The January transfer window, with all its draughts of speculation and chilly gusts of conjecture, can be an annoying aperture when it’s left standing open. Many shivering souls will be happy when it’s closed, or as Jim White likes to shriek, slammed shut come deadline day.
By all accounts, the will he, won’t he involving Moussa Dembele apparently going here, there and everywhere has been as unsettling as a night on a galleon in a tempest for Celtic’s young Frenchman.
As the champions returned to competitive action at the weekend with a routine 5-0 romp over Brechin City in the William Hill Scottish Cup, the renewed focus and freshness of a squad which has benefitted from a three-week break has not been mirrored in Dembele.
In the aftermath of the weekend win, Brendan Rodgers made the stark admission that it was, essentially, better for the 21-year-old and Celtic in general to leave him on the sidelines during this period of probings, ponderings and possibilities.
It’s not been the most lively of transfer windows for Celtic and Callum McGregor is well aware of that. “It’s probably the quietest one I’ve seen so far but there is still time,” said the 24-year-old midfielder.
Celtic are fairly well off in that particular area of the park and even if Rodgers decides to bolster the armoury in that position, McGregor will continue to show that he remains a valuable weapon.
“I think every season I’ve been here they have signed an attacking midfielder or a midfielder,” he said. “That’s just part of life of being at a big club. You have to keep going and keep proving yourself.”
After that much-needed lay-off, it’s back to business as usual with a hectic schedule. Celtic travel to Partick Thistle tonight, then host Hibernian at the weekend before another Tuesday night fixture with a rejuvenated Hearts team who ended Celtic’s record-busting unbeaten run with a 4-0 conquest back in December.
Throw in a Europa League tie with Zenit St Petersburg in mid-February and the diary fills up quickly.
“We’re used to that, having two or three games a week,” added McGregor. “Prior to the break, we played a lot of games. It was high demand here and in the Champions League games too. We were at it every week and the break was good both for the legs and mentally too. We needed it. But we are fresh, ready to go and aiming to enjoy the challenge.”
The Hearts game, in particular, is already attracting a fair dose of intrigue even if McGregor, in good old football cliché style, prefers to focus on the here and now. “You do look at the fixtures and you know it’s round the corner,” said McGregor.
“The big reason we have been successful is that we just looked at one game at a time. But we’ll look at that fixture and hope we can bounce back from the one in December.”
Saturday’s stretch of the legs against Brechin began with an early salvo which wrapped up affairs within the opening 11 minutes as James Forrest and Scott Sinclair produced a double-whammy to set the Scottish Cup holders on their way.
“You could see Scotty had the freshness back,” said McGregor of his team-mate Sinclair who enjoyed plenty of surging darts and nimble thrusts. “He had played a lot of games, we all had. It was pretty much a year and a half playing every single game.”
Second-half headers from Olivier Ntcham and Dedryck Boyata, and a tidy finish from Odsonne Edouard, completed a comfortable victory for the hosts.
As for Brechin? Well, after that calamitous opening, the hard-working Angus men kept battling on and even had one or two moments which roused the spirits of the travelling band in the away end.
Paul McLean forced Craig Gordon into a fine save before Sean Crighton had a good chance of his own at the back post. Had any of those efforts found the back of the net, they would have been hanging up the bunting on Brechin High Street.
“It was a good chance and I should probably have done better with it,” confessed Crighton of the one that got away. “But it was a dream come true for me to play here. have been a Celtic fan all my life. All my family were here and it was a great day.
“I would have loved the scoreline to have been a wee bit lower but you knew what you were coming too. I am delighted to have played here and I can tick it off the bucket list. I just hope that if I ever play here again then it will be a little bit tighter.
“We killed ourselves in the first 10 minutes. I think Celtic wanted to come out and get out the traps quickly. They must have made about 100 passes before they scored the first goal and we didn’t even touch the ball.”
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