will happen naturally, just the same way it happened two years ago,â he said.
âWe donât put that pressure on ourselves. We put the responsibility on ourselves, which for me is two different things.â
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Rodgers has confirmed that the pre contract with Tierney for the summer is done but they want to get him in now. He also confirmed that Alex Valle is done with Celtic, heâs back in Barcelona & going to be sent on loan to Como. That had been flagged for a while but I donât know if it was triggered by Barca, Valle or Celtic. I think the first rumours about Valleâs loan being cut short were circulating in October/November. I donât know if Barca were irked that he wasnât first choice & getting enough development time as they wanted. Whatever happened, thereâs no left back cover for Taylor as it stands so itâs important to get Tierney now.
SSN also reporting that Celtic have made a bid for that young ÂŁ7mn rated Norwegian winger Sondre Orjasater. They were linked with him at the start of the month but I thought Jotaâs return might have covered the winger position. It might be one of those ones where the club is actually proactively shaping the squad. Thereâs a chance Kuhn will be the next Celtic player to move for big money in the next 6-18 months & likes of Palma & possibly Yang could be moved on. Let Orjasaeter settle in as part of a group of good wide players in Kuhn, Maeda & Joga & build up his minutes/experience to hopefully claim a first choice role in time?
No strong word on a striker replacement for Kyogo but Kvistgaarden still considered the main target.