It’s no secret that Matt O’Riley will soon be leaving the club, almost certainly for a record transfer incoming.
Yesterday Fabrizio Romano revealed that Atalanta had officially put in a bid in the region of €15-€17 million which was being considered, but despite Fabrizio’s reliability on such matters, I seriously doubt we will be selling our most valuable player for that price.
Matt however, will leave in the coming weeks that’s a cert. I know he’s happy here and the manager wants him to stay, but such is his talent, it’s just a matter of time before an offer the club and player can’t refuse is accepted. That’s just the landscape Celtic operate in these days.
So we might not be able to control when Matt departs, but what we can control is who we bring in to replace him. We need a top quality replacement. It will be a hard task, but there will be players out there who can fill that void and we have the funds to make it happen.
This should have been tended to these last few months, but much like the Joe Hart situation, I doubt very much it has, which is yet another example of how frustrating our board is in terms of fast and decisive recruitment.
Granted we don’t have a head of recruitment, yet another example of our weakness on that level, but we do have a manager who has knowledge of the football market and a manager who will undoubtedly have his own targets.
We will receive a handsome sum for Matt O’Riley when he inevitably moves on. I’m not saying it should all be invested on one player as that’s never going to happen, but a decent percentage of it should be used to bring in a player to fill the void that Matt will leave.
It’s crucial that we do that, but knowing our club the delay in bringing in Paulo Bernardo is to a) only spend any money if more is coming in (via the sale of O’Riley) then b) present Paulo as the de facto Matt O’Riley replacement having spent the past few months chipping the price with Benfica from the deal that was agreed the previous summer.
All that while Adam Idah Is left frustrated awaiting the green light to travel back to Celtic, as more lowball haggling is going on in the background. Celtic play Kilmarnock at Celtic Park on Sunday 4 August as the new season gets underway.
