ANOTHER day, another unfamiliar name linked with Celtic as a possible summer signing.
This time, step forward an Italian/Bosnia-Herzegovina striker by the name of Milan Duric.
For those who don't know much about him, which includes most Bosnian sports writers, or so it seemed yesterday, he is a giant of a man who stands at 6ft 6 in his socks and plays for Serie A side Cesena, or that should be former Serie A side; they were relegated at the end of last season.
Sections of the Italian press seemed sure Celtic had unsuccessfully bid £750,000 for the 25-year-old whose goalscoring record is not great. He got three goals last season and by all accounts has not managed to reach the tally of 40 for his entire career.
Duric has had his moments. In a game against eventual champions Juventus in the campaign just gone, he scored one, made another, won 12 duals in the air during a 2-2 draw, a rare moment of pride for his team.
Having played most of his football in Serie B, he was raised in Italy, a hat-trick for his country's under-21 side against Germany has been the highlight of his career.
A classic No9 was how he was described to me but also someone who could be more clinical in front goal; however, and this is always a killer line he apparently "suited to Scottish football." Make of that what you will.
In so many ways this is who Celtic should be going for.Young-ish, cheap but someone who with at least some experience of playing at a good level, if not with a top team. A rough diamond who has slipped under the radar of everyone else, and yet a player Ronnie Deila and his coaching staff could mould into a footballer who could not only cut it in the Scottish Premiership, but also manage to take the step up Europea, in Celtic's case hopefully the Champions League.
Nothing wrong with that. At least not in theory. In practice, when you have to shop around for such rare bargains, Deila and before him Neil Lennon discovered that you've got to kiss a lot of frogs before the new Henrik Larsson appears before your eyes.
The names of Stefan Scepovic, Mohamed Bangura, Teemu Pukki, Amido Balde and Derk Boerrigter spring to mind. They all came with decent if not spectacular CVs and were found wanting.
That's the thing about these rough diamonds. Sometimes they remain rough and Celtic are in no position to write off the £3million for Boerrigter or £2.3m paid out for Scepovic. Nothing is perfect but they need be as spot-on in their deals as humanly possible
Peter Lawwell, the Celtic chief executive, is loath to rip up his club's signing policy. So players such as Durci and Moroccan international Zouhair Feddal, another Italian-based player, are who the club are looking at. It won't sell many season tickets, of course, but the alternative is to spend money they don't have in the hope of getting to the group stages of the Championship. That's just not going to happen.
Feddal, a defender played for Parma during the last campaign, made 19 appearances for a team which also suffered relegation. Parma are in serious financial trouble and there is every chance they will be relegated to Italy's very bottom tier, which therefore would see every player having their contracts cancelled.
John Collins, the Celtic assistant manager, admitted this week that there was pressure on the management team to get in new players before the first qualifier which takes place in four weeks times.
"Every manager and team is trying to get a couple in at this time of the year, it's never easy, and hopefully we can before the Champions League qualifiers," he said. "They come think and fast these important games for us at the start of the season. We're back next week, June 23, it's an early start because we've got the qualifiers on July 15/16."
It's now only a calender month before Celtic play their first game of the season. The initial opponents won't be up to much, probably. However, with the international players only now getting a proper rest, combined with the difficulty of finding the right player for the right price, right now, getting together a squad even for the champions in terms of where they need to be is somewhere south of easy.
A picture emerged on social media yesterday of Ronny Deila in a bar in Tenerife. Let's hope he's enjoying his few days away because the hard work is just about to start all over again.
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