Jota departure has been bad for all parties…
Jota, our superstar from Portugal, who served us well in his two years at the club, has proved to be a big miss indeed. Five trophies in two years, vital goals, loads of assists for the likes of Kyogo and brilliant individual performances, he done it all in a Celtic shirt and was very popular amongst the supporters. Actually he still is.
He left in a record £25 million transfer last summer as he joined Saudi side Al- Ittihad. We were of course hugely disappointed to see him leave, but the reality was that the transfer fee was too big for the club to turn down, as was the massive, life-changing financial package on offer to Jota on a personal level.
Jota quite understandably joined a list of high profile players in heading to the cash rich Gulf State. It hasn’t however worked out, not just for Jota but Celtic also and also for Al- Ittihad.
Celtic despite receiving a huge fee, predictably enough, failed to reinvest a chunk of it on a quality replacement. Instead we signed South Korean Yang for £2 million, and although he has great potential, he’s just another project who has struggled to make any real impact so far.
Nicolas Kuhn was then signed for £3 million and he too also looks like he’s been found wanting. It’s been a disaster letting a player like Jota leave and not even replacing him with someone of any real quality. As for Jota himself, he is having a torrid time in Saudi Arabia. He’s struggled to make an impact at his new side and has been restricted to just a handful of appearances this season after failing to be included in the league squad.
Several loan moves have fallen through so he’s currently stuck in limbo out in the Middle East. No one will have the violin out for him as he’s still receiving that gigantic salary, and like all players who jumped ship to the Gulf state, he knew what he was letting himself in for.
But it’s only natural that he might be wondering what if in regards of staying at Celtic, the same can be said for us. You can only imagine if he’d have stuck around we wouldn’t be in the position we are currently in.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
He’s getting £192k per week, so I wouldn’t think he’s regretting leaving £15k – £20k a week at Celtic. At £10m a year, he’ll see out his contract and leave for the EPL a very wealthy man who’s set up for life.
I also don’t get why people are so concerned about how much we make from players as we’ve never reinvested the full amount back into the team. Buy low, sell high, has been our MO for the last couple of decades. This won’t change as long as we have the same owner and board members. Once players leave, I couldn’t care less where they go or for how much. I’m only interested who’s at the club and on the park.
We have players at the club good enough to still win a double. However, we’ll be taking a year out from adding silverware to the trophy room if Brendan doesn’t get his finger out and playing the team to its strengths. Stop moping about poor transfer windows and get to work with what you have. He happily signed up to be spoon fed players and “make them into better player” (his words), so just get on with it and stop blaming everyone but yourself, as there’ll be plenty of time to do this at the end of May. Now’ the time to do your job and prove that you are the “elite” manager you’d have everyone believe.
HAIL HAIL
KEEP THE FAITH🍀🍀